"If you want it, measure it. If you can't measure it, forget it."
- Peter Drucker
One mantra we have around our office is "Don't guess. Know." Well, I have been taking this work mantra home with me a lot lately. I have been on a measurement kick. Like, kind of an obsessive one.
Some Proof
1) Weight - You might already know about my weight loss plan. What you probably don't know is that I have an elaborate, color-coded Excel spreadsheet and a slew of calorie calculator websites I visit every time I ingest something. I have two friends on my system now too!
2) Money - I keep a detailed record of how much change I collect per week. I have the denominations sectioned out on my counter in my kitchen (I get back quarters more often than any other denomination, including pennies; who'd of guessed?). I find the weekly fluctuations fascinating. Everyone else just makes fun of me for it, but I don't care. Knowing how much change I collect per week let's me forecast out how much money I can collect per year, which gives me a good excuse to buy things I can't really afford.
3) Height - Last weekend I had friends over to watch the Boise State v. Oregon game. My friend Tim is always saying he is 6'4". Well I am 6'4" and change (get it?). Tim towers over me. So, I searched my house for 10 minutes to find my measuring tape, made him stand against the wall and measured how tall he really was. He's 6'7" with no shoes on. Mystery solved.
4) People's Actions - I daydream on my drive home every day about how cool it would be to be able to measure the patterns of people listening to the radio. Things like:
- What songs are most/least likely to trigger a channel change?
- On a per song basis, how likely are people to increase/decrease the volume?
- How much do they increase or decrease their volume per song?
- How many people leave a station when an ad comes on?
- How likely are they to come back to that station? In what time frame?
All of this data would be huge for radio advertisers if they could get their hands on it. I bet satellite radio has some of this data. I wonder if they use it...
Measure Everything
Keeping track of stuff is fun, especially when it comes to stuff that is easy to measure. Just like weight, money, height and peoples' actions, websites have all sorts of measurable data points that can lend valuable insight into how/why people are interacting with your business/organization on the web. And I love measuring all that stuff too!
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