Todd Ordal //May 8, 2013//
You could draw numerous lessons from the recent Twitter escapade where a false report about bombs in the White House caused the stock market to temporarily destroy $200 billion in value. (See WSJ article.) Before Twitter, it used to take a gaggle of incompetent managers to do that!
The “sophisticated” programs that trade in nanoseconds were using bad data. These rapid trades, by the way, aren’t really investing; they’re just a rich man’s answer to how to trump card counting in Vegas. But I digress. …
The problem with “big data” — the new, hip phrase bandied about by everyone from the CEO to the janitor — is getting your arms around it. The problem with “bad data” is that you got your arms around it, but it wasn’t a prince or princess — it was a frog.
I’ve seen too many organizations get sidetracked by measuring the wrong thing to their detriment and even demise. For example:
What is measured can be managed, and not identifying the critical few things to gauge in your business is foolish. But there’s no point in counting how many cigarettes you smoke or Twinkies you eat if what you should focus on is the number of feet between you and the brick wall you’re about to hit.