Sense of MEASUREMENT - part 3

(continue)

Personally I have always tried to use in practice (when possible) these guidelines, and I must say in all sincerity that at the end I obtained positive results.

Already various years ago in other companies I preached to use methodologies and to measure events, introducing the step of debriefing to the term of a plan.

I think to have been a black sheep in this; in fact usually activity like the debriefing are seen from a company like a cost, a loss of time; often in fact happens that the teamwork is reduced before the end of a plan, in order to dedicate the resources to other asset.

The result is that the knowledge is losed, and with her also the critical points and the points of force of the plan, therefore the successive plan RECOMMENCE FROM ZERO (!!!).

At this point the citation is right: I speak about the italian actor Massimo Troisi ("The Postman") in the movie “I recommence from three” (“because I must recommence from zero if some thing I have already made it? ”).

Certainly to make useful the debriefing, it must preview the participation of ALL the actors of the process, not only the team leader.

Probably this is Italian culture, because in my personal experiences I have found that in an international environment there is greater sensibility on this argument.

However, wanting to make a parallel between these concepts and the world of the media, we can see that with the traditional media the measurement concept is very very limited, while with the new media this is possible to apply.

Today it's not more possible to hide ourselves behind a finger: in the digital world of web 2.0 it is possible to measure everything, also the unthinkable one (also what that would't have to do, for example for reasons of privacy).

Could be many examples: it's not possible to know (just by a supposition, also based on the most accurate detections) with absolute certainty how many people are following one transmission or one tv spot.
Other example: on a magazine it's possible to know how many copies have been sold but not if one particular editorial page, a particular service or a particular advertising has been seen (and when, how many times).
Several similar examples could be made with the traditional radio, postings or other media.

This probably makes fear of those persons who don't agree the fact to be measured, to being judged directly from the consumer on the base of objective data, and they offers therefore resistance to the change.

But the change is already started, is around to us, is within of us, to ignore it means to lie to ourselves and to remain isolated from the rest of the world; it means to lose opportunity of business, to lose advantage respect to the competitors.

I want to close with one citation:

If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get
what you've always got.

W. Edwards Deming (statistic - 1900-1993).

I hope that this post has been useful to someone of you; although the three heading in which I have exposed it, I realize that these arguments could have and would have to be exposed more in depth.

I will be happy if there is someone else that is interested to speak about this.
Thanks for your attention, at the next one.

Roberto