So How Do We Measure This Stuff?

This is a question that always comes up with Collaborate's clients when working with user generated environments such as the blogosphere.  And so it should.  However, there are many misconceptions floating around when it comes to what type of metrics are available.  One common misunderstanding is that there are systems available that will search for crumbs of unstructured data  in every nook of every forum, blog and post and carve them up into neat parcels which can then be summarised on a crisp sheet of A4.  Now while there are some pretty big hoovers available with some very fancy pattern-recognition kit bolted on to them, they still have their limits.  Because - and this is the important bit - machines can't read (yet).  And they certainly can't understand sentiment.  Technorati is a great tool...

...to start a search but it's no where near up to the task of sifting through the entire web - currently thought to consist of 3 trillion pages, with 25,000 new pages being added an hour.  But measurement is key - so what do we do?  David Maister writes that human judgement is hugely underated: "The challenge of modern business is not to improve our measurement metrics, but to redesign managerial activities so that the organization is better able to make good judgments."  When it comes to reading the runes of complex, ultra-rich information environments - like the blogopshere - the human brain may just be the best tool we have.

Comments

[james governor]

as johnnie often points out the numbers uber alles is bollocks. the notion analysis is more true becasue it has numbers associated with it is specious. qualititative analysis is extremely important in business planning.