{"id":1161,"date":"2014-05-29T20:06:29","date_gmt":"2014-05-30T01:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=1161"},"modified":"2014-05-30T02:28:14","modified_gmt":"2014-05-30T07:28:14","slug":"measurement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=1161","title":{"rendered":"Measurement"},"content":{"rendered":"\"measuringtime\"<\/a>\n

A cup of flour, half a stick of butter, two tablespoons of sugar \u2026<\/p>\n

5\u2019 wide and 20\u2019 long with a drop of 2\u2019 for every 7\u2019 in length \u2026<\/p>\n

An increase in top-line revenue of $10 million with profit margins of 20% by \u2026<\/p>\n

Measurements.<\/p>\n

Every part of life seems to have them. From cooking, to business, to home improvement.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a planner. This means I\u2019m in the business of the research behind communications campaigns. When I talk to clients there is the inevitable question: \u201cHow are we going to measure success?\u201d\u00a0 To which I almost always answer, \u201cDefine for me what you think success looks like and I\u2019ll tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The answers vary. Some see success as getting the right headline in the right publication. Others talk about changing people\u2019s opinions about certain things. Others about generating business and increasing sales. Some even suggest that \u201cno news\u201d is indeed the \u201cbest news.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is success? And once defined, can that be measured?<\/p>\n

People ask that a lot. \u00a0And it is more difficult than you think. \u00a0Take the matter of education.<\/p>\n

Recently I came across two articles in the same issue of the New York Times. \u00a0One dealt with primary and secondary schools and the debate over something called the Common Core<\/a>.\u00a0 These proposed \u201cstandards\u201d (a word that is inherently dependent on the concept of \u201cmeasurement\u201d) have been so controversial that they\u2019ve united both far left and far right in opposition. \u00a0A second, was about President Obama\u2019s suggestion that colleges and universities be \u201cmeasured\u201d<\/a> for their success.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, college administrators were aghast.<\/p>\n

Education. \u00a0Why can\u2019t we measure it? We measure everything else. What makes education so special?<\/p>\n

One the one hand it is pretty\u00a0simple. At the end of the day, can the person read, write, calculate, reason, think?\u00a0 If they can\u2019t, then they haven\u2019t gotten an education. They might have gone to school and gotten a lot of other things \u2013 a good experience, healthy relationships, perhaps even a healthier, stronger body; but they haven\u2019t gotten an education.<\/p>\n

On the other hand there are those who\u00a0say that simply relying on how well a student does in the \u201cthree Rs\u201d is too narrow an interpretation of the idea of \u201ceducation.\u201d That all that other stuff matters too. \u00a0It is just harder to measure.<\/p>\n

The dilemma in measuring education is that you end up having to measure people. \u00a0And that’s not easy.<\/p>\n

Unlike cooking, construction, and accounting, measuring things that are inherently human are, as we see, controversial. Why? \u00a0Because while measures of human characteristics can suggest things \u2013 they can be indicators \u2013 they always fall short of what it really means to be a human being. Things you can measure\u00a0are part, but only part, of the human recipe.<\/p>\n

People are more than numbers.\u00a0 But, that doesn\u2019t mean that numbers don\u2019t mean anything.<\/p>\n

We often associate poverty with unhappiness. But, I know poor people who are exceedingly happy.<\/p>\n

We often associate illness with misery. But, I know ill people who are joyous and upbeat.<\/p>\n

We often associate illiteracy with being stupid. But, I know of people who aren\u2019t very articulate or book smart and\u00a0are quite wise.<\/p>\n

None of this means that things like poverty, illness, and illiteracy – all things you can measure -don\u2019t matter. They do. They matter\u00a0a lot, actually. It is just that we\u2019re more than that.<\/p>\n

How do you measure faith<\/a>, hope and love<\/a>? Because those are the things that make us human.<\/p>\n

It is the immeasurable that is the most meaningful.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo via flickr<\/em><\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A cup of flour, half a stick of butter, two tablespoons of sugar \u2026 5\u2019 wide and 20\u2019 long with a drop of 2\u2019 for every 7\u2019 in length \u2026 An increase in top-line revenue of $10 million with profit margins of 20% by \u2026 Measurements. Every part of life seems to have them. From…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[124],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1161"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1169,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions\/1169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}