Im writing a business trade book entitled Business is ART: Articulate, Revise, Track which should be published in late Summer or Early Fall of 2015. The intent is to provide small and medium sized business owners with a simplified process and tools to move very quickly from vision, to strategy, to business plans, to tracking key performance indicators and back again. Where possible, it draws comparisons to art because business is both a science and a form of art. I also try to infuse humor because some of the subject matter can get pretty dry. This morning, I must have been channeling my inner Kevin Smith and Norbert Nerdlinger as I wrote the introduction of a chapter entitled Correlating Metrics, which I am sharing here, if for no other reason, to let them know I was thinking about them today. Dictionary defines the noun “correlation” as follows: 1. Mutual relation of two or more things, parts, etc. 2. The act of correlating or state of being correlated. 3. Statistics. The degree to which two or more attributes or measurements on the same group of elements show a tendency to vary together. We consciously and unconsciously correlate things all of the time in our every day lives. For example, in cities we correlate certain times of day with heavy traffic, and we may therefore think of 8:00AM to 9:30AM as a bad time of day to drive. The time of day itself is not the cause of heavy traffic. The simultaneous rush to get somewhere at a given time of day is the reason for it, and our standard work schedule is part of the root cause for that. We call this time of day “rush hour” because everyone is rushing to get somewhere at the same time, but when I was in college, my friends called “Rush hour” that time of day in which they gathered around the stereo and played the album 2112, debating the evils and virtues of the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx. I grew up in a farming community. For us, “rush hour” was a season, usually Spring or Fall, when farmers were planting or harvesting. It is during these times of year you are most likely to get behind a slow moving piece of farm equipment, causing traffic to sometimes back up as many as 4 or 5 cars deep. Frustrating! But the point is this: “Spirit of the Radio” is my favorite Rush song. Why do I mention this now? Because I personally correlate traffic jams with listening to jams on the radio, which lifts my spirits and keeps me from going in to road rage mode. Aha! Full circle: which might make an excellent title for the next Rush album.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 13:48:09 +0000
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