Knowledge Strategy, Metrics and Measurement
Managing the Unmeasurable
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” We’ve all heard that. Metrics makes things real; they are the language of management, just as they are the language of science and technology. As the diagram shows, there’s a rinse-and-repeat relationship between measurement and management. But knowledge, especially as it applies to the enterprise, cannot […]
Predictive Metrics — A Live Case Example
In speaking with people about the KVC framework, I have come to realize that some people may have misinterpreted it to mean that all data leads inexorably to the production of value. That is regrettably not the case! What the model says is that in order to produce value, the data has to be used […]
Building Predictive Metrics
I recently addressed a community of technology CFOs and CEOs on one of my favorite subjects — metrics, how they work, and how they sometimes don’t. They had some great comments and questions. I thought some of you may be facing similar challenges, so I’ll summarize here. Metrics are essential Metrics are the foundation of […]
Knowledge by Numbers
Once again I was called on recently to speak to Columbia graduate students on knowledge metrics, a topic that combines two of my favorite interests — and seems to be a favorite among my audiences. Metrics form the key to ROI and the production of value — and therefore essential in all aspects of management. Metrics of […]
Paths to Value
It makes my day when I am asked a question I can’t answer completely and easily. The students in Columbia’s Information and Knowledge Strategy program rarely fail to disappoint in this regard. Where do KPIs come from? One IKNS student has been using the KVC framework in her “day job” to design program evaluations for […]
The Moneyball Lessons
I love numbers. I first realized this around the age of ten, when I started collecting baseball cards pretty seriously. On the back of each card was a bunch of numbers, each player’s ‘stats’, important metrics of how well he played. Hits, batting average, runs batted in (RBIs), runs scored, and so on. It later […]
Metrics That Matter
I had the great pleasure recently to address the students in Guy St. Clair’s class (K4301) at Columbia University’s Information and Knowledge Strategies (IKNS) program. These are tomorrow’s leaders in developing and managing knowledge-based strategies. My most challenging question Of course I told them about the Knowledge Value Chain, and was gratified by their positive […]
Value Starts at the Top
My colleague Robert Reiss studies CEOs — especially their successes and failures — in order that others might benefit from them. His Internet show The CEO Show produces interviews from these CEOs on leadership, and how they make their organizations ‘tick’. His book (with Jeffrey J. Fox) The Transformative CEO (McGraw-Hill, 2012) gathers some of their stories, […]
Value for Dummeze
There’s so much talk around here about value that I’ve been accused of being obsessed by it. I plead no contest. Particularly in these stressed economic times in which we seem mired for the foreseeable future, the quest for value is a search that most of us pursue, in both our personal and professional lives, […]
Health Care Spending III: Alice in Health Care Land
When Alice tumbled down the rabbit hole, she entered a world (“Wonderland”) reminiscent of her own—but in which everything seemed upside-down, and nothing worked as expected. After spending over a year researching the economics of the health care industry, I’ve concluded that health care is its own economic Wonderland. If you were given the hypothetical […]
Health Care Spending II: Where Does It Come From?
Last time we looked at where our health care funds in the US are spent. At more than one-sixth of our GDP, it’s undeniably a huge factor in our financial lives. Who pays for all this? Ultimately, of course, we all do—but the mechanisms by which this happens may surprise you. Since non-personal spending ($407 […]
Health Care Spending I: Where Does It Go?
Everyone knows health care is expensive, and is a significant part of our individual and collective budgets. How expensive, exactly? And how is that money spent? In 2010 we in the US spent $2.6 trillion on health care. That’s 2.6 with twelve zeros behind it, or 2.6 million millions if (like me) you get lost […]