But how do you know?

tl;dr: on measuring things that can’t be measured. Return on Belief.

I recently bought an air filter for my studio and a water filtration system for my kitchenette.

I’m not sure 100% why I bought them.

It was probably a combination of things. I’m sure it was, in fact. That’s how purchases work.

How Purchase Decisions Get Made

The “last click attribution” fallacy that marketers tend to make never tells the whole story.

It just tells the last chapter of the story. It’s like a book that tells the story of your customer, but where there are only a disjointed set of chapters where s/he interacted directly with you. Some pages are missing.

What both the air filter and water filter companies don’t know is this: I have a friend named Aaron.

Aaron is the kind of person who will do deep research on, well, everything. He’s a great friend (and an expensive friend!), mostly because what I do is this:

“Hey Aaron, I’ve decided that I do want to get an air filter, which one should I get?”

Aaron will then write back with a detailed analysis of the air (and water) filtration markets, giving options for “whole house air filters” or just “room-based air filters” with the pros and cons.

As a true expert, he’ll end with a recommendation for “product X, based on what you are describing.”

Then, I just go ahead and buy it. It’s pretty much that simple.

So, while the marketing team at the filter companies see a “direct traffic” report on their Google Analytics page, they have no idea WHY I was part of their direct traffic number.

They don’t account for Aaron.

But this story isn’t about Aaron, even though he’s a great guy, it’s a question of value.

What’s the Value?

So now I have these filters up and running (it’s not as easy as it sounds because part of being Aaron’s friend is that it requires a PhD to assemble them) and I certainly FEEL better.

But were the purchases worth it?

How will I assess the Return on Investment of these purchases?

And does it even matter?

I’ve been thinking about the idea of ROI recently quite a bit because of some work I’m doing.

The question I have is: What types of investments require ROI analysis? And which kind don’t?

And what’s the value of just feeling better about the fact that I *think* the water I am drinking and the air I am breathing is cleaner?

And what about the fact that I can’t really prove it? [I mean, I guess I could but it feels like the cost would be prohibitive].

And, even if I could, how would I know that it is making any type of meaningful impact on my health?

Value is Subjective

I suppose the answer is…it doesn’t really matter. As the Austrian economists would say, value is simply what a customer decides a product or service offers them.

So, in this case, we’re not talking about a productive asset that will yield an extra number of widgets per hour to pay for itself.

We’re talking about an intangible good that I believe will make me a more effective knowledge worker.

And I think that is the lesson, even for organizations. When all is said and done, we either believe something will help us or we don’t believe that it will.

ROI feels appropriate for an industrial era economy.

Return on Belief…maybe that’s what the metric will be in a knowledge economy.