On Vanity Metrics and Counting Crows

Most Indian kids of my time grew up listening to fascinating stories about Akbar and Birbal. Here's one of my favourites:

Akbar was a great King and Birbal was a minister in his court, famous for his wit. One day, while strolling in the garden, Akbar spotted a crow and decided to trick his friend Birbal. He said, "Birbal, tell me how many crows are there in Agra?"

Without wasting a second, pat came Birbal's reply, "Five thousand three hundred and ninety four, Huzoor"

A surprised Akbar asked, "How do you know that?"

"You can get them counted, Huzoor.", Birbal replied.

"If there are less?", inquired the King.

Birbal smiled and said, "Some of them may have gone to the neighbouring kingdoms on a holiday."

"And if there are more?", asked the King.

"Ah well. Their relatives from other cities might have come visiting", replied Birbal.

Akbar was pleased with Birbal's wit and gave him a handsome reward.

What a fun story!

When I was younger, I laughed at it. But now, I can't help but think, centuries ago they had discovered a truth which we have now come to grudgingly accept:

"If you torture data long enough, it will confess to anything."

We have all done this at some point. Torture data and create alternate lives for crows to justify an insight. Maybe organisations' excessive focus on metrics is to be blamed. But that's equivalent to blaming Akbar for asking the question. Either way, just like we see humour in this story, a few hundred years later, maybe we will become the butt of jokes for our descendants.

Something like:

Once upon a time, a famous CEO asked his favourite CMO, "How did our digital ad do?"

And the CMO replied, "Exceptionally well! 0.05% of our target audience which was 1% of the total audience clicked on the ad."

CEO asked, "Wow, did that convert to sales?"

Pat came the reply, "No Sir, 60% of ad clicks on the internet are by accident."

"You mean to say we wasted our money?" CEO asked.

CMO replied, "Absolutely not, Sir. We can now hound these people with retargeting campaigns till someone succumbs and buys our product."

CEO smiled, "Good job. You get a raise. Next time, let's measure the lifetime value of customer acquisition cost and present a confusing chart which will blow our investors away."

Someone will laugh at our jargon and our love for metrics. I just know it.

Till we become a joke, remember, you can't count crows. And you can't measure everything.

Raymond Au

Behavioural Science, AI & Data

5 年

Hey Preeti, good one. I see that you are becoming more philosophical. Is that a spillover effect of being a behavioral scientist? :)

要查看或添加评论,请登录

Preeti KS的更多文章

  • Motherhood - The Ultimate Gamification

    Motherhood - The Ultimate Gamification

    So in May this year, I attained the distinction of becoming a mother to an adorable munchkin and with that, I now feel…

    69 条评论
  • Making Better Cakes

    Making Better Cakes

    I am not one for swallowing words. So, I will say this quite proudly before I start.

    2 条评论
  • Digital KonMari

    Digital KonMari

    Atlast, my time on Netflix has paid, I have finally mastered one trick of trade. You guessed it, I have acquired the…

    1 条评论
  • Strategically speaking

    Strategically speaking

    After a bout of some deep introspection, I realized my life needed some correction. There was only one person who could…

    5 条评论
  • Hurry

    Hurry

    And just as soon as the clock struck nine, He opened the app to check cabs online. Without wasting a moment, he hit…

    1 条评论
  • What the Ruffling Pages said

    What the Ruffling Pages said

    I swear I heard them. It was a cold December winter night, two weeks back.

    2 条评论
  • I feel FOMO tonight

    I feel FOMO tonight

    (With profuse apologies to Eric Clapton whose "You look wonderful tonight" is an unfortunate inspiration for this poem)…

  • The Tale of Dreaming Big

    The Tale of Dreaming Big

    Kids, Gather around, for I have a tale to tell. A tale of bygone days when phones were dumb, not smart.

    2 条评论
  • [Unsponsored] Content

    [Unsponsored] Content

    I read an interesting article the other day, About a solar power revolution underway. How do I get this for my home, I…

    2 条评论
  • On Political Correctness

    On Political Correctness

    Put the books on your head, And walk in a straight line, they said. If you learn this balancing act, You would lead a…

    2 条评论

社区洞察

其他会员也浏览了