Made2Measure

Add this big idea to the concepts that underlie modern performance measurement and management: We are seeing the end of traditional research and scientific method – hypotheses testing and experimentation -- as we know it. And performance measurement is there at the right time and place. From Kilobytes to Petabytes Today we’re able to capture, store, and make sense of massive amounts of data. We’ve gone from kilobytes to megabytes, from terabytes to the Petabyte Age. A petabyte is a measure of memory or storage capacity that is 2 to the 50th power bytes, or the equivalent of 20 million four-drawer filing cabinets full of text. Infinite storage or almost no storage necessary. Unlimited processing capacity. Early-warning sensors and measures everywhere sending automatic alerts from intelligent agents. No structured databases necessary. Just petabytes of information flowing through pattern-matching and trend-watching algorithms. It seems we really don’t need hypotheses and the...

Every Fourth of July – yesterday was no exception -- I print out a copy of the Declaration of Independence. I read and study it. Without fail, I find some nuance and current relevance that I missed before. I always get inspired about my work in the courts and, of course, my country. (I’m an immigrant, born to German parents, and was educated in this country. I became a proud naturalized citizen of these United States, along with my beaming parents, in a ceremony in Elizabeth, New Jersey, the memory of which still gives me goose bumps.) The famous words of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, an action of the Second Continental Congress, July 4, 1776, signed by people whose names are on the street signs of Williamsburg, Virginia (where I live) and every city and town in the United States, blow me away every time I reread them: WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Right...