Death by Dashboard

08 Oct, 2026

Seth Godin on measuring nothing with great accuracy (h/t Jim Nielsen):

We keep coming up with new things to measure (like processor speed, heat output, column inches) but it's pretty rare that those measurements are actually a proxy for the impact or quality we care about. It takes a lot of guts to stop measuring things that are measurable, and even more guts to create things that don't measure well by conventional means.

Daniel Yankelovich, describing the McNamara fallacy:

The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured. This is okay as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can't be easily measured or give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily really isn't very important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist. This is suicide.

So the second thing gets a number, then gets ignored, then quietly stops existing.

That's step four. Time well spent doesn't survive it.

Slop is not a failure of taste.

It is just the business model that's easy to measure.