You can't manage what you can't measure. A lot of my consulting work centers around helping people deal with the business consequences of that sentence.  Giving businesses real-time data about what is going on can solve a lot of problems, just because it gets things out in the open where they can be seen and discussed. A good example of personal data that ignores this little truth is your electric bill.  Electric bills aren't real time--you get them once each month.  By the time you see how much you owe, you only have a vague idea about what might have produced those dollar figures.  You might see a low bill and think "Oh yeah, we were gone most of the month."  You might see a … [Read more...]