Here’s another great article from David Brooks.

As data geeks, our team looks forward to following him over the next year – where he’ll be “getting a better grip on some of the questions raised by the data revolution: In what situations should we rely on intuitive pattern recognition and in which situations should we ignore intuition and follow the data? What kinds of events are predictable using statistical analysis and what sorts of events are not?”

He is skeptical about whether everything can be accurately boiled down to quantitative analysis. One of these situations that comes to mind is when measuring the impact of brand “infrastructure” on sales outcomes.

One of our former clients – enthralled with our metrics-based approach – decided he wanted to take it a step further and project a sales ROI from the $20,000 they spent developing a logo, from the $3,000 for the tri-fold rack brochure, from the $10,000 photo shoot, etc.

We didn’t want to burst his bubble, but it soon became clear that launching a new product requires branding investments as basic cost-of-entry. Then once the brand assets are completed, we can start leveraging them in media, lead gen, CRM, etc. And that is where the ROI metrics come into play.

Brooks also points out some examples where data really shines. And some unlikely correlations between egomania and the use of certain pronouns. Enjoy…

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/opinion/brooks-the-philosophy-of-data.html?src=recg&_r=0