Also, to the commentors above: “measurements” do help people deal with complex clusters of information. So, it is worhtwhile to take the qualitative and try to measure it quantitatively, so long as you are literate enough to understand that the “map” of the quantified qualities is not the “territory”, but rather a rough view. Some people might ask “well, ok, then why ‘map’ it at all?”

Well, because the brain works better with visual languge, and because the map may not be 100% accurate, but neither is a map of the coast of Great Britain. The actual coast is constantly changing as the ocean works upon it, eroding it, and building it up in different areas over time. But, a map still helps you find Great Britain, because the larger body remains mostly in the same place. So,a “map” of human “value” exchanges, and community health indicators still is useful to help you think about how human behavioral forces interact on a wider scale.

your question about can we measure community health is very similar to to the question asked by Adam Smith (remembering he was a moral philosopher, rather than an economist)… it is perhaps his use of the proxy of wealth for health that was the bifurcation point.

an interesting tangent is the substitution of gross national happiness for gross national product…

see http://abcnews.go.com/2020/International/story?id=1296605

thanks again
Phil

Returning to purpose, few organisations would consider profit as their purpose (lets say its survival), but profit (which is measurable) is a good proxy. Its not long before profit (the proxy) substitutes for survival and the purpose is ‘corrupted’

A final random thought, once we measure larger becomes better because we use numbers e.g. 2 is ‘better’ than 1 because of the way we treat / think about numbers… growth becomes good. Unfortunatley growth for growth’s sake is is the ideology of the cancer cell (Edward Abbey).

Anyhoo, thnks for the post it defintely made me think!

Metrics really are the way that we bridge the culture gap between community and the corporate. Some communities may never need to measure because they don’t require funding, etc., but many communities do.

This to me is the key and your point about the community getting in first with its own measurement is critical. Measurement can be a mixed blessing though. Once you have a measure it will start driving decisions – stopping it from doing so becomes quite difficult once it is established. The measurement of national wealth gives plenty of food for thought on the importance of getting measures right up front (you’d know this from Marilyn Waring’s work). The history of how GDP/GNP came into being as a measure should provide some lessons. My understanding is that GDP/GNP was driven by NBER research into how to measure the size of the economy and once they had a measure, improving it took a back seat to using it.