Sunday, July 29, 2007

Random Thoughts

The Problems with Averaging:

Have you heard of people who said : "on average you are fine". this usually means that specific experience is NOT fine, hence the use of Averages.

Example, Our sales this month is only 60% of target, but on average for the year, we are still fine... since last month our sales was 100% better than target...

I was prompted with a cartoon I once saw ... a picture of a man, obviously drunk. He leans on a lamppost with a bottle of half drunk wine in hand. the lampposts shines brightly on this man... and the caption that reads : he uses statistics like this man uses a lamppost, for support rather than illumination. I can't recall the original artist or the publication, so I would attribute this to the original artist and publication (whoever he/she is, whatever it is)...

If your head is in the oven and your feet are in the freezer...then you are fine on average (or are you?)

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