MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WEB

Likes, page views, comments, hits, followers, retweets, favourites, shares. It's all data, sure. These things can all be used as some form of metric because they measure something. But more often than not they are little more than vanity metrics - figures we trot out and dress up to validate whatever we've done. We look at them and see what we want to see or expect to see in the quantitative mirror. 

But have you ever noticed that you often look different in a photo than in the mirror? How your voice sounds different in a recording than you think it does when you're speaking in the moment?

There's the mirror and then there's how the rest of the world sees and hears you. It doesn't matter which of those is real and true. All that matters is knowing they can be different. The difference is measured out in things like trust and openness and understanding and credibility. The metrics for things like that are tough to track, but they are the ones that count.