They are not so good at measuring -- they are better at dissembling and shifting blame.
The firm published a nice looking report on March 17th in which they reported that Greensboro's Google Fiber Facebook group had 901 members.
That was wrong. There were over 5,300 at that time.
I posted a correction on the firm's blog, giving them the accurate number with a link to the Facebook group so they could see for themselves. That was on March 19th when, as I commented, Greensboro had over 5,300 members. Heck, as early as March 11th, Ed Cone noted that Greensboro's Facebook group had topped 4,000.
The error remain uncorrected in Steketee Grenier's "report."
Then they release an updated second report on March 25th. This one would get it right, right? Wrong. This "updated" piece of junk reported that Greensboro's Facebook group had "grown" to 2,908.
So, again, I posted a comment on their blog asking them why they got Greensboro's number wrong twice now, even after their initial error was brought to their attention.
Look at this condescending load of crap offered up as an answer:
It would be entirely plausible for any city to see a sudden swell in membership after our data was captured. In fact, this was often the case.The doofus can stick his congratulations in his upper peninsula. I'd be more concerned, were I him, with demonstrating a little integrity by acknowledging and correcting the errors -- you know, for the sake of preserving my reputation as a professional influencer.
To quote the second report: “[...]Greensboro’s significant growth in fan base from 901 to 2,908.”
Congrats on the rapid growth!
Did you read the update posted at the bottom of the March 17th entry?
ReplyDelete"UPDATE: As we continue our research and measurement for our next report, we’ve noticed that some cities’ online efforts are being conducted around nicknames relevant to their campaigns or local communities, rather than the direct name of the city (Ann Arbor and Sarasota, we’re looking at you!). Based on this, we’re filtering at more detailed levels to make sure we’re capturing that information and reporting accurately. We invite any city involved in the initiative NOT directly using their name for their online efforts to reach out to us (either through a comment below or through our Twitter feed – @steketeegreiner) with any specific search terms to make sure that we have your city represented properly.
Thanks! David"
Yes, I saw that. How it is relevant to the second mistake escapes me. Can you explain?
ReplyDeleteMaybe they just need for you to be as elementary as possible :)
ReplyDeleteRoch101, just wanted to let you know that I attempted to clear up the issues you have with how we were representing Greensboro in our reports on our blog:
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.steketeegreiner.com/2010/03/google-fiber-initiative-report-round-two/
You're right. We made a mistake. I'm just trying to make sure that we're on the same page in our next reports. Please let me know if we're looking at things properly for Greensboro going forward.
Thanks,
David