There are hard and soft dimensions of measurement, on the hard side is turn-over, overheads, profitability, liquidity, etc. on the soft side are the more abstract matters of, for example, individual, corporate and social gratification, responsibility and well-being.

I don’t think empirical measurement is the only important aspect of measurement, for example there is the degree of satisfaction of my business ideals. Not neccesarily empirically measurable, but like ‘a business goes either forwards or backwards, criteria can be either satisfied or not. Good old boolean logic has its values :- )

Hardware and software.

Back to the hardware, I have a few invoices to sort out.

PS I love the communicative logic of PEPPER PRESS

Big businesses put strategy first: “we’re in the business of making companies more successful. What structure do we need to achieve that goal?”

Bear in mind that 80% of businesses fail in the first 2 years. Your first goals should be a two-year goals — You need a financial goal but also a client mix goal and value proposition goal. So your 2-year goal might be: by December 2007, the average value of my invoices for the period june to November 2007 should be R10,000 per invoice. I should be turning over a minimum of R80,000 per month for the period August to November 2007 with a net profit of prime plus 6% for both calendar years 2006 and 2007 — after salaries, overheads, interest and tax.

20% of my business should come from existing clients.

If you set yourself an aggressive 2 year goal, you’ll know you’ll succeed. The trick is to measure, measure, measure.

Designing business around an intentional effect, like the ‘DNA’ code aproach mentioned in Presence’s discusion of VISA International’s formation seems to make a lot of sense.

“Results are obtained by exploiting opportunities, not solving problems.”

Management Visionary Peter Drucker Dies