the changing face of money smiles in a merely plastic way.

How Long is the Yellow Brick Road?

Everyday millions of financial advisors boot up Microsoft Excel, twiddle a few numbers, and bulk up on data. Managers seem infatuated with matrices of printed numbers. If we produce the right spreadsheet or the right formulas will our financial problems disappear? We forecast the future with Excel business plans. I use this same software to measure the Yellow Brick Road from the Wizard of Oz. Is this the process we should be using to reduce the complexity of our financial problems?

Wonderland Executive Dashboard

New measurements and reporting standards are consequences of our own actions. For example the Wonderland Executive Dashboard is a result of the Enron crisis in 2001. A dashboard is a form of analytic communication used by business to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) such as return on investment or employee productivity. The Enron scandal put pressure on corporations to closely monitor and measure what was going on in the company and to assure shareholders of control and accountability. I then use this reporting form to measure Alice's productivity in Wonderland. The underlying question is, 'Is it possible to measure performance by a dashboard?'