The use of statistics or their meaning is often amusing – and misleading.

Headlines are the King to clicking.

• How often does the content back up the stats?
• How often does the headline not match the results?
• How often are the implications twisted?

Let me give you an example.

Email Predictions

A recent story making the rounds came from an information technology symposium.

Gartner, Inc., an information technology and research company, discussed the future of mobile collaboration at their Symposium/Expo at Cannes, France.

Reviewing their press release, here are some of the analysts’ observations —

• By 2014 – 20 percent of workers will use social networks as their hub for business communications
• Email will be used for social activities, such as contact brokering
• Social networks will develop richer email capabilities
• Email will include links within its servers to social networks
• Cloud services will grow to 10 percent by year-end 2012

Cloud services are the internet-based sharing of resources, information and software.

Here are some of the headlines from the internet regarding those predictions.

• Social networking to replace email for a fifth of business users: Gartner
• Social networking to overtake email in future says Gartner
• Gartner predictions: By 2014, social media will replace e-mail

Even Gartner’s own heading on its press release had this statement —

Gartner Says Social-Networking Services to Replace E-Mail as the Primary Vehicle for Interpersonal Communications for 20 Percent of Business Users by 2014

Twisted Sister

Take a look at the press release again.

Tell me if I’m wrong, but here is what I got from it —

• The story is about the predicted collaboration between email and social network platforms
• To me, “replacement” does not mean the same as “collaboration”
• My poor attempts at math figures 20 percent is not a “replacement” or even a majority
• I don’t interpret “interpersonal communications” to mean the same as “business communications”

You could argue that what the press release means by replacement is —

• Replacing an email only platform with the integrated email/social network platform
• Ask yourself, does the headline – Social networking to replace email for a fifth of business users – leave you with that impression?

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

Jenn Mattern at All Freelance Writing wrote a great post on Social Implications about deciphering “shady social media stats” and the questions you should have when reviewing them.

Studies producing statistics offer helpful information – in the right context.

When I was in the insurance industry, I used to kid with our underwriters. Yes, underwriters do have a sense of humor.

I used to tell them —

“You can twist statistics to mean anything you want them to be. So, why don’t you twist them into a favorable premium rate for me?”

I’ll close with one of my favorite – and often shared – Mark Twain quote —

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”
Mark Twain’s Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review

Do you question statistics?

Maybe you should.

i-Stock Photo Credit

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