In Douglas Adams' book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a computer program running for seven-and-a-half million years finally determines the answer to "life, the universe, and everything" is 42. This not-helpful answer requires a whole new program to determine what the question was in the first place.
Such is the potential problem, on a smaller scale, for PR agencies that must establish viable metrics for measuring client programs. APCO Insight president Mark Benson notes that one traditional metric for measuring client ...