How to Measure Anything Workbook: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business

CHAPTER 2 An Intuitive Measurement Habit: Eratosthenes, Enrico, and Emily

1. A
2. B
3. C
4. D
5. False
6. E
7. D
8. True
9. F
10. C
11. False
12. The position of the sun over Syene, the angle of shadows cast by objects in Alexandria at the same time, and the distance between the two cities.
13. Answers may vary but should include some version of the following: “We can’t even begin to guess at something like that,” or “They dwell on the overwhelming uncertainties and/or the (presumed) prohibitive cost of making a measurement.
14. Ask a random sample of customers to determine if they could even tell the difference between pre-MII and post-MII deliverables. Whether improved quality had recently caused them to purchase more services from Mitre could also be an answer.
15. No, the market is already saturated according to the threshold set by the parent company. Average commissions per agency are $129,424 per year, which is less than the required $500,000.
16. Answers will vary. The student might consider the number of car owners, the frequency with which people visit car washes, the number of car wash businesses already operating in the area, etc.
17. Again, answers will vary, but might include consideration of the population of Dallas, how often a person visits a dentist on average, the number of patients a dentist might see in a day, and so on.
18. Earth’s circumference is approximately 25,000 miles. Because the difference in angles the sun makes at noon is one-hundredth of an arc of a circle, the distance between cities is one-hundredth ...