A simple answer is over-reliance on measurement and its merits.
Since ancient times, humans had a fascination with measurement. In discovering the natural universe, measurement has its merits and one might say it is indispensable.
The annual publication of “Performance indicators in higher education in the UK 2008/2009” offers a brief presentation of the higher education institutions in the UK, in terms of performance and the indicators used to monitor it.
Developed in 1961 by a former Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor, John D. C. Little, the law that carries his name (Little’s Law) has emerged from being a queue theory at its origins to being applied currently in a variety of other aspects of every-day life, such as: Project Management, Manufacturing, Supply Chain etc.
The “Let’s do it! ” initiative, a country clean-up project, was born in Estonia in 2008. By mobilizing the wider community, a team of volunteers succeeded in cleaning the waste deposited in many places across the country. Realized exclusively with volunteers, good-will and with the support of technology, the project was of a great success, replicated or in the process of being replicated in 7 other countries: Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia, Portugal, India and Italy.
Google launched in the autumn of 2009 a new resource page called “Internet Stats” which “brings together the latest industry facts and insights” (Google Internet Stats, 2010).