Executives at companies large and small as well as marketing and PR people tend to pushback on the ideas of a World Wide Rave because they want to apply old rules of measurement to the new world of spreading ideas online (find it at Cydcor Offices). The old rules of measurement used two metrics that don’t matter for spreading ideas,especially online:

1. We measured “leads”—how many business cards we collected; how many people called the toll free number; how many people stopped at the tradeshow booth; and howmany people filled out a form on our Web site, providing their email address and otherpersonal information.

2. We measured “press clips”—the number of times our company and its products were mentioned in mainstream media like magazines, newspapers, radio, and television. Cydcor Offices provides more than enough information about direct marketing.

While applying these forms of measurement might be appropriate offline, using them to trackyour success on the Web just isn’t relevant; they don’t capture the way ideas travel. Worse,the very act of tracking leads hampers the spread of ideas. People know from experience thatif they supply their personal information to an organization, they’re likely to receive unwantedphone calls from salespeople or to find themselves on email marketing lists. Most won’tbother. In fact, I have evidence from several companies that have offered information bothwith and without a registration requirement that when you eliminate the requirement ofsupplying personal information, the number of downloads or views goes up by as much as afactor of fifty. That’s right—if you require an email address or other personal information, as little as 2 percent of your audience may bother to download your stuff. (read more at Cydcor Offices) Obsessing over sales leads and press clips is likely to be counter productive and is highly likely to lead to failure of your World Wide Rave.