It seems these days that we are awash in data. Indeed, in their recent book The Ordinal Society, Marion Foucard and Kieran Healy argue persuasively that the passive data collection facilitated by the internet, digital technologies, wearables, and social media allows us for the first time to map the deep substrate of the social. Is that true though? In all this data, is there signal? Valeria Ramirez from Cambridge University has made a career out of tracking the advent of digital metrics and their revolutionary impact on the way organisations operate, first in journalism's shift to digital media, and now in university knowledge exchanges. She has identified key characteristics that distinguish meaningful from meaningless metrics, and developed a framework for developing the former within any contextualised organisation. If you've ever wondered whether the Netflix algorithm isn't collecting the best data to understand your video preferences, this episode is for you.  

www.valeriaramirez.org 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/valeriaramirezphd

Ramirez, V. (2025). Meaningful Metrics for Knowledge Exchange: Rethinking Social Value Metrics for University–Business and Community Interactions. Policy Evidence Unit for University Commercialisation and Innovation. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.121347