There is a great line in Alice in Wonderland where Alice asks the Cheshire Cat for directions. The cat asks Alice, "Where do you want to go?" Alice replies "I am not quite sure." The cat responds, "Then it doesn't really matter where you head." (And for the purists in the world, that summary was an approximation of the conversation only.)

Anyway, in the world of marketing dashboards we've been encouraged to ensure we start top-down to align our activities and reports. One of the complaints of top management is that they don't know if we see the bigger picture, or that they can't interpre the bigger picture from all the little pieces we report out.

Already I've received a simple but highly sophisticated roadmap (hey you BSC-ers out there...it's very similar!) that will help to report the larger context of your marketing efforts. Another display separately captures the short-term priorities and long term priorities. So for an organization that is sales driven and lead captures are critical, but you understand the importance of linking brand to lead generation, this model id's that you're able to focus on both and their relationship.

-- David Kinard