PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS: LEADING INDICATORS AND INTANGIBLE METRICS 193
us insight into what might happen if we make certain invest-
ments. It also should tell us what might be coming as the
outgrowth of various economic conditions. I ask you, what
is more useful, describing what happened yesterday or pre-
dicting what is likely to happen tomorrow?
When we plan a trip to a distant city, we need to know
what type of clothes to wear. The normal thing to do is not
study the weather history of that place, but to look up the
weather forecast for the period we plan to be there. I grant
you that a general knowledge of past weather patterns is
interesting and somewhat useful as general information,
but in the last analysis we need to pack clothes for a specific
future ...