Last night's Task Force meeting & Harvard's lack of community metrics

The presentation that Harvard gave last night about "Community Connections" to the Innovation Lab was like a person saying "I'd like to start jogging to get in better shape". Harvard's presentation sounded good, but they offered no goals, no commitments, no measurements, nothing quantifiable, nothing measurable as it relates to the Allston community.

If you want to get in better shape, you can do a lot better than just saying "I will start jogging".
You could actually make a real plan with goals and a program to measure your progress.
You could say "I will jog 3 days a week for a total of 2 hours"
You could set goals like "I will jog a mile in 8 minutes by April 1" and "I will complete a 5k in 20 minutes by May 1"

The folks at Harvard Business School certainly know about planning, metrics, and measurement. For example, HBS offers a $3,400 course called "Performance Measurement for Effective Management of Nonprofit Organizations" that teaches "how to use organizational performance measurement to enhance the organization's ability to deliver on its mission".

Harvard has a good start on mission statement for the community's place at the Innovation Lab. A meaningful next step would be for Harvard to show that is it "committed to implementing effective performance measurement and management systems" that it recommends for other organizations.

I-Lab Spurs Excitement and Distrust in Allston | The Harvard Crimson