The plural of anecdote is not data

A nice article with this title by Deborah Bull in the FT. A former leading dancer and creative director of the Royal Opera House, she is now director, cultural partnerships at King's College London.

I particularly like this sentence:

"Research is like live performance: it can change your worldview but it might not always turn out the way you expected."

A very refreshing look at the value and impact of research from a different perspective.

I have been reflecting on what is now referred to as the "troubled Co-operative Group" (the space station Mir was always described as troubled in its later days: I find it odd to think of things rather than people being troubled). The unfolding saga has plenty of headline-grabbing content. This is one of the better articles I've read. But characterising the situation as a clash of values seems to obscure what I see as an illustration of the blurred boundary between governance and management. 

Setting aside the difficulty Lord Myners seems to have had with reconciling the co-operative structure with what is perceived in his world as sensible corporate governance arrangements, I wonder whether the group's woes are rather more about poor business decisions than board structures. Even boards which are constituted and peopled according to best corporate governance practice can make bad business decisions. Not every business crisis is about corporate governance.

For the Co-op, it may be that the time is right to consider a rather different structure. The case for a type of post-board arrangement is well argued by Kelly Alces.

But I wonder if there are other co-operative organisations that have grappled with similar issues and found away to resolve them. I haven't seen any reported. Sometimes anecdotes are a route into data.