Covid, Revenue and Risk
As we move into fall, gone are the late spring promises of carefree summer fun and back are the threats of breakthrough, long-haul, delta, and other terms that had much different meanings two years ago. Calculating my risk of getting Covid got a lot more complicated in the last few months.
Two outdoor dining experiences vs one indoor trip to the market vs. ten walks on the beach. Which has the greater risk? How is it even possible to calculate the risk?
If you think it can’t be done, welcome to Microcovid, an online Covid risk assessment tool. Built by six roommates in San Francisco earlier this year, it assesses the risk of various activities for contracting covid. It does that by location, vaccinated vs unvaxed, rate of local transmission, and quite a few additional variables including how cautious you want to be (elderly parents, new baby, etc.). And yes, it has been recalibrated to address the additional complications of the Delta Variant.
It also allows you to build a daily/weekly budget for Covid risk exposure so you can plan out your activities with Covid risk in mind.
Of course, the numbers aren’t perfect. But that’s not the point.
The point is consistency.
Consistent, quantitative tracking of risk. Consistent output using consistent measurements off a consistent baseline.
So many small and medium sized businesses shy away from quantitative measurements of all their key performance initiatives (KPIs) because they believe some of them are too difficult to be accurately measured. They are wrong.
The Microcovid project took a common set of assumptions about Covid risk – like the virus spread is through the air, masks and ventilation work, and being outdoors was better than indoors. With these shared assumptions, many situations like a grocery store trip, an outdoor BBQ, and a day at an office could be encapsulated with relatively few parameters.
And risk can be quantitatively measured so that future plans can be made with a somewhat greater degree of confidence.
So many strategic growth implementation plans veer off-track because issues in the achievement of key performance initiatives were not uncovered until it was too late.
Because they weren’t quantitatively measured. And tracked. And used as a barometer for future performance. So that change could be implemented, if necessary.
If it can’t be measured it can’t be achieved.
And if six roommates can figure out a consistent way to quantitatively measure Covid risk, small and medium sized businesses can certainly figure out a way to quantitatively measure performance so they can achieve revenue growth.
