When I was at MIT in our research lab we had a moderately large rock. It was an ordinary-looking rock. Nothing special.

But it was essential.
When a piece of equipment had been left unrepaired for a long time, there is a distinct possibility that people didn’t realize it was broken and hence didn’t know to fix it.
That’s where the rock came in.
In the more complicated world of weblogs and funnels and inappropriately chosen KPI’s, how confident can we be that something that we haven’t noticed is really broken?
Not the slightest hint until our startup has run out of money?
What’s the more modern, more hip, more trendy, and of course fully buzzword-compliant version of our classic rock.