Mark McClain's Thought Challenge this past Friday about Surveys certainly spurred responses with this comment received yesterday. 

Self-report surveys are usually used to paint a particular picture – unfortunately not always an accurate picture. Even Federal Crime Reports, such as the FBI's Uniform Crime Report, exclude certain crimes and classify other crimes in particular ways. Statistical data is the most accurate information, but even that can be grouped and skewed to include certain things and exclude other things. The only accurate way to gauge companies equally across the board is for the companies to classify and record the data in the same way and then the survey company go to each company and data mine and record it themselves. By doing that, there is one entity using the same metrics to measure everyone under the same standards. Anytime you have multi-organization collaboration, there is room for differences in the reporting and recording processes, interpretation of data, and the possibility of filtering data to create certain profile.  

Provided by John Reid