Ireland Factbook. An interesting read even if you know most about it. I have a sick fascination of stats. I like to know how stuff breaks down. I could browse through my Google Analytics pages for hours happily seeing where people are coming from, what they like, and dont like. It's like spying without knowing who you're spying on.

Statistics are used all around us and are the best way to learn for the future. I learn a lot about what web users like and dont like by seeing how they react to sites. We recently launched a jobs site in out company, and our people in here dont realise how stats can help them improve. Actually they do, but not in the short term. You can react to statistics immediatly, but seldom would.

For example. Job X is very popular and is viewed more than other jobs. It is, however, not applied for at all. If you break this down into a process.

1. User searches
2. User sees job title
3. User views job information
4. User leaves

This tells us, they liked the look of the job, but on reading more information about it realised it was not for them, maybe it seemed out of their skill set. Maybe it was not interesting enough.

We can learn from this, and either improve the job title to be more like the jobs actual description or adjust the description to get more applications. Maybe reduce the skills needed, and compromise on a few things. If you can get a few more candidates in the door, you've helped. If they are not suitable, at least you have their CV and can see what else might suit them.