• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, June 18, 2012

Actually, it’s not such a sill idea advanced by Arianna Huffington during the “making brands matter” panel at the Mediabrands villa in Cannes.

Well, she didn’t actually call it the Huff Po Industrial Average, but she did say we need to create an “alternative metric to the Dow.”

To illustrate the absurdity of using the Dow Jones as a meaningful societal metric, Huffington recalled a recent experience in which she asked a friend how they were doing, and they said, “Well the down is down 20 points.”

“That’s absurd,” she said, adding, “It’s really focusing on what’s not working.”