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	Phil's Blogservations Saturday, March 19, 2005 Posted by philgomes 2:31 PM Behold... The Gomes Index Of Executive Happiness Behold... The Gomes Index Of Executive Happiness Executive quotes in press releases are kind of an unusual beast. I've always thought so. A cursory examination of these releases shows that a very popular phrase used in these quotes is "we are pleased." While we were at Phase Two Strategies, Madge Miller and I used to get a good chuckle at how often this phrase was used. But then, years later, I had to ask: "Why are these executives so darn 'pleased' all the time? And even during the tech economy's most brutal deceleration? What am I missing? Can I obtain $40 worth of whatever is causing this phenomenon? Is it legal?" Thus, the Gomes Index Of Executive Happiness ("GIEH" or simply "The Gomes Index") was born. Here's how it will work. This index was started on Feb. 23, 2005, based on a five-day average of occurrences of "we are pleased" as transmitted on major press release wires. That number was normalized to 100. Every day since is represented as a moving average of the previous five day's worth of hits in order to smooth out the graph and make it more meaningful. Every so often, just for fun, we'll see how pleased executives have been compared to the last time we looked. Are they "pleased" enough such that investment opportunities are in the offing? Probably not, but we'll still have some fun, oh my gentle readers. Of course, any index carries with it some uncertainty. Here are some possible confounding variables: Seasonality: Likely, earnings season will cause this index to spike. Also, tradeshow season will do its fair share to affect The Gomes Index as well. It's clear, for example, that the index's recent all-time-high of 106.59 is due to a happy CTIA conference in New Orleans. Spin: A company can preannounce bad quarterly earnings and the executive could still be quoted as saying: "We are pleased...that at least marauding aliens from the planet Kersplackia IV didn't land here this fiscal quarter and impregnate the entire secretarial pool." Obviously, an executive isn't going to be happy about a bad earnings announcement and the prospect of angry, pitchfork-weilding shareholders. It could thus be argued that labeling such an announcement a component of The Gomes Index does not reflect the executive's actual mood. Fair enough, but we'll take that as an anticipated x-factor. Synonyms: "We are pleased" can certainly be reworded into "we are very pleased," "we are happy," "we are content," or whatever. Listen, people... I only have the bandwidth to automate the tracking of one lame phrase at a time, so I picked one. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: Dr. Heisenberg once noted, in not so many words, that to measure something is to disturb it and, therefore, one can't presume to get an accurate reading of pretty much anything. This is called the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Since it's now public knowledge that press releases using that wishy-washy phrase will now be observed by yours truly, mere knowledge of The Gomes Index's existence might weigh down the Index itself. I don't know about you, but I call that "Mission: Accomplished!!" Operator Error: I may miss a few. Live with it. This is just for fun. So here's the first graph based on The Gomes Index. The average ends the week at 105.09, just a hair off the all-time high but far above the low of 76.35. Again, exuberance surrounding the week's CTIA conference did a lot to raise the average. The red line is the GIEH average. The faint yellow line is a logarithmic trendline. Disclaimer: Anyone who bases stock purchase decisions on The Gomes Index is more than just a little dumb. HOME | OBSESSIONS | FAQ | HEROES | CAREER | BLOG | CONTACT Note that the views expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect those of Phil's employer, its business partners, its clients, or anyone or anything that doesn't come from Phil.	ABOUT THIS BLOG This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. EMAIL phil[at] philgomes[[dot}]com SYNDICATE Feedburner ARCHIVE YAHOO! IM SKYPE WISH LIST PITCH POLICY MY PHOTOS www.flickr.com Photostream RSS Enter your Email Powered by FeedBlitz COMMENT AND TRACKBACK POLICY Comments and trackbacks are unmoderated, though I will delete the patently offensive ones. Any comments and trackbacks are the opinions of the individual writer of those comments and trackbacks, and not those of Phil Gomes, his employer, its clients, or its business partners. If you have a bone to pick, bug the people who wrote the comment or trackback.