Analysis of Our FSRI Poll

I'm sure some of you have been waiting a long time for this, so let's cut to the chase and tell you what we discovered after analyzing our most recent poll.

Many of our readers were surprised when we first posted this poll, and many of you expressed concern over its accuracy and relevance. But it is important to remember that each and every poll we conduct here on the Faking Smart! blog is first researched thoroughly by the FSRI Blogging Division, scrutinized by the division for bias or "leading", beta tested in several NATO countries, then, finally, sent down to Dwight D. Eisenhower Elementary for last minute testing and approval.

After these steps we have before us what we call a "Thumbs Up! Hard-copy" - at this point we are ready to go live.

With our methodology out of the way, let's go ahead and look at what our poll has taught us.

The question ran as follows:

Which company would you least like to work for? (one vote represents 1000 votes.)

The choices were:

Exxon/Mobil

Wall Mart

Halliburton or

Ben & Jerry's

Because of massive voter participation in this poll we were forced to incorporate advanced statistical manipulation to help keep the raw numbers in perspective and to keep our supercomputers from overheating. The FSRI Weights and Measures Department decided, therefore, to compartmentalize or "truncate" the final data into rounded-down, shorter and more hand-countable size to facilitate reader comprehension. This may be over your head (it sure was over mine), but here's a simplified version of what we found:

Exxon/Mobil: 1000 voter responses

Wall Mart: 2000 voter responses

Halliburton: 4000! voter responses

Ben & Jerry's: 1000 voter responses

So what does this mean? Well, without getting too deep into statistical mumbo-jumbo, the results indicate this: with over 4000 voter responses, Halliburton, was clearly the winner and should be considered, by far, the most selected of all these companies; next in line was Wall Mart with over 2000 votes; and, last but not least, Exxon/Mobil and Ben & Jerry's were tied for last with 1000 votes apiece.

Congratulations Halliburton! We, here at the FSRI, want to wish you a long and successful corporate life and we thank you greatly for agreeing to participate in our survey. As for the others, ...don't give up! There's always next year. And remember, getting the most votes does not always indicate the overall "quality" of a company or corporation. Sure, getting a lot of votes feels good and it give the higher-ups something to brag about, but companies are made from the bottom up, and with a little hard work and drive you can be assured of getting more votes in the future.

Thanks to everyone who voted in the poll, and look forward the next FSRI poll to come out in a day or two!

KWA

What Polls Can Tell Us About Ourselves...

Well, the data is in for the first FSRI poll ever conducted. The numbers have been assembled, shuffled, tabulated and then analyzed, and it is our hope that results amaze you as much as they did everyone here at the FSRI.

Before we had any idea of what our poll would consist of we had to ask ourselves one question: "Why place a poll on this blog, and what will this poll tell us about ourselves (and others)?" With the help of a roomful of FSRI scientists we carefully worded the poll, eliminated any inherent bias and formed hypotheses on the potential results.

After the last numbers were crunched by our super-computers a collective gasp was heard throughout the halls of the FSRI Blogging Division. The Results were staggering:

1. The FSRI has greater name recognition than either IBM, Microsoft or Google.

2. People LOVE the FSRI!

3. People would work for nearly nothing at the FSRI before working under competitive salary schedules at other corporate technology giants.

4. The FSRI has street cred.

5. When it comes down to it, the FSRI can "walk the talk" - no doubt about it.

It's clear ...because polls don't lie, that the FSRI has a greater standing in popular opinion than others might have at fist imagined. How we at the FSRI process this good news is the subject for months of work ahead, in the meantime, thanks go out to everyone who participated in this poll and thanks for the official permission given by our poll's corporate co-participants: IBM, Microsoft and Google.

What poll would you like to see the FSRI conduct next!?

thanks,
KWA

(A note on this poll: We ran into several "technical" difficulties during the conducting of this poll, one of which might remain apparent. Only seven votes were recorded on the "official" tally, whereas ten were openly recorded in specified categories. As hard as our FSRI polling team worked to correct this, we were still unable to eliminate this glitch in the final product. This, however, should in no way be construed as affecting or tainting the final conclusions reached here.)