Disqus - Latest Comments for Dominic Jones

Re: How to build a powerful IR monitoring dashboard using StockTwits Desktop

Dominic Jones — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:26:07 -0000

Dustin,

The absolute simplest way to create a monitoring dashboard is to simply put in your clients' ticker symbols in the "Search Symbols" box at the top of the screen. Put in each symbol one at a time.

This will give you a StockTwits Desktop default page for each symbol as a tab. These default tabs are not as comprehensive as the custom ones I've outlined in the post, but they're good enough to start seeing the benefits of StockTwits Desktop.

As I said in the post, building a custom monitoring dashboard takes time and some know-how. The key is knowing where to find the source feeds you need to monitor. The post explains the methods for doing this, but you'll have to discover the best feeds for your clients. It's a bit of trial and error. For each company, expect to spend about one hour setting up the various streams.

Re: The irritant of the non-credible journalists

Dominic Jones — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 13:32:47 -0000

"We need to be vigilant against bad journalism. Here's a hint: when you see a story about a company and that story doesn't even attempt to get that company's point of view, then it probably is a non-credible journalist writing it. All credible journalists will get at least three sources to every story and will try to remain objective and impartial."

Get real. Do YOU do this? Did you even check out the 60% Code Rewrite journalist's credentials before slaming him and calling for him to fired?

I think his credentials are quite impressive. Or do you just simply dismiss him because he's Australian?

http://squash.wordpress.com/2006/03/25/who-the-...

Re: The irritant of the non-credible journalists

Dominic Jones — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 13:44:25 -0000

Yeah, and lets censor the whole friggin' blogosphere while we're at it.

Blacklist certain blogs and publications because we don't like what they say.

What's happening to you, Robert. Losing your own objectivity?

I can't believe you wrote the above post.

Re: The irritant of the non-credible journalists

Dominic Jones — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 14:07:17 -0000

Censored.

Re: The irritant of the non-credible journalists

Dominic Jones — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 15:00:13 -0000

"But, we should now start deriding people who link to non-credible sources. I will."

Sounds like a lynch mob. If they are non-credible, then link to them and let your readers decide.

I think we should deride people who suggest deriding people who link to sources that may or may not be credible. I have.

Re: The irritant of the non-credible journalists

Dominic Jones — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 16:37:05 -0000

If you are going to call me a liar(someone who doesn't respect the truth), then could you at least explain why? Provide some support for the accusation.

It is important for the credibility of any accusation — be it the claim by Smarthouse or your accusation of me being untruthful — that it be supported by detail and evidence.

Just because you say something is true, doesn’t make it so, even if your name is Robert Scoble, or Bill Gates or Nelson Mandela.

You still have an onus to provide support for your argument. Otherwise you are just calling people names and acting like a childish snob brat: "You bad! I hate you."

Back it up, like backing up the non-official denial that 60% of Vista must be rewritten.

Re: The irritant of the non-credible journalists

Dominic Jones — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 17:09:20 -0000

Robert,

I applaud your passion for Microsoft and defending the company. The past week has been hard for you, as you have said.

You'd like to stop people writing rubbish or not linking to people who write what you think or know is rubbish.

You wish people would take your word for it that 60% of the Vista code in not garbage, or at least that it's impossible to rewrite that much before the deadlines.

You wish we weren't all so dumb as to believe a muckraking journalist who knows how not to let the facts get in the way of a good story.

I can fully understand how you feel. The powerlessness to stop the meme must be frustrating.

But you need to chill, recognize that people are not stupid.

Just give them access to all sides of the story, and let them decide. As an old editor or mine used to say, "the truth will out."

So your strategy should be to link to this guy's stuff AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE to show people just what he's up to. And to show that you're not afraid to point to what he says.

How about you go through his site and pick out all the pieces he's written that you consider rubbish and write them up as "Is this credible journalism?"

Or you could just have the PR people put out a press release denying the claim and telling us exactly what is being done with Vista and why.

Re: The irritant of the non-credible journalists

Dominic Jones — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 17:26:04 -0000

"we should now start deriding people who link to non-credible sources." I call that censorship through coersion.

"I wish Memeorandum (and other memetrackers like TailRank) had a "no follow" link so that when I link to something I can tell Memeorandum's engine that I don't want the linked article to go up." I call that censorship.

"Some bloggers don't know who is a credible journalist and who isn't." Whose definition are you using of credible? Yours? That's censorship of a sort.

"We need to be vigilant against bad journalism." And who defines what is bad. You? Censorship.

To my mind, any attempt to control what people think -- by banning them or not linking to them or whatever other action -- is censorship.

I STAND BY MY HEADLINE. You do want to censor the blogosphere.

Re: The irritant of the non-credible journalists

Dominic Jones — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 23:00:25 -0000

Sriram, I posted this in reply to your comments and questions:

The onus to prove the story is on the writer. That's a heavy burden, and partly why we generally attach credibility to what journalists do.

The company doesn't have to prove anything. It simply has to deny or correct the facts in the story.

In this case, it has not denied -- officially -- that up to 60% of the Vista code needs to be rewritten.

Yes, individual employees have denied and made very logical arguments why this story is wrong and not credible. But individuals are not speaking on behalf of Microsoft. If they get it wrong, the company itself is not accountable for these individual employees' statements unless they are officers or official spokespersons on behalf of officers. Last time I checked, bloggers are not designated officers or spokespersons for the company.

What I and people like Neville Hobson are saying is "kill this thing now by getting out an official company statement." Preferably that statement will tell us how much of the code is broken and how much needs to be fixed.

But there has been no official statement or denial. Add to this the fact that Microsoft's PR people spun the delay of Vista as a kind of good news story, the company's credibility is vulnerable.

Scoble going off half-cocked and calling people "slimebags" and liars and "jerks" and dismissing the real experience of a real journalist, without being specific about what the real story is, has not helped things for MSFT.

Then, importantly, he calls for his followers to form a blogophere guardian angels patrol to weed out the "non-credible journalists..."

Sorry, that's going too far. He said lets deride those we don't like.

Instead, we should deride those who suggest that it is acceptable to deride those we don't like.

Re: Time to Revamp Your IR Website? Start Here.

Dominic Jones — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 12:04:55 -0000

James,

That's correct. Most of the fast-growing sites are aimed at a younger market. A younger audience may not be your market.

But I also made the point that mainstream sites like Yahoo! are adopting new technologies and functionalities to keep pace.

These technologies are moving mainstream or will be shortly.

If you don't keep up, you'll be left behind.

Re: Corporate Boards Should Communicate More

Dominic Jones — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 02:46:14 -0000

The ownership concentration among a small group of institutional owners puts boards at risk.

Big mutual funds are susceptible to outside influence because they rely on deposits from a wide range of customers (the public). They are sensitive to public sentiment for marketing/perception reasons. They will act in their own best interests, which is to protect and grow their assets. If its a choice between their own popularity with clients or backing an unpopular board, no guessing which way they will vote.

Their sensitivity to general sentiment is magnified since they were required to disclose how they vote at annual meetings. Activists really haven't figured out how to use this, but they are starting to.

So by ignoring retail investors and other stakeholders, boards ignore the very audience their biggest shareholders care about the most.

Savvy shareholder activists understand this dynamic. If they can create sympathy for their cause with the media and public, they can make it very difficult for the biggest investors to stand by the board and management.

The bigger the investor, the more pressure is on them.

I have touched on this in more depth in two articles about high-profile proxy fights:

Web-based campaigns a wake-up call for corporations (Save Disney)

and

Don’t be a sitting duck for activist investors (Heinz)

Beyond the voting sensitivity issue, another incentive for boards to communicate better is that being trusted in the capital markets spills over to corporate reputation in other areas. Consumers, suppliers, partners, governments, NGOs, all are influenced by companies’ reputations. This is something pension funds are sensitive to.

A board that understands the perspectives of these constituencies is likely to make decisions with an understanding of the potential ramifications for the corporation’s reputation.

This article was to say that directors make bad decisions, even seemingly childish ones like spying on one another, in part because they have become too far removed from real world. And as the HP debacle ably shows, that is a liability to the companies they govern.

Re: Johnson & Johnson Bans Right-Clicking On Its Website

Dominic Jones — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 16:12:55 -0000

Moe, actually I do have the developer extension installed, but this isn't about me. It's about the impact on people who do not have FF and who don't even know which version of IE they have. That's 85% of the web population, depending on whose stats you want to use.

Matt, your point about using the menus is correct, but it also underscores how pointless the J&J tactic is. How about a few examples of what you've seen that's worse than this?

Re: Johnson & Johnson Bans Right-Clicking On Its Website

Dominic Jones — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 22:05:14 -0000

Matt,

Yeah, the "Hotel California trap" -- you can sign up for anything online but you can never leave online. You have to call, sometimes long distance.

Worst is when you have to give them your credit card details for a free trial and them discover that if you don't like the service you have to call to cancel.

Why don't marketers get that people don't like being deceived and probably never will do business with their companies again?

Something struck me about J&J; while writing this. Probably a large part of their audience is made up of elderly people, who often are not very experienced with computers.

These people might be using the site to get information on drugs or products they are using. Since they are elderly, some might have difficulty reading text on the screen. If they use FF, which isn't likely, they can increase the text size (if they know how). If they use IE, they cannot increase the text size (except if they're on IE 7 and use the new zoom function.)

One scenario I can see is these people wanting to copy information from the screen to paste into a wordprocessor so they can increase the text size. Yes, it's a small group, but many low-vision and blind users do this because they find that their screen readers work better with Word than with websites.

So J&J; is potentially exposing itself to serious risks here if a customer misuses a product because they were not able to obtain information on how to use it correctly due to an inability to copy information from the site.

It's a remote risk, yes, but it's the kind of scenario that website owners have to think about . Here, I think it is clear that J&J; didn't think this through at all. And now the whole world can see.

Re: Johnson & Johnson Bans Right-Clicking On Its Website

Dominic Jones — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 01:49:19 -0000

Matt,

I wonder how many people use custom stylesheets because I don't recall seeing them mentioned prominently in accessibility research I've read.

That said, I worked with someone who did use his own stylesheet. He had a really big monitor, too, and liked his text enormous.

I guess if you need one, you will use a custom stylesheet. Just like if you need larger text, you probably know how to increase the text size in IE. Although, usability results I've seen show the people who don't need larger text don't know how to increase text sizes. Makes sense, if you don't need it, why would you know?

Thing is, because J&J; uses absolute rather than relative text sizes, you cannot increase the text in IE 6 or 7 using the increase text size menu option. IE 7 has a zoom function, but that isn't great and the browser itself isn't in public release yet.

That's why I saw low-sighted users wanting to copy and paste web copy into Word. Because it's something some are likely to consider doing, especially given they many prefer using Word to to HTML or PDF.

But the impact isn't limited to them. Journalists and analysts frequently copy and paste information for reuse. Bloggers do it all the time. I don't think it's a good idea to put obstacles in the path of these people because they are influencers. You might also make them suspicious.

To me, making your site accessible and usable for as broad a cross section of society as possible makes good business sense. I see it as the ability to attract traffic, build loyalty and protect your organization's reputation.

There might be some legal liability if you discriminate or create a situation where you make it difficult for people to obtain information they need to prevent an injury or something (Dell's battery recall for instance), but I like to think of the issue more in terms of the opportunities that good web practices can offer.

I can't blame the customer for not being web savvy because the customer is always right online as much as offline. It would be nice if they used shortcuts and understood the technology more, but mostly they're not going to because they're not like you or me who obviously spend far too much time online. (BTW, I do think blogs are helping to increase the level of know how. Just having a blog forces people to learn a lot of stuff they didn't know before.)

J&J; is welcome to do as they wish, as is any other company. My objective in writing this piece is to help others understand the issue so that they make an informed decision if someone suggests they do the same thing.

I don't know whose idea this was to turn off right-clicking. It could have been a web or a legal decision. I'm leaning towards a legal decision, judging by the heavy disclaimers all over the site. But I don't know, so I can't blame the corporate lawyers again.

To recap, I think companies should make their sites as broadly accessible and usable as possible. If they're going to turn off right-clicking, then hopefully they will think it through.

Finally, not to be outdone by you, my nine-year-old knows how to control-c, control-v, control-x and control-z. But she didn't learn it at school! :-(

Re: Johnson & Johnson Bans Right-Clicking On Its Website

Dominic Jones — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 14:04:30 -0000

Deb,

Okay, so why then does the International Olympic Committee not do the same thing on its website? Nonsense.

Not even blind users like text versions. They see them as an insult and their experience is that they are rarely updated. They want the same thing as everyone else, just made accessible.

Here's a quote from a usability study with 16 screen reader users conducted for the NIH:
"Many screen-reader users do not want a special version ("text version"). Some of the sites that our participants visited offer a "text version" or a "screen reader version." Only two of the 16 participants said that they liked using text versions. Others argued strongly that two versions are not necessary; one version made accessible is better."

Seems we are making excuses for something that simply cannot be justified.

Re: SEC Will Require All Companies To Report in XBRL

Dominic Jones — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 13:22:55 -0000

Joanne,

PDF can be coded to include XBRL as attachments, but the end result is not easy to understand or use and it requires the latest version of the Acrobat reader.

One company, CoreFiling, is providing an XBRL-enabled PDF product, but I think it's a waste of money because it requires a level of familiarity with PDF that few users have.

SEDAR is a pathetic system because it relies on PDF. They should have moved to an HTML or XML-based system years ago.

All of the PDF documents currently on file are not compatible with XBRL and it is probably unfeasible to convert them all to XBRL.

Canada's regulators like to talk about how great SEDAR has been. I laugh every time I hear them say such things because they sound so silly.

There is some interest from Canada's regulators to move to XBRL, but there likely would be many complaints from smaller issuers if they did.

However, they should just bite the bullet and do it, even if it's in a simplified form. That's my view...

Re: The Perfect Earnings Release For 2006 Can Save You $$$

Dominic Jones — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 17:49:04 -0000

Joe,

Buffett seems to have broken his own rule about not investing in what he doesn't understand.

Business Wire and the other wire services are essentially Internet companies. Last time I looked, Buffett said he wouldn't invest in them.

Is there a future for Business Wire? I honestly don't know. But it seems to me that they have nothing to complain about. They've had a nice run with a captive market.

Re: IE7 Launches, Dump Big Vendors Now

Dominic Jones — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 16:03:22 -0000

Jonathan, thanks for link. It's a forthright viewpoint and more users of other browsers would be nice.
It is indeed ironic that the move hurts good developers more than others, but you can argue that good developers are more likely to be able to cope with the fallout.

Of course, it's an IE world and we have to work with that reality, and look for the opportunities the improved dominant browser gives website owners.

We serve a separate stylesheet to IE6 users on IR Daily. It is a bit more bother, but it's a quick solution for us.

Re: IE7 Launches, Dump Big Vendors Now

Dominic Jones — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 16:06:17 -0000

A developer friend of mine has written a good article that details how Microsoft, with the launch of IE7, have actually taken a step backwards, and managed to increase the workflow of every website designer and developer:

http://www.charcoaldesign.co.uk/weblog/6

It concludes that we should not adopt IE7 but reject it in favour of truly standards compliant browsers like Firefox. Realistically though, we can guarantee this will become the default browser within a year or so. If you haven’t tested yet, time to get cracking!

Re: Cox's Blog Post Gets 10x More Media Mentions Than Official Release

Dominic Jones — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:29:09 -0000

If that were the case, then we wouldn't have Edgar because, well, it could be hacked. There is no way to guarantee any system, not even a newswire's system, as this SEC litigation release illustrates. The summary: "Foreign Traders Used Computerized "Spider" Program to Fraudulently Steal Nonpublic Issuer Press Release Information from Commercial Wire Service"

Redundancy is standard today with most corporate websites, escpecially in the aftermath of 9/11. See here for one example covering 500 public companies. When Katrina knocked out most communications, the Internet was there.

Selective disclosure happens more often behind closed doors in one-on-ones, bus tours and site visits, not on an open medium like the Internet. There is no simultaneous access in practice, just in theory. In terms of access, a wire, an RSS feed, an Email Alert and even a website are equals.

You say "in a manner in which they elect to receive it." I'm all for choice, but as of now there is no choice. It's newswire only, due to regulations that pre-date the modern Web.

Unless someone else wants to chime in, I'm happy to leave it there until we meet.

Re: Beware of IR Vendors Trading on Your Good Name

Dominic Jones — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 23:08:10 -0000

Michael,

Excellent post on your website. Amazing what a bit of digging can turn up!

NIRI is a professional association of investor relations professionals and personnel of service providers to public companies. It has no policing powers beyond its code of conduct and the good management practices of its executive. It has no responsibility to the public beyond encouraging honesty and professionalism amongst its members.

The member list contains personal contact information for IR professionals and therefore is private. There are other pages that are public, but I'm not sure I can vouch for them because I don't know the process NIRI uses to include vendors in these public lists. They pay a fee to be listed, but I don't know if these are checked in any way.

My advice to check NIRI was directed to investor relations professionals at public companies. They should be careful who they do business with and who they grant interviews to. Choosing whether to grant interviews to investment websites or firms like WallSt.net is tricky for IR professionals at public companies. As a representative of their company with a duty to represent the company to the public, where do they draw the line on who is credible or not?

The suggestion of checking to see if the service provider's staff are NIRI members was the simplest advice I could provide to investor relations professionals. I don't think it will catch every shady operator, but it's a simple and hopefully effective practice.

My advice to the public: "Be suspicious."

Re: PDF flaw fears grow, Adobe seeks fix

Dominic Jones — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 16:56:48 -0000

Alice,

That's a great idea, much better than trying to remove all your PDF files! I've had a few people ask me if they should remove their PDFs, and it's obviously an option but not a very practical one, so what your company has done is probably the next best thing.

I've also heard from a couple people who feel this is a big deal about nothing. I don't know about that.

The latest headline I saw on this from TechWeb paints a grave picture:

Adobe Flaw May Be 'Worst' Bug Of 2007

"The vulnerability is very pervasive as it lowers the hackability bar from the target Web site needing to have an XSS issue to simply hosting a PDF," Grossman says. "This has the potential to be the number one worst vulnerability of 2007. Had this come out two weeks ago, it would have definitely made the top 10 list for 2006."

I applaud you for doing something rather than nothing, and I'm sure your shareholders will remember that you thought of them.

Re: We don't need PR wires for Reg. FD

Dominic Jones — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:11:19 -0000

Matt, for the sake of transparency, when you are not being a common investor, you're a sales rep for a wire service.

Re: Six years of IR Web Report…

Dominic Jones — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 18:11:43 -0000

Hi KJ,

Thanks, there'll be more for you soon. I promise!

Re: Why blog network's "open CEO interviews" are a hit

Dominic Jones — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 04:41:03 -0000

Hi Bernhard,

Thanks for stopping by to leave your note and posting about this.

Re: A short open letter to Thomson and Shareholder

Dominic Jones — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 06:06:10 -0000

Jonathan,

Thank you. You are so right about those stupid registration-required feeds. Our research shows that almost no one is signing up for them. Actually, we are -- and probably two other people who work at the company! Those feeds are the stupidest thing we've seen in seven years of reviewing IR websites.

But let me stop beating around the bush because those other folks aren't going to post here, and if they do now it's too late.

If your company's feed is hosted on someone else's domain, you're going to have a helluva time trying to get your subscribers to move over to a new feed on your own domain or another domain. Many bloggers have experienced this, and they're dealing with an audience of early adopters.

Furthermore, there's a huge PR and potential legal risk if someone thinks they're subscribed to a feed that still is live, but the feed is no longer being updated and they miss important news. That can happen very easily, by the way. I don't know what software you're talking about, but many feed readers won't tell you if a feed is broken or has moved. They just show that there's nothing new. And another thing, all the evidence with tech savvy early-adopters suggests people don't manage their feeds well, so you can't expect all of them to change their subscriptions. Furthermore, trying to use code to automatically redirect feeds doesn't always work either.

So, if you're at a company, the best thing you can do is to host the feed at a URL your company has complete control over. If you can't do that, delay providing a feed until you can. But there is absolutely no reason why you can't simply publish an existing vendor-hosted feed to a URL your company owns. It's a simple technical detail, something vendors should have been urging their clients to do all along.

Host feeds on domains you own. Anything less than that is not smart.

Re: How does pretty stand up when things get ugly?

Dominic Jones — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 15:57:56 -0000

Will,

True, but business for us isn't what drives me personally. I love the capital markets and the concept of individuals as providers of capital and management as responsible users of it. It's productive. It builds great things.

But I'm with Saint Jack in worrying about the soul of capitalism when most investment is done on an agency basis via funds that really don't have any real skin in the game and don't act like true owners.

For me, great IR websites are simply a way to make direct investment more accessible to individuals. Build it and they will come... Hopeless idealist, I am.

Re: Barron's journalist slams hidden guidance

Dominic Jones — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 19:10:09 -0000

"The management meeting can provide a rationale for a stock price level, market intelligence or at least some nuance about future plans. Unless he is doing forensic work, just talking to IR's is like basing research on press releases."

That's a comment from a fund manager reacting to the news that Banc of America Securities analyst Frank Pinkerton started coverage on 7 drug companies without speaking to management.

Funny, thats precisely how retail investors are expected to operate. And here's a fund manager saying that's not good enough. So you have to wonder what gets discussed behind closed doors that's so significant.

Re: How investor relations myths get started

Dominic Jones — Fri, 18 May 2007 14:56:52 -0000

Rebecca,

Fair comment. But I can think of only one situation where we posted something that we didn't attribute and didn't know for sure was true -- because we got it from IR Magazine and they didn't attribute it either. It concerned a certain IRO and a trip to Tiffany's after winning an award. You know who I mean. And we will always publish corrections, or you can do so yourself through the commenting mechanism.

But why are you holding us to the same standards as a reputable trade publication. There's a difference, which you can see our titles:

IR Magazine (them)

Investor Relations Blog (us)

Which one do you expect to have higher standards of journalism? And don't say us, please.

Re: A truth many IR departments must face

Dominic Jones — Thu, 24 May 2007 14:57:24 -0000

Ian,

Let's just say "most boards." Okay, almost all of them. But there are exceptions. In fact, Exxon Mobil's board seems to be getting the fact that the ultimate power rests in the hands of the individual citizen.

But this is an isolated instance where the "awakening" followed a confrontation on Capitol Hill. That's enough to make any board gulp. Funny how that happens.

Re: My bad experience with first e-proxy notice

Dominic Jones — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 05:09:06 -0000

Gene,

You've hit on one of the issues I was planning to follow up with. You're absolutely spot on. In this age of phishing and other web-based scams, why would I or anyone else trust a notice that arrived in the mail with a link to a website I've never heard of?

Then, if you type in the URL (correctly, we hope) you're greeted by a page branded with Broadridge's logo that immediately interrogates you for your control number. No indication of what will happen if you put your numbers in that little box.

Now, remember that Broadridge is not even a year old. Almost no one has heard of the company. And it sounds a little like some kind of golf course residential development or something. And their corporate colors probably reinforce that view.

It makes me sad to see companies put so little thought and effort into the e-proxy process.

Re: My bad experience with first e-proxy notice

Dominic Jones — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 12:57:07 -0000

Mike,

Interesting observation. The control numbers should only be required to vote, not to access the materials to make an informed vote.

As for Broadridge and how well known it is, most shareholders won't know, or care, who Broadridge is. Even if they said they were formerly part of ADP, it wouldn't make much difference. It's not like ADP is a household name either. Notice how even people who know, or should know, almost always refer to Broadridge as "formerly part of ADP."

Re: 10-K wraps and unaccountable management

Dominic Jones — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 11:49:58 -0000

The way I read the NIRI numbers, you have just alienated 56% of the people reading this story. People stopped reading annual reports long before 10-K wraps came along. Printing glossy reports was a waste of effort and money. The 10-K wrap is a way to cut unnecessary costs.

Re: P&G's financial needle in a haystack — Updated

Dominic Jones — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 12:42:07 -0000

What do you think? Was Bill D first? Wait, is that a "b" as in billion after his numbers? Via email, he tells me this is how he went about his research:

I used your link to the online version. I then used their navigation to go to the shareholder information, then used the page backwards navigation to get to the notes section and looked at the notes section on debt. Then scanned down the page to where the maturity information was.

Would have been faster to have just done a search in a PDF probably.

Actually, according to Ivor the PDF wasn't much use for searching. Anyone else have that problem?

Anyway, I'm sorry Bill D, but I think it's definitely millions. But you only know that if you happen to glance down to the gray text in the footer of the page.

Right now I'm thinking our friend from Scotland, David Low, wins both prizes. And if I understand him correctly, he did it after a night with no sleep!

So you have to be semi-delirious to use these, um, these documents. I guess.

We'll make a final ruling Monday, just in case someone from P&G is checking Technorati and wants to help Will understand where they get their numbers from. Wishful thinking, I know.

Some trivia for you: P&G has a market cap of $205.66 billion as of a few minutes ago.

And a hard-to-navigate, unsearchable, cannot-be-copied-and-pasted document that probably costs $400 to make (excluding the vendors' handsome markup) is the best they can do for shareholders?

Hmm.

Re: When you know, and do nothing…

Dominic Jones — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 14:06:58 -0000

Hi Peter,

Good points, but I think you mean "client demand" not "consumer demand."

I'd just say this: There are highly successful online annual report producers who have never sold an image-based or Flash paper report.

They just don't do garbage work and they've explained that to their clients.

Re: A "notice-and-access" model for news releases

Dominic Jones — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 15:11:59 -0000

Jennifer,

See my comment on the other post for an example of a small company that is already doing something similar.

Re: A mock "notice-and-access" earnings release

Dominic Jones — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 14:49:55 -0000

Robin,

Not sure what to do about the offline investor community, especially those investing in smaller companies.

Since you're in Canada, you might be interested in this earnings release from Dundee Wealth. It's a notice-style release, and given that the people issuing it are essentially investors themselves, that should say something right there. They've been doing this for a long time.

http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=760277&k=

All of 161 words! You have to love it!

And it's especially interesting since Canadian firms issue some of the longest news releases on the planet (for no good reason).

Re: Thomson wants to pimp your website

Dominic Jones — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 15:10:10 -0000

Ronny,

Perhaps someone from Thomson will post a reply, but we will have more for you next week. Stay tuned.

Re: My gibberish was first, no mine was

Dominic Jones — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 17:09:54 -0000

Hi Walter,

Thanks for the link. That's a useful and interesting page.

Re: Think retail investors are irrelevant? The feeling's mutual

Dominic Jones — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 22:28:38 -0000

Hi Enzo,

Tough time for them to be launching a new company, but it looks interesting. Couldn't access the demo though.

You're right about smaller firms having an opportunity. But it's harder for them to manage their online communications when they don't have the staff to dedicate to it, and the IR firms that typically help these companies haven't shown me yet that they can do it either.

The thing about the online channel is that you have to manage it actively and build relationships with people. Creating a website and updating it only when you have to hasn't worked in the past and it definitely won't work in this era.

Re: The future of NIRI…

Dominic Jones — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 11:42:09 -0000

T,

Why do I feel like you're proving my point? If you "can't hide the numbers anymore," why do you need someone to provide them, explain them or talk about them?

Surely, historical accounting statistics then become far less relevant than a company's competitive advantages, which PR folks are more adept at explaining than finance folks.

Re: The future of NIRI…

Dominic Jones — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 11:19:52 -0000

John,

That's an excellent post on your blog. I don't disagree that there will be an increased need for IROs to have a financial background during the transition to XBRL and IFRS. There will be many, many more technical financial accounting questions during this period.

I'm thinking beyond the transition period. And that's where I think there'll be much more value in having someone in the IRO position who is more strategic than tactical, proactive rather than reactive, forward thinking rather than backwards thinking. People who understand the importance of perception.

In your post you paint a picture of an IRO who actually is somewhat like this. I just don't see that in my day to day work.

Re: Dispelling the "cookie myth" around e-proxy

Dominic Jones — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:41:51 -0000

Here's more from the rule release which clearly shows the issue is all about confidentiality, not cookies per se.

"Three commenters were concerned about the provisions of the model that require a company to maintain the designated Web site in a manner that does not infringe on the anonymity of persons accessing the Web site. One commenter was concerned that the prohibition on “cookies” will raise the costs of maintaining Internet Web sites. Conversely, one commenter was concerned that there could be potential abuses of shareholder privacy through information tracking and collection of information on Internet Web sites. Similar concerns regarding potential abuses of shareholder privacy also were raised with regard to the adoption of the voluntary notice and access model.

"Although we recognize that the confidentiality requirements may increase the cost of maintaining an Internet Web site, we believe that the protection of shareholder information is important. A rule that permits issuers to discover the identity of a person accessing the Web site could effectively negate a beneficial owner’s ability under the proxy rules to object to an intermediary’s disclosure of that beneficial owner’s identity to the issuer. In addition, a rule without this prohibition on the issuer may make some shareholders hesitant to access the proxy disclosures, which would not promote the purposes of this rule. Therefore we have retained this provision of the rule to help prevent potential abuses of shareholder information.

"We do not believe that this requirement will impose any undue burden on companies. Under the rule, a company must refrain from installing cookies and other tracking features on the Web site on which the proxy materials are posted. This may require segregating those pages from the rest of the company’s regular Web site or creating a new Web site. However, the rule does not require the company to turn off the Web site’s connection log, which automatically tracks numerical IP addresses that connect to that Web site. Although in most cases, this IP address does not provide companies with sufficient information to identify the accessing shareholder, companies may not use these numbers to attempt to find out more information about persons accessing the Web site."

The actual rule itself does not refer explicitly to cookies. It simply says:

"A registrant or its agent shall maintain the Internet Web site on which it posts its proxy materials in a manner that does not infringe on the anonymity of a person accessing such Web site."

While cookies are sometimes used to "infringe on the anonymity of a person," this is NOT their primary use. This is explained in the Wikipedia explanation included in the post. Read it, it's a very good description. Here's a quote from their discussion of misconceptions about cookies.

"Cookies allow for detecting the Web pages viewed by a user on a given site or set of sites. This information can be collected in a profile of the user. Such profiles are often anonymous, that is, they do not contain personal information of the user (name, address, etc.) More precisely, they cannot contain personal information unless the user has made it available to some sites."

It is simplistic to read the rules as banning all use of cookies, or to use or avoid any technology not explicitly prohibited or permitted. For example, the adopting release makes no mention of Flash Local Stored Objects, which can be used to infringe on users' anonymity. Yet, just because they don't mention them, does not mean they're allowed.

Similarly, just because the SEC does not say you can use cookies that do not infringe on users anonymity, does not mean you cannot do so.

Re: Dispelling the "cookie myth" around e-proxy

Dominic Jones — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:14:40 -0000

D,

Cookies that infringe on the anonymity of individuals, or any other practice that is used to infringe upon the anonymity of the user, are not permitted. The issue is confidentiality, not cookies per se. The problem is that most people, including some at the SEC who wrote parts of the adopting release, don't understand that there is a difference between cookies that identify you and those that don't.

The passage you quote was in response to a question specific to mutual fund companies. The issue seemed to be that many of these firms have client log-in websites that use cookies. Ironically, the SEC's idea of segregating the pages or creating a new site would not work to prevent infringing on the user's anonymity. If clients logged in to their clients-only area and an identifying cookie was installed on their computers, and then they went to vote on another area of the site and were tracked, the anonymity of their vote would be compromised because their use of those pages would be associated with their account details.

If the cookie was not associated with any identifying info, then it would not infringe on their anonymity and so would be permitted.

Again,the issue is the users' confidentiality, nothing else. It's kind of obvious, isn't it?

Re: Dispelling the "cookie myth" around e-proxy

Dominic Jones — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:13:54 -0000

Carlos,

There's no blanket prohibition on using cookies, only cookies that infringe upon the anonymity of people who use the site on which the proxy materials are hosted.

In addition, the SEC says you don't have to turn off your website log, which logs IP addresses, but they say you shouldn't go digging around in there to find out who is using the materials. It's in the SEC adopting release.

Tell your lawyers to read up about cookies. Unless they understand the technology, they won't understand the SEC's position. And know that Broadridge uses cookies on the servers where they will host your materials. Whoever is giving you this advice that you have to use Broadridge is either stupid or has a vested interest in throwing business Broadridge's way.

Now, as for Google Analytics, it's 99.9% safe because it doesn't infringe upon the anonymity of users. However, it does track IPs, and from that you can get a general idea of who is using the site, but only at an organization or service provider level, not on a personal level. The IP info is the same as you can get via your server log file, so just don't go digging around there.

Finally, most big investors are going to vote without visiting your site and you won't have any way to track them.

If you're really worried about this, get a new domain like yourcompanyproxy.com from GoDaddy or something and host the materials there without GA on it. Provide links to the voting sites from it. That will cost you a couple hundred bucks a year (including hosting) and you can use it forever. Better yet, point your new domain to a page or area on your own server that doesn't have the GA script on it. It's easy to remove the GA script from pages. If you do this, your own site will have NO cookies, which is better even than Broadridge.

There are lots of different approaches and none of them requires hosting your materials on Broadridge's servers.

Re: Use Google to publish your investor presentations

Dominic Jones — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 01:16:54 -0000

Hi Rob,

Slideshare is a great service, but I hesitate to recommend it because of the inability to copy text from the slides. This is important for IR presentations where analysts might see something in a slide and want to grab it to paste into a document they're working on. The download option might give them this functionality, but it's still a few extra steps.

Other than that, I think Slideshare should be in every IR department's toolbox, especially for "shows" with more of an entertainment bent where you're not primarily using it to provide essential, detailed information. I'm thinking of a short company profile or something like that. It's more work to make a good Slideshare presentation, but the results can be better depending on what your objectives are.

Thanks for bringing this up.

Re: More on cookies and proxy sites

Dominic Jones — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:09:33 -0000

@Dave

Yes, that's one of the paragraphs. The writer did not understand that there are cookies that do not infringe on investors' anonymity. As your second quote illustrates, the issue is about companies identifying who is using their sites. Cookies are not always used to identify users by name or affiliation.

I don't see any problem with a subdomain.

Google Analytics uses cookies and would be fine, as long as you do not use IP "numbers to attempt to find out more information about persons accessing the Web site."

HOWEVER, as you know, Google Analytics does not provide IP addresses, but it automatically uses the IP address to show the domain associated with it. For example, it takes an IP number and translates it to an organization name, e.g. Citigroup.

Therefore, the IP number is being used to "find out more about the persons accessing the Web site." There are situations where knowing that someone from Citigroup has visited the proxy materials may be useful to a company and could be abused. Say, for example, there's a proxy contest and you see the votes for the proponent go up dramatically after Citigroup visits the proxy materials. You could extrapolate from this that Citigroup has voted against the board. If you have time, you could then get on the phone to Citigroup to try to persuade them to change their vote. That's an abuse of the system.

However, when it comes to retail investors, the IP information is much less useful and really can't be abused. Knowing that someone is using Comcast to access the web isn't useful and you cannot easily find out which customer at Comcast is using the site.

Also, if I was at a big institutional investor or a regulator like the SEC, I'd be masking my IP so as not to leak any information. This is particularly important for investigations. Big funds that are researching a company prior to an investment should also mask their IPs if they don't want to tip off anyone one about what they're doing.

Re: Why do regulators frown on this practice?

Dominic Jones — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 05:29:51 -0000

Hi Ingrid,

A lot of companies in the U.S. and elsewhere include earnings estimates, but these are not as useful as understanding the reasoning behind those estimates.

The summaries in the email are in fact posted on the company's website. I posted a link to them above.

While the translation isn't the best, it's better than a machine translation that I get if I transcribe the German using Google Translate or Systran. And since they're attributing the source, I don't see errors as a problem.

I much rather get the information than be without it. Like most people investing in stocks, I'm smart enough know that analysts are wrong most of the time. Still, I appreciate knowing what they're saying. Have you ever heard an investor complain about having too much information? ;-)

Re: Why do regulators frown on this practice?

Dominic Jones — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 05:44:33 -0000

But those examples you provide are nice estimates. The MAN ones would be better if they were translated. My German isn't that good.

Re: Why do regulators frown on this practice?

Dominic Jones — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 07:35:00 -0000

Ingrid,

I don't understand what the problem is with this from your perspective. They're just telling me what analysts have been saying. They also post estimates separately on their site, which I don't really care about more than knowing if they beat or miss.

Perhaps the issue is that they compile the estimates themselves from 50 different analysts rather than use those compiled by a service provider. That's unusual, but again it doesn't really bother me if the estimates are compiled by RWE or FirstCall or FactSet or whoever.

All I know is that they are going out of their way to keep their shareholders informed about what is being said about them by analysts. And, honestly, I can't help but think that reflects very positively on them.

Are they taking a risk doing so? Yes, in a couple of ways. First, sentiment could sour and they could soon be sending me only news of downgrades. Based on past experience, that's exactly what they'll do if sentiment does change. As a result, I'll trust them more.

Could they get something wrong? Yes. But since I'm only using the information for my own interest and not for trading decisions, it would not be a big deal if they did get something wrong.

I guess I'm just thinking that if you are going to make trading decisions based on analyst recommendations, then you would use Bloomberg and the like and not a corporate website. I'm just trying to be realistic about who is using the information and why they are using it.

Re: Why do regulators frown on this practice?

Dominic Jones — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 07:47:41 -0000

This is why we hardly ever post examples of good practice. Because something will always go wrong or someone will see a problem. Right now, the page on RWE's website is down due to too much traffic!

On the upside, it's nice to think IR Web Report can "slashdot" IR websites.

Update: OK, it's back now.

Re: Why do regulators frown on this practice?

Dominic Jones — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 08:27:40 -0000

Derek,

Ha, it would be nice to get Digged/Dugg once in a while, but it has never happened and probably never will. Far too peripheral.

Re: Why do regulators frown on this practice?

Dominic Jones — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 08:47:55 -0000

All of this terminology talk reminds of the fact that the American Dialect Society chose "subprime" as their word of the year, beating out "Facebook."

So perhaps our chances of being Dugg are not that remote.

Re: Why do regulators frown on this practice?

Dominic Jones — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:11:16 -0000

Paul,

By the company getting something wrong, I mean poorly written translations of German to English. Besides, anyone who relies on summary information from an analyst note a week old only has themselves to blame if they lose money. Frankly, I've never met someone that stupid who knows the difference between a stock and a bond. If they don't then, as far as I'm concerned, their brokers are not doing their jobs keeping them from blowing their money, and that includes online-only brokerages. I've always said the suitability rule should never have been dropped for online only brokers (but that's another story).

As for analysts rather than companies deciding who gets their work, I couldn't agree more. Analysts work hard and deserve to be paid. However, in this case, the company is sending me highlights long after the fact. This has no more value than background, and is in effect free advertising for the analysts and their firms. Much less harmful to analysts than what is pushed out via proprietary systems like Thomson and Bloomberg in near real time.

I think that most companies and IROs would never do what RWE does -- even if regulators allowed or encouraged it. They'd be afraid. They wouldn't want to send information to investors that is negative about their firms.

And that's all the more reason regulators *should* permit it, so that investors can more easily identify which companies are more trustworthy and transparent.

Right now, everyone hides behind this idea that linking to or re-posting analysis or commentary from third parties is not possible under the current regulatory framework. And, for all practical purposes, it is extremely murky what you can and cannot do. And as you say, the plaintiffs bar can have a field day with this stuff. So let's provide some kind of safe harbor. Spell out clearly what you can and cannot do, in the interests of investor protection.

The only winners under the current state of affairs are companies with something to hide. I can't see why analysts and regulators would want to side with those sorts of companies.

Re: Eproxy: don't forget the very basics

Dominic Jones — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 02:33:32 -0000

They're a small company, so I'm guessing someone has to do this stuff as just one part of their job. Nonetheless, they've got a big vendor like Thomson looking after them and Bowne as well. Couldn't one of them have tapped someone on the shoulder to offer a word of advice.

I still can't imagine a company deliberately not posting their annual report and proxy statement on their website. How about just a link to the hosted documents on the service provider's site?

I'm just baffled by it all.

Re: Eproxy: don't forget the very basics

Dominic Jones — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 11:57:57 -0000

Hi Pete,

Perhaps I shouldn't be commenting on this so soon after a five-hour fight with my ISP, but you're probably right.

Still, I can't help but wonder why anyone thinks it's OK to NOT have the most recent info on their website. Like, didn't it occur to someone that it was an odd thing for regulators to require?

Re: Free online annual reports — in 5 minutes!

Dominic Jones — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 16:14:00 -0000

Hi Peter,

If a company is only going to provide PDFs, then this is a no-brainer as an add-on.

But there is still nothing better than a good HTML report (except perhaps paper!). Any company that moves to default electronic delivery without providing an HTML report is being extremely negligent, and is skating dangerously close to breaching the regs.

Re: Free online annual reports — in 5 minutes!

Dominic Jones — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:44:10 -0000

Eva,

I'll reiterate what I said in the article. I don't advise companies to use any of these quick document conversion services. This article was about demonstrating how ridiculous it is that vendors are charging thousands of dollars to gullible companies for a service that is essentially free.

You are correct that the SEC requires a searchable document. Image-based documents, such as those sold by unscrupulous vendors, are not fully searchable because you cannot use the "find in page" feature in the browser. Also note that companies *can* get a searchable version of the above type of document, for *free.*

The SEC also requires a document that is "convenient" for online reading, which image-based documents are not. Look up the definition of "convenient," it's a very high standard in terms of web usability.

But the key thing is that for the same cost as a crappy image-based document from Broadridge, Computershare, Thomson Reuters or mobular, companies could get a fully searchable, standards compliant HTML report.

Finally, please disclose that you are affiliated with a vendor that sells image-based documents so people can take that into account. It doesn't negate anything you have to say, but it is valuable context. Just say something like "I work for a vendor that sells image-based documents" or something like that if you can't identify the firm.

Re: Earnings releases — the Warren Buffett way

Dominic Jones — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 09:04:34 -0000

Rob,

Agree to disagree. It's good advice. And we're arguing about one click. Which seems rather silly. And I'll think about what you've said, but right now I can't imagine changing my mind on this.

If I'm pissy, it's because I'm not being compensated to share these ideas and it just pisses me off that what I'm offering for free is dismissed out hand when there's evidence in the real world that it's working.

Re: Earnings releases — the Warren Buffett way

Dominic Jones — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:59:37 -0000

Rob,

Actually, this approach would work better for a small company than a large, well-known one. The length of a release has nothing to do with visibility.

In fact, it is more to a small company's benefit to drive interested investors to its website than have them read the full-text on some other site. By driving investors to their site, they have an opportunity to engage those visitors with other relevant information. They can educate the visitor about their business in ways that cannot be done effectively in a news release on some external site.

If the release is viewed only on an external site, such as Yahoo! Finance or in the investor's inbox, the user's next click is probably some other company's information.

And, of course, this approach makes more sense for smaller companies because it is less costly. Lower costs, better communication -- it's a no-brainer. And we haven't even begun to talk about the search engine visibility benefits of this approach, something smaller companies can also benefit from.

Re: Earnings releases — the Warren Buffett way

Dominic Jones — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:02:33 -0000

@WebUrs,

Yes, a direct link is better. The Progressive Corp. approach is an example. Our "model" release that we provided last year is an even better example.

Re: Earnings releases — the Warren Buffett way

Dominic Jones — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:46:39 -0000

Rob,

The day one click of a mouse is "hard" is the day we all should head for the bunkers because the world as we know it will be over. I still don't understand how longer releases are easier to find than shorter ones, but I hope you will at least put the Warren Buffett idea in front of your clients, give them the pros and cons, and let them decide.

If it's working for Berkshire, Progressive and even small companies like little Dundee Wealth Management, why not your clients? I realize you're probably paid by the hour and longer releases take more hours, but someone still has to write the long release on the company's website.

And there'll be scope to do some interesting things on the companies' websites that they cannot afford to do now because they're blowing big chunks of their budgets on wire releases of dubious value. With the savings they'll realize from the shorter wire service release, they could do a short video highlights package to go along with their earnings release.

That'd be better than plain old text don't you think? Don't you think investors would find that more appealing and easier to digest? I'm just putting the ideas out there, do with them what you will.

Re: Acergy S.A. gets my attention, then squanders it

Dominic Jones — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 16:36:47 -0000

Fred (if that's your real name),

Why did I arrive on their website? Because they invited me. They put out a news release, which I happened to see. That release included a link in the second paragraph, which I decided to click on because it promised immediate gratification. I wasn't planning on researching this company, didn't even know anything about them, but I was open to the possibility of learning more.

But when I followed that promising link, they presented me with an almost blank screen containing nothing but a PDF download. There is nothing on that screen that is attractive or informative. Nothing that hints that it might be worth my while to download the PDF. Which I would happily do if there was an incentive to do so.

But they don't seem that interested in telling me their story or connecting with me. And as an investor, I have thousands of other companies competing for my attention and better things to do. And since I'm online and in control, and wasn't really planning on researching this company, I'll just leave, learning nothing. That is a wasted opportunity for the company. And it happens hundreds of thousands of times per week across tens of thousands of IR websites.

This company didn't have to spend a lot of money on some fancy online report to get my interest. They just had to think. Just a little. Two minutes, a couple of sentences might have been enough.

This piece is not about PDF blobs or what you should do with your annual report. This is about being able to anticipate the experience people will have when they arrive on your site. But since you brought it up, to say that PDFs are what regulators require was the case 5+ years ago. Ever heard of interactive data? The web is moving on from the "page" to the web of factoids and relationships. That content locked up in your unstructured PDFs is useless in this new data-driven world.

But that's not relevant. What's relevant is that the company gave zero thought to what people would see when they arrived on that page they linked to in their release. That's like an advertising firm designing an expensive online ad and then not optimizing the landing page that people go to when they click on the ad. You'd never do that in advertising, so why is it OK in this case?

Why is it that you can't, or won't, see that? Put aside whatever problems you have with me personally and think about it objectively. And if you still think what this company did is just fine, then I'd suggest you stop reading this blog because there's nothing you can gain from it.

Re: Acergy S.A. gets my attention, then squanders it

Dominic Jones — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 10:34:27 -0000

Peter,

Add something useful. Educate us all. What proportion of traffic to an IR page like this goes to About Us? You're in the biz, so I assume you've run the stats.

Look forward to your contribution.

Re: Acergy S.A. gets my attention, then squanders it

Dominic Jones — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:23:16 -0000

I just figured this would be something you'd have at hand since your company designs and sells websites. So you don't do research or source it elsewhere before recommending a design, or am I not understanding what you've just said?

Re: Acergy S.A. gets my attention, then squanders it

Dominic Jones — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:11:28 -0000

Hi Mitch,

Thanks for adding some meaningful perspective. This post isn't about what companies should do with their annual reports, it's about landing page optimization and thinking like a user. But on the topic of HTML reports, I gave my views on the question of whether online annual reports are a waste of money a while ago. I don't think they are, but it does depend on how much you spend and what you spend it on. I do not believe you need to spend $35, 000 to $40,000 to provide a useful online annual report in HTML. You don't need bells and whistles, but I cannot get away from how important annual reports are to investors as a discovery and reference source. All the past and recent surveys support this.

In the particular example in the post above, I'd put the cost of converting the annual report to PDF at somewhere below $1, the amortized cost of the PDF conversion software. All of the cost to the company is related to preparing the document for print.

I never explained in the post what this company should or could have done, just that they didn't do anything to optimize the landing page. There was a lot they could have done without providing an HTML annual report. The news release wasn't pointless, it's what it directed me to that was pointless.

For one person, you're doing an amazing job, but you need more resources.

Re: Acergy S.A. gets my attention, then squanders it

Dominic Jones — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:11:41 -0000

The point is that it's pointless.

To spend a lot of money on reporting systems, on writing, on design, and then to destroy it all at the "last mile" by putting zero thought into how people will interact with and consume the information is dumb. To spend more on the news release announcing the availability of the report than on converting the report for online use is dumb.

They might as well just not bother. It's pointless.

Re: Acergy S.A. gets my attention, then squanders it

Dominic Jones — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:01:33 -0000

Mitch,

I wouldn't normally, but here's a suggestion. Like many companies, your annual report is currently filed as a 10K with the SEC. Take that large HTML blob and convert it to a navigable HTML report that has printable HTML pages. Add a scoped search.

Here's an example that was done automatically using a custom script, but I'd recommend something more manual. It's not high-end, but it is practical and supports people who want to quickly retrieve a specific piece of information. It also supports those serious types who rely on filings for their research prior to making a decision. Estimated cost is $5,000, about the same as one of those unusable image-based documents.

You could do more to make this document a shareholder engagement tool as well, but it is primarily a definitive reference document.

Re: NIRI members' discontent posted on Web

Dominic Jones — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 08:25:37 -0000

Hi Marja,

Thanks for commenting. From my perspective evaluating European online IR programs compared to U.S., Canadian, and even UK companies, your comment about European IR departments being aware of IR's role in corporate reputation certainly rings true.

In terms of IRO pay, I'm sure some U.S. IROs might have something to say about the size of European IR departments compared to their own. :-)

Thank you for sharing your perspectives.

Re: NIRI members' discontent posted on Web

Dominic Jones — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:12:41 -0000

Hi Marisa,

A similar idea was mentioned on Judy's blog. Someone said the senior industry round tables were too short, or something like that, and there wasn't enough opportunity for networking.

It didn't resonate with me as much obviously, because I have the easy job of being on the service side, and the idea of comparing notes with other service providers doesn't strike me as much use.

But I can understand why being able to compare notes and stories with corporate peers is so valuable to you.

Re: NIRI members' discontent posted on Web

Dominic Jones — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 01:07:56 -0000

@ Beth: I forgot about the IIRF. But it isn't what I had in mind.

@ Kevin: Just because I'm no longer a member does not mean I cannot criticize aspects of the organization. Besides, most of this piece comes from NIRI members, not me. I agree it's an educational organization, with an advocacy component, and both were lacking, which is why I left. One day I might get into all the reasons, but that would take a whole post of its own. Maybe two.

Re: NIRI members' discontent posted on Web

Dominic Jones — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 12:44:14 -0000

Ah, a competition on a Friday. A good idea, Roger.

Had to read it twice.

"executive's" should be executives.

“IR” shouldn't be in quotes.

"occupied by more junior people" would be better stated as "occupied more by junior people."

OK, how many mistakes did I make in my list of mistakes?

Re: Did e-proxy figure in Apple's surprise say-on-pay loss?

Dominic Jones — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 10:41:27 -0000

Hey Ryan,

I agree with you on the usability of the voting process. It is a bit discombobulating. The paper notice isn't good either, but there is an inherent problem in expecting people to react to the notice even if it was very clear.

Re: Business Wire fumbles error on its blog

Dominic Jones — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:43:27 -0000

Kevin,

The issue is not that Becktold made a mistake. We all make mistakes, including me.

The issue is how he responded to the mistake. He covered up his obvious sloppiness. Blogs are about transparency, including showing people how you screw up. If you aren't mature enough to do that, don't blog.

Reposting to avoid egg on your face is not transparent and undermines your credibility. Tom should know that better than anyone.

Finally, my comment on the original post was straightforward. It said something like this: "John Palizza is the lecturer. He is also a very experienced IRO."

How that could hurt Berkshire's stock price escapes me.

On one thing we agree, though, blackballing people from commenting because you don't like their opinion is silly.

As for my comment about "fodder" I was being transparent about my intentions. This post was meant to educate people about the proper way to handle mistakes on blogs and for handling comments.

And yes, it was also an opportunity for me to have a dig at BW for blackballing me, which is exactly what they've done because they don't want their clients to read what I have to say about wire services for disclosure.

At least I'm honest about my motives.

Re: Business Wire fumbles error on its blog

Dominic Jones — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 15:09:57 -0000

Blogs are about honest communication, which is transparent communication in my book.

I think my comments about wire services have always been constructive and accurate. There is a debate about the need for paid PR wires for disclosure that even the chairman of the SEC has participated in.

There are two sides to the debate, but Business Wire only wants its clients to see one side of it, and they refuse to correct erroneous statements made by their CEO.

I've allowed their comments to appear on this site as is. I've linked to their comments and posts. I want people to read both sides of the argument.

But they don't do likewise. That's not a conversation. That's an old school ram-our-views-down-your-throat-and-snuff-out-dissent approach that has no place in an honest and transparent debate.

Re: Business Wire fumbles error on its blog

Dominic Jones — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 15:26:57 -0000

Am I being a vindictive jerk in using this incident to call them out for a lack of transparency and for blackballing me? Yes, absolutely I am.

But I am open about that in the post itself.

I am doing so because it contains a lesson for bloggers of all stripes. You can't "control" the medium, so don't try to because it will bite you in the arse.

The best approach is just to put it all out there and let people reach their own conclusions.

If IR departments or vendors stop to think next time they want to squash an opinion they don't like, then this post has done its job.

Re: Business Wire fumbles error on its blog

Dominic Jones — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 15:38:46 -0000

OK, so in your book the only choice is to use another wire service.

What about simply not using ANY wire services for disclosure?

What about using wire services the Warren Buffett way, which is to simply notify investors that new information has been made available on the company's website? That would cut companies' bills by more than half. If it works for Buffett, why doesn't Business Wire promote that approach to its clients?

Shouldn't these alternatives be on the table?

Yes, they should, but BW doesn't want to talk about them openly because while they are good for clients, they're not good for BW's revenues.

Hence why they continue to blackball and attack me and others who think there might just be better, more efficient and less costly ways to do disclosure.

Re: Business Wire fumbles error on its blog

Dominic Jones — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 16:23:18 -0000

In July 2007, Neil Hershberg of Business Wire wrote:

" * Others have been quick to jump on Schwartz’ bandwagon, including Dominic Jones, who writes IR Web Report. We think that people who preach disclosure should practice it to the extent that they clearly spell out how they conceivably could benefit from a major policy shift.

Jones is an IR web consultant; he, too, potentially stands to reap financial rewards should Internet disclosure take root, and demand for his services increase."

That is a flat out attack on my integrity. It suggests an ulterior motive when I have none. I'm pointing out an anachronism in the disclosure system.

Read this post by them attacking Sun Microsystems, then read my post. To date, they've never acknowledged their lies and errors, even though they know they were wrong.

And to be clear, I'm not attacking Becktold or BW over a typo. I'm pointing out that they lack transparency. That they're sloppy and cover up when they're found out. And that they blackball people from commenting on their blog just because those people have a different opinion.

What are they so afraid of? That people might actually agree with me? As for lemmings, let's just say I've seen enough to know that IROs don't get the benefit of other perspectives unless they read blogs like ours.

And on the compliance point, well, there's actually no requirement from the SEC for companies to use wire services. Oddly, that's not widely known in the IR profession, in part because it's in no one's interests to tell them.

Re: Business Wire fumbles error on its blog

Dominic Jones — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 23:33:09 -0000

How exactly do I benefit financially from advocating that companies spend less money on wire services? Especially when I'm making the case publicly and without any fee for doing so.

Are you suggesting that if companies spend less money on wire services that their savings will somehow flow to me? Anyone who can draw a direct line between less money spent on wire services and more on my services is clutching at straws and seeing bogeymen where there are none.

I am simply making the case for the web because it makes sense and because it advances the cause of better investor relations communications. I don't believe in unnecessary expense. I don't believe in doing something simply because that's the way it's always been done.

And you might not believe this, but we honestly would do much better financially not doing this blog. If you think this is marketing, let me tell you that it is not. It is anti-marketing. Challenging convention and calling out the BS that is IR today does not make us popular.

We'd do much better to just shut up and be sheep. But that's not in my nature, and even if it hurts us financially I will never stop calling things as I see them. Fortunately, some people respect us for that. I believe that better disclosure practices on the web can achieve a win-win for all investors and public companies, and that there is something noble in pursuing that win-win. For me, it's not all about money.

Again, the post is not about a typo. A typo is a misspelling and is easily fixed. This post is about a factual error borne of sloppiness that was then covered up by trying to rewrite the record, something that cannot be done because of Internet caching and RSS archiving -- another important lesson for any IRO who might be considering a blog.

You say all Becktold was trying to do was point out a useful resource, but I question how linking to a post by someone you haven't bothered to vet can be viewed as adding value to your readers. Why should we thank him for sending us to a source he couldn't vouch for?

Let me say this because you've suggested that it is comments like mine that make IR departments fearful of blogs: the only IR departments who should fear blogs are those with something to hide. It's that simple.

And I didn't "disguise" anything in the post. It's plain as day, from the headline down to the last sentence. That's how you reached the conclusion that I was using the post "as another shallow opportunity to bash BusinessWire." I said as much in the post.

Re: Business Wire fumbles error on its blog

Dominic Jones — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 01:11:16 -0000

"Frankly, wire services give us both peace of mind and CYA with RegFD… at a price that is moot."

What? So disclosure costs are irrelevant to you? You don't care if you can achieve effective disclosure at a lower cost?

What company do you work for because if that's its attitude to efficiency, I'd like to avoid ever owning the stock.

Re: I don't get IR Magazine's US web award winner

Dominic Jones — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:11:44 -0000

Hi Pete,

So you don't like those cascading menus for navigation either!

I'm going to do a follow on this piece because I have some more information.

Basically, the company does deserve an award -- but not for its website.

Re: We've acquired Thomson Financial's IR website business

Dominic Jones — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:47:12 -0000

Ryan,

That's a great idea! Free/cheap mobile versions and xml data it is. We also want to implement an open calendar format that synchs seamlessly with any desktop, mobile or online calendar.

Re: We've acquired Thomson Financial's IR website business

Dominic Jones — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:17:23 -0000

@anna,

There's actually a video tutorial on YouTube that explains how to do this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_YbIhYeNIA

Enjoy.

Re: We've acquired Thomson Financial's IR website business

Dominic Jones — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:54:05 -0000

@John

Absolutely, wholeheartedly agree. There'll be one layoff, though. You're fired! :-)

Re: Intel's e-proxy is best so far

Dominic Jones — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:15:46 -0000

Laura,

What process did you use to determine this was the best product?
My assessments are based on eight years researching and evaluating the usability of online corporate disclosures. Here are the basic requirements I look for (and Intel doesn't meet them all, but they've done the best so far): http://www.irwebreport.com/daily/2007/08/24/bas...

Who is providing the hosting?
Thomson Financial. And we don't own Thomson, in case you thought otherwise due to our April fools joke.

How biased is your article?
That's for you to decide, but we have no financial interest in anyone mentioned in the piece.

Thanks for asking these questions, but I wish you'd disclose your vested interest in asking them. I know what it is, but other people reading this don't.

Re: Build better insider filings pages with free feeds

Dominic Jones — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:51:25 -0000

Hi Roger,

I didn't mean to imply that you had to pay more. What I said was that Thomson's clients usually don't show the names in the list, while Shareholder.com's mostly do. B&D is one of the exceptions.

However, showing the name isn't what I'm referring to as the "advanced insider reporting modules." Those provide a summary of the transactions and easy access to each insider's trading history. They are separate to the SEC filings.

I guess my attempt to be fair all round by mentioning Shareholder.com in the same paragraph is confusing.

Here's the paragraph again:

"I should also point out that Thomson and other vendors do sell advanced insider transaction modules for IR websites that are highly useful. And Shareholder.com typically does a better job with its standard SEC filings module than Thomson does because it usually shows insiders’ names in the lists of filings. However, few companies are using the advanced insider reporting modules, presumably because they can’t justify the cost."

I'm thinking I'll change it to this:

"I should also point out that Shareholder.com typically does a better job with its standard SEC filings module than Thomson does because it usually shows insiders’ names in the lists of filings. And Thomson and other vendors do sell advanced insider transaction modules for IR websites that are highly useful. However, few companies are using the advanced insider reporting modules, presumably because they can’t justify the cost."

What do you think?

Re: E-Proxy Part 37: Try this for fun

Dominic Jones — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:46:20 -0000

OK. There are so many ways to avoid this scenario.

If they'd thought about it ahead of time, they could have -- for the princely sum of $4.95 to $8.95 -- registered a domain (e.g. urbanoutfitters-agm.com)and forwarded people to the longer URL. Anyone can do that. Seriously, *anyone.* No tech know-how required.

They could have redirected from something like urbanoutfitters.com/annualmeeting to the longer URL at no additional cost. A little bit of tech know-how required.

They could have used TinyURL. A 4-year-old can do that, but it might not be kosher for SEC filings. However, it's used in the UK for regulatory filings, so I don't see why not here.

They could have, they could have...

One thing they did right was to send people to their site rather than direct to www.proxyvote.com or one of the other voting sites.

Why the SEC allows links direct to the voting sites instead of via the proxy materials, I don't know because that was a big issue in the comment period. They didn't want people to get the proxy card ahead of getting the proxy materials to ensure people cast informed votes.

But by sending people to www.proxyvote.com under notice-and-access (which is what is now happening in most cases) Broadridge and others are essentially delivering the proxy card ahead of the disclosure materials. Yes, I know the materials are there at the same time, but proxyvote.com is set up to drive voting, not drive people to the proxy statement and annual report.

Huh?

Re: E-Proxy Part 37: Try this for fun

Dominic Jones — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:49:31 -0000

Eva,

Thomson didn't write the notice. They just host the site. And it is Urban Outfitters' meeting, so they have to take responsibility.

As much as I am critical of Thomson, I can't lay all of the blame at their door for this one. I'm not sure they would even have been aware that the company was going to use that URL. I've seen cases where redirects were in place for Thomson hosted materials.

Re: 10 signs your IR website is still bad

Dominic Jones — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 06:12:42 -0000

The problem with item 1 on the list -- using an email form as the only way to contact you -- is that it's horribly impersonal and gives people little confidence their message will receive attention.

Forms, especially the ones that Shareholder.com uses, also are cumbersome and more time consuming to use than normal email. Shareholder.com uses that stupid CAPTCHA code that investors have to input before they can submit their message. Those fuzzy letters and numbers are bad because they aren't there for the good of the investor who is trying to contact you. They're in place to make life easier for the IR department. The IR department makes its problem -- spam bots that automatically submit information via web forms -- the investor's problem.

There are other ways to handle the spam problem that don't make life more difficult for your investors. There is software that filters spam exceptionally well. We use it on this site. It has protected this site from 118,616 spam comments. The software is free.

Finally, email forms make companies look bureaucratic, aloof and unaccountable. They suggest to people that unless they're an analyst or a big institutional investor, they won't get answers when they really need them. So they won't invest. It might only be 100 or 1,000 shares that they're not going to buy, but multiply that by thousands over time and it begins to add up.

I'd like to see you tell your CEO to his face that you don't give a toss about someone who wants to buy his company's stock. Actually, he can probably see that already on your contacts page.

Re: 10 signs your IR website is still bad

Dominic Jones — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:39:25 -0000

Beth,

Thanks for asking. It's one of the more interesting signs of an outdated site.

Basically, if you're not using the "strong" attribute it probably means you're not writing HTML. "Strong" is the attribute for bolding text in HTML. And if you're not writing basic HTML, then you're probably not engaged enough in your site's content.

Although you might think it's obscure, millions of people know what "strong" means because they're using it on their own blogs or profile pages or in comments on one of these. So knowing what it does is an indication of how actively you're participating in the new web.

Using bold text is also important for properly marked up online content. It draws attention to important words. Since most people don't read online text word for word, using bold text can improve user comprehension and help them find what they're looking for. You should be marking up all text on your web pages yourself if you're the communicator.

Finally, you should be using "strong" rather than 'b'. While they do the same thing, "strong" is more correct. If you're still using 'b', then your site is probably quite old and due for an upgrade.

Re: 10 signs your IR website is still bad

Dominic Jones — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 19:29:26 -0000

Carla,

When a company positions stock quotes and charts as the first items in its navigation menu, it is suggesting that this information is a primary reason for investors to visit its website.

But the research -- and common sense -- suggests that this is very rarely the main reason for an investor to visit an IR website. This is true especially for industry professionals. In repeated surveys with professionals, stock information is rated near the bottom of the things they want from an IR website.

For example, in 2004 a survey by H&H in Europe found that only 9% cent of analyst and journalist respondents said they needed share information from IR websites.

In 2006, a survey by Thomson Financial of US and Canadian analysts found that only 6% said stock information was important to them. And there are many other surveys that find the same thing, but I'm using these two to show it applies in the US and Europe.

But what about retail investors? The same holds true, but not to the same extent as investment professionals. An IR Magazine survey with US retail investors found that 54% of retail investors used stock quotes on IR websites, but this was one of the three least important information items. In a 2004 study with retail investors conducted by Real World Investor, 45% said they thought share price information was important, but 19% said it was not and 36% said they were "not really important, but nice to have."

So while stock prices obviously matter and are important to investors for their investment returns, they are not typically a primary reason for them to visit companies' websites. This makes a lot of sense, of course, given how easy it is to get stock quote information on the web from free financial portals and from online brokerage firms and other sources. And rather than having to visit multiple corporate sites for quotes, investors can get quotes for all their companies in one place, so it's more convenient to use another source. If there is an exception to this, it might be Japan and some other Asian markets, but even that has changed a lot.

Therefore, placing stock quotes and charts as the first or second section on your site shows that you don't know any of this and haven't thought carefully about why people are coming to your site. And since a good website must be built around user motives, chances are your site sucks in more ways than just this if you haven't done the basic thinking about your site's users.

But it is important to note that stock quotes and especially charts are still essential content on an IR website. You should not go without them, but they shouldn't be the most prominent things on the site.

There is more I could talk about here in terms of when stock charts are important to investors, and also why you need to be careful of counting quote "hits," but I think I've answered your question.

Re: Why do you like email more than RSS?

Dominic Jones — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 23:14:31 -0000

Hey George,

Good job explaining iGoogle. I should do more of that kind of thing here.

Re: Why do you like email more than RSS?

Dominic Jones — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 16:32:21 -0000

Weburs,

Your flattery will get you free emails as long as you want them. I just think from my perspective that RSS if more reliable. Email gets caught too easily in spam filters and such.

Re: Why do you like email more than RSS?

Dominic Jones — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:48:55 -0000

WebUrs,

A lot of different things in response to your post, so I'll mention a few only:

1. I use a free online RSS reader (Bloglines) that will keep up t0 200 new items per feed. Items I'm interested can be bookmarked in the reader. There's no limit to number of items I can keep in a feed. I have some from three years ago. I've tried using a different feed reader (Google Reader, Newsgator) but I am comfortable with what I have.

2. Some feeds I read every day, other's once per month. RSS allows me to be selective. I have a lot of information to get through and I can't imagine getting all of it in email. But I'm using RSS for research on a lot of different topics.

3. On IR Web Report, we use the summary for the emails because of corporate spam filters. The more text we send, the higher the likelihood our emails will get filtered out. That's because we quote other bloggers, use the word "blog" a lot, and use lots of links.

4. Our RSS feed, however, is full text. If you use a desktop feed reader, you will have all of the items stored locally in full text.

5. The biggest problem you've highlighted is bad website archiving practices. You're right about bookmarks breaking when sites remove content. That's why every URL should be permanent. Blogs are better than most websites in this respect because they are designed with permalinks. We have a policy of keeping our URLs indefinitely. This is very good for us in terms of search engine visibility.

6. Like you, I use both email and RSS. I have email alerts set up for some topics that I also get via RSS. I find these are very useful and more intrusive than RSS. Consequently, I find I write about topics that come via email more than I write about topics that come via RSS. So email is an effective attention getter, if it gets through.

Re: SEC to mandate XBRL. Yes, panic.

Dominic Jones — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:50:55 -0000

Hi Gary,

Great piece by you on the Hitachi XBRL blog. When the SEC referred to the e-proxy formats, I really thought they were asking for HTML and PDF. Actually, they were explicit about that. What we got was anything but HTML, which has been incredibly frustrating to watch. Frankly, the way e-proxy has been botched is why I'm urging people to start paying attention to XBRL with a sense of urgency.

So many bad decisions have been made around e-proxy precisely because people did not plan ahead and because they weren't capable of telling the difference between a .gif and text, or a cookie that improves usability and one that infringes on a user's anonymity.

Re: Are Broadridge's servers slow for you too?

Dominic Jones — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:21:40 -0000

Micky,

You're right, if they were using Fast Web View the first page would load while the rest of the document loads in the background, but that loading in the background is still very slow. So if you want something in the middle of the report or at the back, you have to wait. And you cannot download and print quickly. So that's why I think it's the servers.

Re: What's the word I'm looking for?

Dominic Jones — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:30:27 -0000

Funny, I almost added it as an option but thought better of it. The example is not unique. There are many and all from the same geniuses. More about that tomorrow.

Re: Innovator: Ian Anderson, Twentysix London

Dominic Jones — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:26:28 -0000

Although we have never met in person, I've always liked Ian for his outspoken nature and the fact that he actually understands what investors are looking for. That's partly a result of him having done the research, but also it is a consequence of him thinking like a user. That allows him to try new things that have a greater likelihood of success.

We've corresponded over the years that I've been doing IR Web Report and he's been active in comments on this blog. It's a pleasure to be able to bring some attention to Twentysix London. If I were an IRO in London wondering what to do with my stale IR website, he's one of the people I'd definitely want to talk to.

Re: Innovator: Ian Anderson, Twentysix London

Dominic Jones — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 07:31:53 -0000

Stephen,

There's a link to the BP site above, and there's a list of representative clients at the top....

Shell, Procter & Gamble, RBS Group, Royal Navy/Marines, Waitrose, Barratt, Investec, Sodexho, Abercrombie & Kent, BP etc

Google, man, google... Or perhaps Ian will help you out.

Re: Get your free 'XBRL for Dummies' book — Update

Dominic Jones — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:39:07 -0000

Amy, Suzanne:

Don't I feel dumb. I was sure I had checked this. Thank you for correcting the record.

Re: The real story behind RSS registration

Dominic Jones — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:38:48 -0000

Shehan--

Depends on how you define "rudimentary." If you mean the names of subscribers, probably not. People have a right to remain anonymous when investing, and I think it's important to preserve that right if you want to continue to attract investors.

However, what is more valuable to companies is insight into how people in aggregate are using their feeds and their information. Oddly enough, IR departments don't seem that interested in *how* their sites are used because almost none are using any sort of analytics tools on their feeds.

To me, knowing how many, when and how people use your feeds is *rudimentary.* Your single objective should be to build visits to your site and encourage interaction. It doesn't matter if you don't know who they are. What matters is that they are coming more often and staying longer. Email addresses won't help you do that. Insight into what turns your visitors on based on their activity on your site will help you understand how people are using your content.

NEVER put obstacles between investors and your information. It will drive them away to other sources and potentially other companies. Trying to capture email addresses and names before people can access your information is probably the worst thing you could do on an IR website. If people trust you, they will eventually make themselves known.

Re: Reflections on 2008 annual report season

Dominic Jones — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:52:43 -0000

Hi Nicolas,

Every year, I wonder about the same thing. Are good HTML annual reports a waste of money? In fact, I've advocated in the past that companies try something different and create HTML summary reports focused on the sections that investors use most heavily. I made that recommendation prior to e-proxy and default electronic delivery, when producing online annual reports was an added cost on top of the print run.

But with each passing year, the evidence in favor of a full HTML report becomes more compelling. There really is no replacement for one. And the cost of a good HTML report is coming down and companies are replacing print with electronic formats and realizing huge cost savings, so the cost argument is moot.

I think it's just a matter now of companies being 1) ignorant and 2) having poor internal management practices and systems that they cannot get their heads around the idea that you start with the web first. There are a lot of people in the profession who aren't comfortable with technology. They will be replaced in time by younger more tech savvy people who will change the game completely. You can already see that happening in academia, and soon those people will be rising up the ranks in the private sector and in the regulatory world.

But the bottom line is that it is best for companies and their investors to provide information in ways that make it as easy as possible for investors to arrive at accurate decisions, and big PDFs and image-based documents are not good formats.

Re: Reflections on 2008 annual report season

Dominic Jones — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:37:37 -0000

Eva,

Wow! A cookie is only a "tracking feature" in this context when it infringes upon anonymity. It's amazing how unintelligent the vendor community is about the Web and yet is so willing to take money from companies for web services.

Please read the story as well as you should be reading the rules and the adopting releases (plural). "Cookie-free" -- where's that term? It's not used.

Re: Reflections on 2008 annual report season

Dominic Jones — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:27:40 -0000

Hi Thomas,

Your point about quality being hard to scale is a good one. That's mostly why we have image-based reports, because it's impossible for big vendors to produce good quality reports at volume, so they invented this automated image-based report product. Investors and their needs were never considered.

Unfortunately, one result of image-based reports is that the dominance of big vendors chased away a lot of the smaller firms that provided quality work. They moved on to other business opportunities. The IR profession shot itself in the foot and chased away some of its best talent. Today, there are only a handful of expert companies like yours that produce the very best work and understand the market.

However, I do see signs that good developers are slowly coming back to the corporate reporting area. That means companies will have more choice, but it's a competition and developers will go where the business conditions are best. It's up to the IR profession to support their support network or lose it.

Re: Innovator: George Tsiolis, AGORACOM Investor Relations

Dominic Jones — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 05:23:40 -0000

I have mixed feelings about what AGORACOM does for two reasons. First, the companies they work with are mostly small and high risk. There will always be a perception of stock promotion involved with companies like this, although George and his team seem acutely aware of this and try to steer away as much as possible from being overly promotional.

Second, I don’t like the fact that the IR communication takes place away from the client’s website. Ideally, companies shouldn’t be diluting their message and brand by supporting content on an external site. It should happen around their own sites. However, this is something I feel less strongly about than in the past. I also recognize that most of their clients don’t have resources to manage their websites anyway, so what AGORACOM is doing for them is of enormous value.

There is a lot I do like about George and his company. They are enterprising, and seem to get more so every year. Their content partnerships, use of popular video sites, and their Adwords program with Google are clever tactics to build profile for their clients. Their IR hubs are getting better all the time.
Most of all, they have shown that they are alive to new opportunities that the web can provide for small-cap and venture companies to get their stories out and build communities around their companies.

I've observed AGORACOM grow over the years and look forward to seeing what they do next.

Re: NIRI 2008 conference goes 2.0

Dominic Jones — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 17:17:41 -0000

It's great to see that zu.com walks the walk. If you're going to be pitching web services in this day and age, you absolutely need to use the web.

You're demonstrating how quick and easy it can be to create a community around an event or company. In an e-proxy, XBRL, blogs-for-disclosure world, anyone who isn't doing this stuff isn't in the game. Great job!!!

Re: Lack of earnings call archives attracts attention

Dominic Jones — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:39:39 -0000

While adding the link to the source document as Roger suggested, I realized that he is right that I should have been more careful in how I characterized the subcommittee's statements. This was a case of imprecise writing rather than not understanding what the committee was saying, as I think is clear from the thrust of the article. Thanks, Roger, for pointing out my sloppiness and I'll try to be more precise in future.

Re: Lack of earnings call archives attracts attention

Dominic Jones — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:02:38 -0000

Hi Roger,

Sorry you had to work so hard to find the committee document. My bad.

The subcommittee, not me, is the one that decided that the SEC's guidance around GAAP reconciliations should be reiterated, which I commented on as being the most interesting thing because they specifically say there are concerns about the lack of conference call archives.

What about the 5% of people who are using your archives? Don't you care? Even if they are the ones who will buy and hold large amounts of stock? Short-term traders don't care about archives.

If you're *not* hearing complaints from investors, that's when you should worry because it might mean they're just not interested. So easy for investors to just move on when they have a *world* of choices.

Is it ever a minor issue if someone thinks your executives have something to hide because you've failed to think through the implications of your decisions?

Re: SEC to rule soon on websites for Reg. FD

Dominic Jones — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:49:41 -0000

So true, Derek, so true.

Re: SEC to rule soon on websites for Reg. FD

Dominic Jones — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 07:13:40 -0000

No, there's no requirement as such for companies to have a website, much less a specific section of it. That's why you'll see rules and proposed rules that say companies must post information on their sites, if they have one. However, as a practical matter and to mitigate risks in several areas, it has become almost essential to have a website.

In many ways, the rules are extremely outdated. But I think the NYSE's rules are the worst.

Re: SEC OKs websites and blogs for Reg. FD

Dominic Jones — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:49:00 -0000

Tom, Thanks for the update. I'm pasting Business Wire's full statement below. However, I don't understand why you're wasting your clients' time by suggesting they download the CIFiR report on this issue because the committee's recommendation for new guidance is now addressed by the SEC's interpretive release. The report also does not contain anything substantive on this particular topic. Unless that's the intent, to bamboozle folks with unnecessary information?

Finally, how come Business Wire and the other wires never mention that US investors who invest in foreign companies on overseas exchanges -- or even via the US OTC market! -- generally do not get their information via US wire services? Given the stats show a dramatic increase in foreign investing by US investors, it would seem they are happy going to those companies' websites for their information after receiving an email or RSS alert. Doesn't that call into question the claim that Business Wire is indispensable to US investors?

August 01, 2008 12:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Business Wire's Preliminary Comments on SEC Disclosure Vote

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Regarding the SEC's recent webcast concerning news dissemination and the use of corporate web sites and/or blogs as a possible means of disclosure, Business Wire believes it is wise to wait until the SEC's interpretive guidance is published before issuing a detailed response.

However, we continue to maintain that simply posting material news on a corporate web site or using blogs does not meet the spirit and intent of Regulation FD because it is neither simultaneous, nor full and fair. It is Business Wire's belief that this is not what the SEC intended.

As we have stated in the past, the use of web sites as an ancillary means of news dissemination is, in our view, a best practice. However, web posting or blogs alone are not a substitute for secure and simultaneous push delivery of material news to the disclosure media, financial markets, on-line web portals, aggregators, and the global investing public. Neither does it accomplish the requirements of the major stock exchanges.

There is currently much speculation and misinformation surrounding the SEC's upcoming report. However the CIFiR Report (SEC's Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting) is available and we urge you to review it: http://www.sec.gov/about/offices/oca/acifr/acif....

Upon the issuance of the SEC's complete interpretive guidance report, Business Wire will provide a more detailed analysis and response.

Contacts

Business Wire, New York
Phyllis Dantuono, + 1 212-752-9600
Neil Hershberg, +1 212-752-9600
http://www.businesswire.com

Re: SEC OKs websites and blogs for Reg. FD

Dominic Jones — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:57:10 -0000

Hi George,

You're right. It is a surprise. I said there was a 50/50 chance they'd recognize websites and blogs as being equivalent to PR wires.

But it does seem that they're saying companies first have to be able to show that their sites and blogs are go-to resources for investors. And, as you know, due to long-term neglect, there are few companies that can be confident of that.

But if companies ever needed an incentive to improve their irrelevant IR websites, being able to cut out costly PR wire releases is probably going to do it.

Re: SEC OKs websites and blogs for Reg. FD

Dominic Jones — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:47:06 -0000

Hi Adam,

I can't explain Mr. Buffett's decision. I'm sure the cash flow looked good, but I think if he had realized that BW is essentially a technology company, he might not have been so willing.

From what I've read, the deal was done very quickly.

Re: Why full-text press releases are now your enemy

Dominic Jones — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:31:03 -0000

Hi Paul,

Good points. Unfortunately, someone had to be the example. The post isn't meant to single out one company. Limelight just happened to issue its earnings release yesterday, and just happened to be noteworthy enough that some people felt it was worth writing about.

I needed an example of a very common problem and Limelight just happened to be there at the time. Limelight's business added a twist to the story and made it more interesting.

I didn't ask for comment because I didn't think it was necessary because Limelight is just an example and could be almost any company. I'm glad you took advantage of the ability to comment here. That's to be applauded because I don't know of another IRO who would have the confidence to do that.

Your points about not having the time to implement a notice-and-access style release are good. You are right, it is important to tell investors what you are going to do before you do it.

So, sorry Limelight was the example, but now I'm glad it was.

Re: SEC unveils IDEA — and that's all it is for now

Dominic Jones — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:39:49 -0000

Derek,

On the social media elephant in the room, I didn't mention that because it wasn't really new to me either. I was on their first conference call with bloggers. I guess I'm just spoiled and follow things too closely.

Re: Evaluating NIRI's IR website guidelines 2

Dominic Jones — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:15:33 -0000

Good points, Derek. I was going to say that NIRI's guidelines don't even satisfy the basics of Web 1 never mind Web 2.0 or social media, but I thought there was no point in even going there.

I used to think that IR departments need to fix Web 1 mistakes before jumping into to Web 2.0, but now I think they should just go straight to the next level because doing so will get them to become more engaged in what they and others are saying on the web, and they'll probably gain the skills required to fix all of these old Web 1 problems at the same time.

Re: An IR lesson from bailout crisis: Main Street matters

Dominic Jones — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:16:52 -0000

@ Agoracom-George, thanks for keeping me updated via Twitter about all the developments. :)

@ Onealees, perhaps in a future post I can discuss some metrics. There are many, and most are better than the "number of investor meetings" metric many IR departments use for their institutional IR. As if that matters now ...

@ Denis, yeah, even though they can't move the stock, they have the same number of votes in an election as any portfolio manager. And there of many more retail investors than portfolio managers.

Re: Broadridge's social network for investors launches

Dominic Jones — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:12:04 -0000

The link is fixed now.

Re: Mindlessness in investor relations

Dominic Jones — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:58:17 -0000

Comments in this thread have been deleted. Reminder, put your name to your comments. Cowards not welcome.

Re: Mindlessness in investor relations

Dominic Jones — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:58:26 -0000

@George I can't keep pounding without some help. Hope you'll keep doing what you're doing. (I've fixed the timestamps to compensate for daylight savings, thanks.)

@Rob Thanks, I loved your response to the NIRI annual report survey.

@Bill, you're giving them too much credit. They didn't think it through. Investor Central isn't all that innovative.

Re: Is Broadridge CEO out of the loop?

Dominic Jones — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:47:12 -0000

@ George, jcj You're welcome any time.

Re: Is Broadridge CEO out of the loop?

Dominic Jones — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 05:30:02 -0000

George,

It's hard to miss anything your firm does because you're so good at making sure we know ;)

Re: Why almost no one is complying with Regulation FD

Dominic Jones — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:53:27 -0000

@Mediawoman

"Is it the wire services that are non-compliant or the third party site redistributing the news that has the issue here. In the case listed above, isn’t the issue with Yahoo! for not posting the release in real-time?"

It's the wires. And, as I quoted, Business Wire stated emphatically to the SEC that there was no delay between Bloomberg professional and Yahoo! Finance, but that is not true. Also, all the wires have gone to great lengths to create the impression they are real-time and simultaneous, and they've known all a long that they can't in practice guarantee that.

"What other sites did Henry check? bloomberg.com, nasdaq.com?"

The wires complain that if companies use their websites then investors have to go to multiple websites, so this argument of yours is the same. So do wires expect investors to shop around for a site that may or may not be real-time? Why not just post the releases immediately on the corporate website, in addition to sending it out on a wire? At least investors will know there is at least one place where they can be assured of getting the news immediately.

"Nasdaq has a 4:01 time stamp."

Yes, the time stamp. That's a fiction in many cases. The time stamp on the release is not the time that the release actually appears on the site in all of the cases we've monitored.

"It might not hurt to remind your readers that they should be looking at FINANCIAL sites for financial news. Yahoo may be popular but it is most reliable database in the world."

Henry *was* looking at Yahoo! Finance, the most popular investment website. And Yahoo! Finance and all the other finance sites we've monitored are the same. There's a delay of between 1 and 4 minutes.

We stand by our story. PR wires cannot ensure simultaneous delivery and they should stop claiming they are doing that. Companies are being remiss in not posting their releases directly to their websites at the very instant it is released via other channels. It's not a complicated issue.

Re: Why almost no one is complying with Regulation FD

Dominic Jones — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:57:52 -0000

Thanks to all who have commented. I didn't want to respond quickly because I wanted to see what reaction there would be.

The lack of response from certain quarters troubles me deeply. This issue is not a minor one. It cuts to the very heart of fairness in the markets. It doesn't just impact retail investors.

EVERY investor must now question whether they are getting their information at the same time as everyone else. Who is getting it before them? What is the latency of their current service providers? Material market-moving news is being released at times when investors can trade on it. A late trade due to not getting the information in time can mean millions in losses or missed gains for fund managers and their clients.

What has happened is that the IR profession has failed to evolve with changes in technology, trading and regulation. These issues have been a consistent theme of mine for years. A big obstacle to progress are the big vendors who have gotten fat and lazy. But we can't just blame them because companies are not demanding better.

NIRI is too close to the vendors and so is IR Magazine. Without the financial support of the big vendors, these institutions of the profession will crumble. I believe this has clouded their good sense. They've developed a sort of bunker mentality, seeing IR Web Report and others like us as mavericks and crazy people rioting outside the gates.

But we are beyond the point where it is acceptable to protect our own franchises. The capital market system is in crisis. The situation I exposed in this post is minor compared to the other problems, but it still contributes to a lack of confidence among investors.

People need to trust a system before they will be willing to participate in it. This isn't one company's problem. This problem belongs to all of us. What disturbs me is the lack of leadership in the profession. There is nothing to wait for. No new rule is required from the SEC. NYSE doesn't have to change its requirements. Companies just have to change their disclosure processes.

NIRI must come out immediately and bring this issue to their members' attention. It's easy to fix.

Re: CFA Institute backs IR Web Report on Regulation FD

Dominic Jones — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:10:02 -0000

Thanks George, I should have provided a link in the post, which I've now added. My bad.

Re: The best corporate bloggers you've never heard of

Dominic Jones — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:52:56 -0000

@Tal I didn't list all of the CEO blogs I like, just the one I thought was the best. There are others that are good, including Jonathan's. You must have been reading our blog for a long time, Tal. We wrote about the blog not being highlighted on their IR site in 2005. Since then, it is prominently linked on the IR site.

@Suzanne DellShares doesn't add enough value beyond what investors can get from the IR website. The best elements are the intermittent video interviews they have done with key executives. But I'd like to see them use the blog more actively to share information about what is going on in the IR department. They should clearly define who they are talking with and hold up their side of the conversation. They are trying, though, and they don't have a model to follow so I understand it's hard. If they can, they should get an "IR web community manager" to look after the online channel.

@Zack Yes, adversity brings out the best in some and the worst in others.

Re: The best corporate bloggers you've never heard of

Dominic Jones — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 12:27:03 -0000

Sorry for getting your last name wrong. I do recall making a point to check it, but obviously I did not. I've fixed it, albeit late.

Re: My real-time personal newswire

Dominic Jones — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:00:11 -0000

@ Mitch,

Give me a chance and I will get there. This is just happening as we speak. Still figuring out how to work "triggers" and such. But my view is simply that you need to go where you stakeholders are. Mine are on the sites in my personal newswire network. A company's are not there, but I have a post coming...

Re: Why I’m nervous for BGC and its next earnings release

Dominic Jones — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:19:07 -0000

Hi Jason,

First, I think people should know that you tried to contact me a couple of weeks ago, but the communications got mixed up.

Second, I wrote this piece to draw Thomson and Shareholder's attention. They need to get their acts together for web disclosure. I'm not concerned with their sites going down, I'm concerned for their clients being able to show an audit trail in the event of a dispute.

Third, my comment about there being no time specified applies to any company, whether it is doing notice and access releases or full-text. The PR wire services are not simultaneous, so some investors will get the notice about the full-text release ahead of others.

It's unfortunate for you that BGC is the focus. Other companies have already done this with no problems. But they asked me not to name them because they worry about the wires "doing a Sun" on them. Which is happening to you right now.

You have all my support, but I hope Thomson realizes that its reputation is now on the line, too.

Re: Why are IROs ignoring 1.5 million potential investors?

Dominic Jones — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:02:42 -0000

@Mr. J,

I thought they'd at least be a little sensitive to voicing such sentiments. I'm appalled they're insensitive or unaware, but not surprised by the mindset.

Re: Microvision opens up earnings call via blog

Dominic Jones — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 15:54:40 -0000

@George,

What specific question did you have that was not answered? I read all the questions that were posted on the blog and listened to the call and thought they'd all been answered in response to other questions.

I don't think it's reasonable to expect that every question will be asked and answered when it's a repeat of something that has already been addressed. Do not let your disappointment with the stock's performance cloud your judgment about this practice. Also, we have to consider in this case that management does not have answers to some key questions.

That said, I agree with you that some acknowledgment of the people who took the time to ask questions online would have been better. People need to know that management actually got the questions, considered them, and chose not to answer any directly because they'd already been addressed.

This is the first time this has been done and I expect that the process will be refined going forward with the benefit of input such as you have provided here. But if investors are going to shoot down the practice, then why would companies bother to try opening up their calls? Let's encourage them.

Re: eBay’s lawyers are wrong to delete earnings call information

Dominic Jones — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:46:27 -0000

@Lucinda,

Yes, basically the risk of confusion to a reasonable person is so remote that a reasonable person will conclude that it's an imaginary risk. ;)

Re: Companies source annual meeting questions from web

Dominic Jones — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:58:34 -0000

Update: (I've edited the comment below for clarity in response to an email from Intel. New info is shown in italics.)
It's not Intel's forum platform, it's Broadridge's forum platform. Small shareholders have no incentive to participate in the forum because they will perceive that anything they say will not be taken seriously. This is because everyone is classified by the size of their shareholding. They're not people, they're just a holding size. This is Broadridge's decision, and it reflects their worldview where everyone is just an account. Social media, of which shareholder forums are one form, is about people interacting with people. On Broadridge's Investor Network, which Intel is using, everyone is anonymous by default. Although it should be permitted, anonymity is not conducive to serious discussion on forums. Usually, people who are anonymous have something to hide and are less accountable for what they say. It would have been much better not to show holding ranges and instead allow users to create a profile and identify themselves, if that is what they wanted. Anyone who chose to be anonymous would not be taken seriously by other participants.

Re: NYSE, NASDAQ move to scrap compulsory news releases

Dominic Jones — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:30:13 -0000

Thanks, Israel. I've changed the link to the document on the SEC's website.

Re: SEC should focus on access in “notice & access”

Dominic Jones — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:42:44 -0000

Jeremy,

I've been around long enough to learn that very few companies do things because they want to. They act only when they have to, either because they're forced to by regulation or because the downside of not acting is too painful in some way.

The scrapping of the broker vote and proxy access provide strong incentives to some companies to improve their communications, but others require a stick.

Re: How to build a powerful IR monitoring dashboard using StockTwits Desktop

Dominic Jones — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:48:09 -0000

If you have any questions while getting it set up, let me know in the comments and I'll answer them here for everyone's benefit.