This is the second part of an interview I conducted with PotashCorp.  If you missed part 1, you can read it by clicking here.
C: Often I hold your site up as a best practice example for other companies but the response I get from some IROs is, “We don’t have the same size team as a company like Potash – we don’t have that kind of budget.” What’s your response to that?
T: People think we have a much bigger team than we actually do. We have only just recently hired …

Through my involvement over the past 10 years as a panel judge in the ‘Electronic Disclosure’ category of the Canadian Institute of Charted Accountants (CICA) Corporate Reporting Awards, I have become very familiar with the PotashCorp website (www.potashcorp.com). In my work with Q4, I often refer to it as an exemplary model of best practices.
Recently I interviewed Tim Herrod, Director, Treasury (C.A.) and former Manager, Investor Relations with PotashCorp, who was instrumental in helping to plan both the award-winning former site and current redesign, which was launched in January of …

Here’s a list of interesting things we’ve been reading and sharing on Twitter this past week. Lots of great articles, we hope you find it interesting!
Social Media & IR Best Practice example “Dell Investor Relations Answers Questions from Social Media” http://t.co/EIPtZBj
FINRA proposes to exempt social media communications from getting prior approval: http://t.co/9OafC4K
Big Changes On Twitter – Everything You Need To Know: http://t.co/vh0Ifjs
New research on social media & IR, Euro focus “IR 2.0 International Benchmark Study”: http://t.co/taz1zoH
Twitter hedge fund beats the market, other funds: http://t.co/5OSpG1Q
Why Social Engagement Is Critical To Business …

Social media has made the sharing of ideas and information easy.  Sometimes you may see a tweet that catches your eye  – but if you’re not fast enough it’s already been replaced with something else.  Add to that, the fact that sometimes there are not enough hours in the day to read everything.
That’s why we’ve decided to put together a list of some interesting things we’ve been reading and subsequently sharing with our followers for the week of July 18, 2011:
Is the SEC redefining Insider Trading: http://t.co/XMYHB2B
Google+, Investor Relations and …

A survey released yesterday by the Canadian Investor Relations Institute (CIRI) and Fleishman-Hillard found in spite of being mindful of the potential damage crises can cause to their sales, reputation and share value, few companies have an effective crisis management plan in place.
The survey polled financial analysts and investor relations officers (IROs) at companies across Canada and the United States on operational and corporate crisis preparedness. It also revealed the biggest mistake companies make during a corporate or operational crisis is lack of communication and transparency with their stakeholders.
Interestingly, the …

A lot of articles have surfaced as a result of the approval of ‘say on pay’ by the SEC in January of this year.  As I read through them, I decided to pose the question ‘How can IROs embrace the newly approved say on pay?’ as the topic for a recent #irchat session. You can click here to read the complete #irchat transcript.
What follows are ideas incorporated from the discussion (with direct ideas attributed where applicable) as well as commentary prompted by various articles (which will be referenced in the …

Polycom has whole-heartedly jumped into the social media pool.  They incorporate Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogs and LinkedIn into their communications strategy and have several accounts for each channel.  The company prominently displays this information on their website via a dedicated “Connect with Polycom using Social Media” in the newsroom section.

A review of how Polycom uses each channel revealed consistent messaging and current and up-to date information.  Some of the senior management team also regularly tweet and are active bloggers providing additional commentary on an industry-related topic or company specific news. …

On April 15th, Google issued an advisory release that instructed people to visit their IR website for their earnings and also included the following statement:
Google intends to make future announcements regarding its financial performance exclusively through its investor relations website.
Google is able to do this based on the SEC guidance from Aug 2008 regarding the use of websites for disclosure. This guidance states that under certain circumstances, companies can rely on their websites and blogs to meet public disclosure requirements under Reg FD.
As we all remember all too well, shortly …

Earlier this year, I wrote a blog post that recounted a discussion that ensued on #irchat regarding one of Rivel’s research findings in late 2009 regarding IR’s role in a company’s valuation.
An interesting discussion developed when Dan Dykens, CEO of Meet the Street and host of #irchat asked “What do you think about Rivel Research’s buy-side survey which suggests that the valuation differential between good and bad IR is 35%?”
This question stirred up quite a debate, especially since no one had access to the methodology or a definition of what …

In a recent edition of IR Alert, Jeffrey D. Morgan, CAE, President and CEO, National Investor Relations Institute cites “the top challenge facing IR now is regulation including moves to have companies become more transparent, governance changes and generally looking at corporate practices. Regulation is one of the key challenges right now. It’s evolving rapidly and where we’ll end up is not quite known.” 
What follows is some of his advice to IR professionals for keeping pace in this rapidly changing regulatory environment.  He also discusses current challenges and opportunities and …