I have spoken to many IROs about their use of social media. Some are exploring their options (and even have their own personal Facebook or Twitter account) to help them decipher what will fit in best with their company’s communications and overall business strategy.  If they decide to move forward with some kind of social network, they are taking it slowly to see what evolves and how much of their time it will actually take up (see my recent blog about two companies who have gradually integrated Twitter and Facebook …

As usual, there were a lot of great sessions to choose from at NIRI’s Annual Conference from June 7-10 in Florida.  The Q4 team attended as many as we could which meant we didn’t always have the time to do write a blog post that day.  What follows is an overview of a session I attended on Tuesday, June 9th entitled “Understanding IR Strategies Behind XBRL – IROs Evolving Role”.

Moderator/Lead Speaker:
Mike Willis, Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Chairman, XBRL International
Panelist(s)/Co-Speaker(s):
Michael Becker, VP, Global Disclosure & Financial Reporting Services
Business Wire
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On June 10 I attended a panel discussion at the NIRI annual conference in Hollywood Florida entitled The Evolution of Financial Communication, which centred on social media. Michael Nowlan, President  & CEO of Marketwire, the event sponsor, did an excellent job of moderating the discussion.
Panelists were:  Timothy Carey, Managing Director, Digital Media, ICR, Inc; Ruth Cotter, Director, IR and Treasurer, Advanced Micro Devices; Eileen Cassidy Rivera, Vice President, Communications & Investor Relations, Vangent, Inc., and Darrell Heaps, President, CEO & Co-founder, Q4 Web Systems.
Michael opened the session by asking each …

Yesterday Catherine Crofton delivered our first webinar regarding removing the 5 barriers to an effective investor relations website.   I come from a web development and media background so I was a bit green to all this IR stuff when I started at Q4 a couple of years ago.  Needless to say I’ve been schooled the hard way and have learned internally and from our customers what issuers need to say to their investors.
One of the questions that stood out to me from yesterday’s webinar was when an attendee asked if …

On Feb 23, 2009 BGC Partners became one of the first widely known companies to utilize a ‘Notice-and-Access’ release for their quarterly earnings. This approach was based on the SEC’s guidance regarding using websites for disclosure under Reg. FD.Leading up to and following the announcement, a lot of online discussion took place about potential pitfalls. The day after the event, Dominic Jones of IR Web Report provided detailed commentary as to how the event unfolded.
As a follow up to this, I …

Since the SEC released new guidance permitting public companies to (forgo using newswire services and) disclose material information on corporate web sites and blogs, it has been a wait and see period. Many of the issuers I spoke with across the US (as well as inter-listed Canadian companies) are intrigued at the prospect of reducing newswire costs, but do not want to pioneer the web disclosure model.
Instead some are taking steps to transition and ensure that they can meet the SEC’ s criteria (which contrary to what some people would …

The other day I came across a Tweet from Tom Becktold at BusinessWire:
becktold From IR Magazine: Perils in relying on company website as primary channel http://tinyurl.com/6qnlx9 about 3 hours ago from web
I’m always interested to see what IR Magazine has to say so I checked it out. I was disappointed to see the article was based on a “study” from The Equity Group that says the majority of security lawyers don’t support web-site disclosure. I dug in more and found the press release that the article was based on. 
Here are …

Every now and then something happens in the market that almost demands for me to shout from the rooftops about what we’re doing here at Q4.
On August 1 the SEC issued new guidance that deems corporate web sites and blogs as compliant with Reg. FD providing that certain criteria are met. This allows a public company to disclose information on their corporate web site, without having to issue a press release through an approved news wire service.
What’s bad for the newswires, whom have long enjoyed a guaranteed flow of business, …

In the Sunday Opinion section of the New York Times, Christopher Cox, Chairman of the SEC wrote an article entitled ‘Swapping Secrecy for Transparency’ in which he recommended increased regulation and transparency governing the derivatives market and in particular, credit default swaps. In the article he says, “Transparency is a powerful antidote for what ails our capital markets. When investors have clear and accurate information, and when they can make informed decisions about where to put their resources, money and credit will begin to flow again. By giving regulators the …

As Jason mentioned in his previous post, we are getting ready to kick off a busy summer quarter. With this, we have a new set of priorities and goals that we want to achieve. This is going to be our second quarter implementing the Rockefeller habits, we learned a lot the first time around and will be aiming to improve the way we track and score our progress.
One of the biggest changes we are making this time around is in the area of product development, implementations and support. …