Version 1.0 of Q4 Press was recently released based on all of the feedback that we have been receiving from the beta participants.  As part of releasing version 1.0 we’ve also launched a dedicated site for Q4 Press at www.q4press.com

As part of the launch we’re also offering a 30 day free trial. Just click on the Sign-up now to get things started.  Thanks to all of you who’ve been working with us during the beta of Q4 Press. We couldn’t have done it without you!

I read a great article on CMS Watch today that talked about migrating website content for a client when migrating to a new CMS system.

The author speaks about the inevitable awkward moment of the implementation process when someone pipes up and says “uh, what about the content?”

As part of our implementation service, we specifically bring this up with clients during the project’s kickoff.  We make it very clear that we will handle all the content migration and we also use the migration as an opportunity to train the client using some real-world examples.   The training happens on-site and right before our pre-production launch activities so the timing is perfect and the client is ready to use the tool by the time they go live.

We’ve always taken the approach that we’re not only selling a product, but we’re selling a service and do everything we can to make the migration to our platform as simple and seamless as possible to the client.

In addition to Q4 WEB providing accurate website records for Bill 198 compliance to reduce your risk surrounding corporate disclosure we also do all the little things that set our company apart from the sea of CMS companies out there.

I’ll be following up with some additional posts about our implementation process in general and other steps we take to manage migrations.

Q4 Web Systems is looking for a kick-ass senior .NET developer.  If you are a technology junkie and your idea of fun is spending a Saturday night reading about Team Foundation Server 2008 or playing with Silverlight 2.0 just because it’s cool, we want you!

You will become assimilated into our product development team where you will be responsible for the product advancement of our 2 application suites.   You will participate in design and architecture reviews, code reviews and write code with automated testing in mind.

Q4 offers a great environment as well as competitive salary and benefits.

Job Requirements:

• 7+ years enterprise application development experience with 2+ years in architecting software platforms
• 4+ years experienced with .NET/C#, ASP .NET, distributed services
• Strong interest in Design Patterns, Refactoring, TDD
• Solid understanding of object oriented vs. component design
• .NET Application deployment methodologies with N-Tiered systems, redundant/failover Windows technologies
• Excellent Understanding of FSDL including best development practices, documentation, QA processes and deployment strategies
• Windows 2003, SQL server 2005 and IIS 6.0 as it relates to application development and scalability
• A willingness to promote and ensure a common understanding of user stories
• Prominent participation in the planning, design, and implementation phases of high level concepts as well as user stories
• Ability to work well within a team of developers
• BS in Computer Science
• Secure application development
• Application stress testing

How to apply:  Send your resume to careers@q4websystems.com Only suitable candidates will be contacted for an interview.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting with John Hughes from Deloitte. John shared some recent findings regarding “Fundamental Investors” that I thought were quite interesting. John said:

All companies make a choice (consciously or unconsciously) in deciding how they will present themselves to the market. The quality of the information provided to the market is a factor that contributes to increasing valuations and lowering cost of capital. This “premium” is not something a company can obtain for itself over night, but even incremental market gains from a long-term investment in building a disclosure “brand” can easily justify the direct cost of that investment.

Recent research by McKinsey, cited in a recent Globe And Mail article, suggests that retail or short-term oriented investors seldom trade enough shares to make a real difference in a company’s long-term share price. The largest shareholders, such as pension funds or mutual funds, also often have little influence over the price of the stocks they hold, because of their emphasis on tracking performance relative to a published index.

 McKinsey concludes as follows:

This leaves a group we call “Fundamentals Investors” because they buy or sell stocks based on a long-term perspective of their intrinsic value relative to current market price. They also buy positions large enough to exert influence, as activist investors, on the board and management. These firms typically hold a small number of companies’ stock, and they trade less frequently - but, when they do they trade large enough blocks to affect the stock price.

Fundamentals Investors should be the target audience of a company’s investor relations strategy. Because these investors are more interested in company and industry fundamentals than in short-term performance, communications strategies should focus on the company’s long-range strategy and the industry’s prospects. Investments in growth projects, the pipeline of new products, fundamental profit metrics such as customer profitability, attrition or churn rates, and major market trends are all critical for these investors.

I was reading an interesting blog post the other day about how to live in the present when you feel overwhelmed and how that can affect your personal and professional life.

The article talks about the 3 states a person generally lives in at any given time; past, future and present.  I’m sure just about everyone uses their cell phone while driving, or has the news on TV while eating dinner and while checking email on their blackberry.  All of this multi-tasking leads to a drop in focus, drop in productivity as well as an increase in stress.

What I admire about my friends here at Q4 is that we have always taken the approach of living “in the now”.  There is always temptation to immediately react to any problem and I have personally been guilty of leaping before looking, but here are a few ways we handle “living in the now”

1. On our white board in our work area we have a motto for all to see.  Stop.  Think.  React.
2. In our group chat when anyone feels we are going down a rabbit hole, someone posts  “Stop.  Think.  React”
3. We reiterate this message in meetings

I have personally found this approach very useful, even in my personal life, but the greatest benefit is the gain in productivity and enjoyment at work since we are all on-board with ‘looking before leaping’

Something so simple makes a big difference in both our productivity and how we interact with each other at work.  Stop.  Think.  React.

Breakwater Resources (TSE: BRW.CA) is the latest issuer to select our Q4 Web corporate disclosure solution to maintain their website. Breakwater is a mineral resource company engaged in the acquisition, exploration, development and mining of base metal and precious metal deposits in the Americas. Visit the Breakwater site at www.breakwater.ca

This past Friday SEC Chairman Christopher Cox announced the launch of the “Financial Explorer” on the SEC Web site to help investors quickly and easily analyze the financial results of public companies. Financial Explorer paints the picture of corporate financial performance with diagrams and charts, using financial information provided to the SEC as “interactive data” in eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL).

Financial Explorer is easily the most impressive XBRL based application that we have seen to date. It does a great job of taking the complex explanation of XBRL and puts it into an easy to read format. Using the XBRL data from each issuer the Financial Explorer generates key financial ratios, graphs, and charts. Information including earnings, expenses, cash flows, assets, and liabilities are all displayed graphically and can easily be compared across competing public companies.

Below is an example of Microsoft’s latest filing (to date, there have been 307 such filings from 74 companies).

The software takes the work out of manipulating the data by entirely eliminating tasks such as copying and pasting rows of revenues and expenses into a spreadsheet. That frees investors to focus on their investments’ financial results through visual representations that make the numbers easier to understand.

Aloca’s Income statement can be found here. Note the small chart icon that represents year over year results, a nice touch that significantly improves the readability of the statement.

“XBRL is fast becoming the universal language for the exchange of business information and it is the future of financial reporting,” said Chairman Cox. “With Financial Explorer or another XBRL viewer, investors will be able to quickly make sense of financial statements. In the near future, potentially millions of people will be able to analyze and compare financial statements and make better-informed investment decisions. That’s a big benefit to ordinary investors.”

Financial Explorer is open source, meaning the code that runs it is free to the public. As interactive data becomes broadly accepted there will be many more applications like Financial Explorer that will help investors and issuers communicate more efficiently and more effectively than ever before.

Is your company filing in XBRL or considering it? Let us know what you think by leaving a comment below.

Technorati Tags: Q4 Web Systems, Q4, Investor Relations, IR Web Sites, Corporate Disclosure, XBRL, Interactive Data, Corporate Reporting, Financial Reporting

Newport Partners has selected Q4 Web to manage and automate it’s new corporate web site at www.newportpartners.ca. Designed by Capital C the new site features the updated Newport brand and expanded corporate and investor content. Read the complete Post.

Q4 is pleased to announce the latest addition to our family. Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation (TXS:BIM) recently went live on Q4 WEB featuring Google Maps integration. Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation is a Canadian publicly-traded junior mining company that is focused on its 100%-owned Mary River iron ore deposits located about 160 kilometres south of Pond Inlet, Baffin Island, Nunavut Territory, Canada. Read the complete Post.

Seeing as many of you may be hip-deep in annual reporting I thought I’d share this interesting piece with you. A designer named Nicholas Felton has published an annual report of his life for the last 3 years. Although fluffy from a content perspective, Nicholas has some very creative ways to display the information of the year gone by. Read the complete Post.