Presuming you do cover these topics somewhere, will our intrepid investor find what you are providing? How hard will this task be for him? Is your website effective in informing, or does it make it a challenge? If it is a challenge, well… why are you allowing it to be a challenge?

It seems IRO’s usually strive for communication effectiveness in ways suitable to the form they are delivering meesages in:

-    for required filings and releases effectiveness is in accurate reporting, a transparent writing style, and balanced treatment of opportunities and challenges;

-    in presentations they shoot for nicely designed PowerPoint slides, hopefully with legibly-sized type and some consistency in visual style;

-    in speech delivery or one-on-ones they practice-up the executives for an engaging and credible delivery.

Yet investor sections of corporate websites are not getting the idea of “effectiveness”. They may be getting the idea of ‘completeness’, but they are just not getting the ‘Internet’ part.

Not many of your favorite websites would consider their efforts to engage their audience complete with the addition of a PDF. Frankly, I can’t think of any good (non-investor related) website that would trust key messages to only PDFs. Well, maybe government websites, but they’re not really in any sort of competition based on effectiveness. Oh, and they’re not trying to achieve a fully and fairly valued stockprice based on informed investors. Oh, and they’re not worried about their cost of capital.

So, back to the idea of considering whether you are communicating foundation material on your website effectively. Ask: “Why should someone who doesn’t know my company invest in it?” “Can my website answer basic questions that will engage them in our story?” “How difficult does my website make it to find these answers?”

Get your visitors, especially potential investors, off to a strong start when they visit your website. (Please Note: I didn’t say “When they visit your Filing Cabinet”).

Don’t make the task of evaluating your company more work then it has to be. Don’t make them convince themselves of your worthiness. Don’t make them play BattleDecks with your sans-remarks Investor Slideshow.

Get your content strategy together. If you’re interested in doing better talk to us at zu.

This screen capture from the I-Metrix brochure displays the concurrent presentation of financials for Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, IBM, and Dell generated from the XBRL feeds from Edgar Online. This type of tool will greatly accelerate the data gathering process for potential investors from hours to minutes.

Soon the ‘go-to’ description of your enterprise will become the equivalent of a food label nutrition chart in a ‘just the facts’ approach to providing information.

Here we can compare two brands of chocolate chip cookies.

But is this how we buy food? By only looking at these measurables? We all know that, despite the similar make-up of these products, they don’t taste the same and one will be more successful than the other.

The reasons for success may be better explained in the story that goes with the product then in the nutritional performance data.

When XBRL allows your company to be compared side-by-side with its peers in a generic GAAP-compliant view, such as those provided conveniently by I-Metrix, then what is the next step in the analysis? What’s missing?

What will increasingly matter on the Internet and on your website will be the ‘other stuff’, not the financial reporting. It will be the story the CEO tells investors in person. When he’s running the conversation he isn’t reading XBRL to the audience, he’s adding the context, the long-term strategy, and the positioning explaining markets, outlook, competitive advantage and so forth.

When the quantitative XBRL filtering and screening is over with, and the analyst or retail investor visits your website, are they going to get what’s missing? Or is it just out-of-date, coffee table book statements about the company with links to PDF financial reports that are rather superfluous to the slicing and dicing already done by XBRL readers?

Will they find current high-value materials provided in an engaging way? Will they see the clarity in the plan that fosters a corporate culture that will win in their chosen field and create shareholder value? Will it bring to life the recipe that makes a company a success?

When widely disemminated XBRL viewers focus attention on your last quarter’s earnings blips, are you ready to show an engaging version of why your company is a worthy investment?

Even as we integrate new communication forms and technologies, let’s keep our eye on the website.

Cameco and PotashCorp were listed as the Best Ranked IR Websites in North America. They were in good company alongside Intel, General Electric Company, Microsoft, Bank of Montreal, Del Monte Foods Company, and Overseas Shipholding Group.

After a complete site redesign and reengineering in 2008, Cameco has worked to enhance their environmental assessment content, regularly update the CEO messaging, add webcast and audio recordings, and consistently keep the site’s content fresh and relevant. In the past Cameco achieved an overall Top 5 ranking for best ranked IR website in North America (2009) and best online annual report in North America (2008), along with best IR website as ranked by technical criteria in North America (2008), and best IR website in Canada by technical criteria (2008).

“We strive to be a leader in our ongoing communication with investors,” says Lyle Krahn, Cameco’s director of external communications. “We rely on zu’s knowledge, advice and expertise to achieve that goal with our website. The awards reflect our combined efforts.”

PotashCorp reloaded and relaunched this year with a complete redesign and reengineering of their website. The new site features a  DataTool that allows users to easily find historical market and company information, and a library to access a range of documents in one convenient location. The focus on ease of navigation and simplified usability was spurred by feedback collected from investors. In past years PotashCorp has taken home IR Global Rankings awards including Best Online Annual Report in North America (2009), Best IR Website in the Basic Materials industry (2006), and Top 4 for Best Earnings Releases and Disclosure Procedures in North America (2006).

“At PotashCorp we focus on clear, transparent and timely disclosure,” says Denita Stann, senior director of investor relations with PotashCorp. “Our website is an important part of our communication strategy, and zu’s expertise and vision has been a key part of our success.”

“It is extremely rewarding for our team at zu to see the accolades our clients receive from everyone’s hard work,” commented Lejbak. “We are very proud of the work Cameco and PotashCorp have done and believe they will remain leaders in online Investor Relations for many years to come.”

About the IR Gobal Rankings
The annual IR Global Rankings and Awards survey is the most comprehensive auditing and ranking system for IR websites, corporate governance practices and financial disclosure procedures – a great opportunity to benchmark IR efforts vis-à-vis peers and industry leaders. Based on extensive proprietary research of publicly held companies and investors, and supported by input from independent audit, corporate governance and legal experts, MZ’s methodology is highly detailed, transparent and fully accessible to all participants.

Anyways, it turns out the most successful companies deliver an “experience”, in addition to whatever else they are doing. (So please take that as a given or go to the MX conference for yourself). The main dividing point in how brands or companies deliver an experience to their clients is whether it is delivered in a ‘prescriptive’ way or in an ‘adaptive’ way. The former is how Disneyland presents their experience of ‘Magic’: “come here and we do it to you”. On the other end of the scale is Harley Davidson: “Buy this and become a modern day rebel” (instructions not included).

Now, many investors, especially more advanced ones, have a planned experience in mind when they hit your site. With mathematical formulas and ratios set to plug in your numbers, these investors use an adaptive approach to create their own experience using materials you passively provide. Most websites will support this type of experience by default with their filing cabinet of materials.

But can your website provide a ‘prescriptive’ experience? Is your website empathetic enough to less prepared visitors to consider how the parts go together to tell a story? Do you provide instructions and strategy to relate the various departments, performance measures, and operations into a cohesive whole? Or will your site come off as a poorly coordinated set of activities and assets, a somehow-successful holding company communicating little sense of priority, direction or focus to the whole enterprise. While the evidence is there, the vision that unites the actions will rarely be realized by chance without empathy for the naiveté of first time visitors. And everyone who owns you was once a first time investor.

While the big picture view may be found in areas of investor relations ‘magic’, such as a CEO’s speech, the greater whole is an unscripted landscape, good for adaptable experiences and poor for the uninitiated.

I’m thinking of an investor-oriented website as a new kind of taco bar, where all the ingredients are laid out, each in their little bowls and serving dishes; it might be delicious, but I’m unsure how to put it together. How does this work? How do other people do this? What is the key to understanding this? I might be fine after I get through it the first time, but I frankly need some prescriptive advice to get the most out of what is being offered.

So please feel empathy toward your first time potential investors, and make sure they enjoy themselves and don’t feel like goofs trying to figure out why you’re worthwhile eating, I mean buying.

In addition to the Overall Award of Excellence, PotashCorp walked away with the awards for Excellence in Financial Reporting, Excellence in Electronic Disclosure and an Award of Excellence for the mining sector. In addition, they collected the Honourable Mention for Excellence in Sustainable Development Reporting.

We’re proud to be an interactive provider for PotashCorp, working closely with local communications firm, Creative Fire. Go team!

Also, big shout out to TransCanada for taking home the Award of Excellence in the real estate/utilities and pipelines industry category.

The CICAs
The Chartered Accountants of Canada Corporate Reporting Awards  is the only national awards program that recognizes excellence and best practices in corporate reporting. Now in its 58th year, the CRA presents awards for excellence in financial reporting, corporate governance disclosure, electronic disclosure and sustainable development reporting.

For starters,  communicators should respect the new ways audiences interact and meet them on their own terms. And frankly, most companies that put Social Media in such high regard is really questionable, given their handling of Web 1.0.

Remember that one? Publishing good content in HTML?

A good example of these forgotten basics in the Investor Relations world is the handling of annual reports online. Even though this is the Internet, where folks like to use their browsers to read, search, enlarge, bookmark, copy and paste, enjoy rich media, interactive elements, light boxes, related information–many companies are deciding that the LEAST they can do in meeting the expectations of their online audience is the right choice, and so provide only lifeless PDFs or freakish custom viewers designed by print publishing houses.

Perhaps social media is the answer! Perhaps all will be made well by Twittering about a recent posting of some required filing in PDF format, or blogging about their uninspiring filing-cabinet-of-a-website. “Web 1.0 is dead! Long live social media!”

Excuse me if skip the parade, I have to get back to working on Web 1.0.

twitpitch: Get back to basics of Web 1.0 before you invest in social media.@zutweets @tonyzuck shares insights for publishing good #IR content online.

Register for the webcast replay

Read our Q&A transcript summary from this live webcast event to learn how to get more from your IR budget and transform your online annual report into an effective communication piece.

1. Is there a role for web 2.0 or social media in online annual reports and are there some examples you can share?

Dominic: I don’t have any examples that spring to mind but there are a handful of companies that are trying to engage their shareholders in discussion with a feedback form. There’s a lot of opportunity for social media in OAR. Think about using a video that might accompany a CEO Letter. You can use social bookmarking  for your OAR publicly and you can widgetize your reports and make them shareable. The reality is, there is going to be discussion about your annual report, whether you like it or not. It will happen on your site or off your site.

2. How long do you see annual reports and sustainability reports existing separately?

Tim: This is a good question and one we consider all the time. Every company has a different view, but from our perspective they are different reports, different users, and different time frames. Sustainability information is not available at the same time our annual report is released. Although we produce a summary manual we separate them. The user experience is different, too. If we did it all in print it would be trashed—no one wants to read a 200-page book anymore.

3. What is the use of videos in OAR and is there an opportunity for an OAR to be exclusively in video only?

Kate: Absolutely not. You want to provide your reporting information in as many different ways—that’s the point of the web—you need to give users options. The user might want to watch a video or download a pdf—let them do that. Barclays Annual Report provides a very good example of custom video just for their OAR; there is a section that includes six to seven speakers.

4. Regarding concepts of engagement in a sustainability report. Do you think companies always need to produce a complete printed report?

Tim: We look at who our primary users are. We have about 90% institutional shareholders. Our European base is far more concerned about sustainability than our North American shareholder base. As a trend, sustainability reports are becoming increasingly important for investors. Our perception studies show that investors think we are doing a good job in sustainability; we do focus on our user but we cannot plan our IR program around a very small portion of potential users. We still print a summary report but there is cost benefit for us to publish online.

5. What is your opinion on putting videos on YouTube? Are there any issues of disclosure?

Dominic: I don’t see any issues. As long as you enable people to share and interact. YouTube is also cheap.

6. As far as someone getting started with producing on OAR, what are the basics for functionality?

Dominic: As per my presentation, these are the minimum requirements:  HTML, searchable and print-friendly.

7. How big is the IR team at PotashCorp and how do you manage the process of producing so many online reports?

Tim: We have a small team and draw on additional support. One of the best things about PotashCorp is that everyone gets involved in disclosure. We have great support from the legal and financial side. We only produce one OAR a year so it isn’t that many to manage. As far as our overall focus is concerned we rely heavily on our investor relations team. It takes a lot of responsibility and we rely heavily on Creative Fire, zu and one or two other key players.

8. How about doing OAR for your mobile devices?

Kate: I think this is a forward-thinking question given the majority of people aren’t quite on the web properly. I think it’s important to get online first in the appropriate way we’ve discussed today. I would look at having an IR mobile site which has your stock price and news feeds for easy access. A mobile device has it’s own rules and limitations and it needs to read from a special browser script to display properly. Get your corporate site on your mobile device first then worry about your AR for mobile. I would challenge everybody to check out their own website on a mobile device.

At first the IR lingo whizzed past my head like speeding bullets: 10K, the Wrapper, Annual Review, SEC regulations, XBRL, and stock quotes. More and more details from legal, Investor Relations and corporate branding would come pouring in. These documents are not to be taken lightly, nor the team involved. Every collaborator deals with extreme pressure to perform and deliver a report better than the last.

The annual report is a magnificent piece, articulately composed like a symphony. Every number, every note, every photo, every letter, every sentence, every punctuation mark is reviewed over and over until it is perfect. Only to be witnessed for the first time at opening night.

But time again the grand performance ends for me, abruptly. I want the show to continue the symphony on my player, the Internet. When I am presented with only one fomat—a PDF print format—I don’t want to download anything. I want both. I want to witness it now, not later. I want to search and bookmark float from Financials to MD&A in any order I wish. Does this seem like a wild request for navigating an annual report—online?

Annual reports converted into online masterpiece are sometimes perceived as a luxury item. But based on best practices online annual reports are no longer a luxury, they are a standard. You might be surprised how affordable an entry-level model can be.

At our upcoming webinar on September 24th, I’m going to present online options every Investor can consider by breaking it down into small, medium and large budget categories. In the meantime, I would like to get your feedback about your experiences with online annual reports. Please post your comments in this blog or you can reach me on twitter @katregnier.

Register for our webcast.

twitpitch: Convert your #annualreport into an online symphony. @zutweets @katregnier shares IR insights http://bit.ly/1eaBZW

Ryan Lejbak will engage in a brief discussion on utilizing social media to augment your current communications plan without costs and with limited time investment.

Register for the  webcast replay.

Value
Given reduced budgets and tighter cash flow at most companies this year it was understandable that attendance at both conferences was at its lowest in years. NIRI had around 700 attendees and CIRI had about 200. The proportion of vendors to IR professionals was fairly high since the drop in IR professionals was more pronounced than the drop in vendors. I believe the lower attendance has both pros and cons; on the pro side it makes for a more intimate experience and the people attending are serious about being there due to having to justify the expense; on the con side there is less opportunity for networking and the challenges for vendors like zu are obvious (we made the most of our investment by pre-booking as many meetings as possible anticipating exhibit hall traffic would be fair at best).

Both conferences shared some similar topics but due to NIRI’s larger size they had the edge over CIRI because of more sessions on more topics. After what has been a bitter winter and cold spring in most of Canada, I think most would agree going to south Florida outweighs the cool Canadian west coast. Given the larger breadth of learning opportunities and chance to soak up some sun I found it most surprising that attending NIRI was cheaper than CIRI. If I had the choice to only go to only one conference based on budget, the decision would be simple. In fact, there were a number of eastern Canadian IR professionals attending NIRI for this exact reason—value for the money. Early bird registration and exhibit fees were lower at NIRI compared to CIRI (excluding exchange rate).

Relevance
I was thankful for the handful of sessions that were provided at both NIRI and CIRI regarding web disclosure and technology; they also appeared well-attended. But as far as the importance of the conferences and the opportunity they provided attendees, I think both suffered from a lack of interesting program offerings. I’m biased, but I think the recent events surrounding web disclosure, XBRL, and the evolving role of media to engage investors more effectively by better utilizing technology could have been better addressed. I noticed a large shift moving to the IRO’s responsibility as the Internet’s role regarding real-time information distribution becomes more powerful. There is an increased sense of urgency for IR professionals to deal with issues along with more and more regulations that are counter productive to being more responsive. It’s a difficult position to be in and traditional methods of communications may no longer suffice. The need to be transparent, provide investor’s value by being a resource, and taking a proactive, progressive approach with communications are key to gaining the trust of investors and good fodder for session topics.

Aside from the conferences’ agenda, I think that on-demand access to information via webcasts, local chapter events, and accessibility of information on the Internet is making the attendance to physical conferences less important. In order for these conferences to attract attendees, I think not only will the economy need to improve but both NIRI and CIRI will need to reconsider the value they provide and the format it is delivered in.

Summary
Given the size and location, I would tip my hat to NIRI09 as the more valuable and relevant of the two conferences. That said, I have a soft spot for my domestic associations and I appreciated the intimacy of CIRI09 and the quality of the conversations we had. We have more awareness and established relationships in the Canadian market so I’m sure this helped immensely, whereas we were only on our second date with the US market [she’s a bit reluctant, having just come out of a bad relationship, figuratively speaking]. Overall, I am confident both associations will make adjustments to attract back attendees by offering more value and providing more thought provoking topics in new and interesting ways. Afterall, the times they are a changin’.

• The financial crisis is the biggest concern with uncertainty, and optimism, about how the fed is “mostly getting it right” on steering the economy though the recession, though the increased direct government involvement seems a little out of character for the country
• XBRL seems to be gaining speed with useful readers and other technologies beginning to appear, reminding us all that the other supplementary material on the website that provides story, strategy and leadership personality should be enhanced
• The sell-side seems to be shrinking in influence as online commentators and other media personalities take an every larger roll in communicating to retail investors, of whom more and more seek investment strategies, and of course invest, online
• Social media is emerging as a way to conduct “continuous investor sentiment analysis”, and can forewarn IROs of stock-moving rumours, that many (and us) suggest should be addressed in those same online media
• And, after completing many free website audits for IR effectiveness, we have to say: most investor websites do not do a good of job of communicating as websites should and can: unifying ideas such as the value proposition, outlook and strategy are done better in non-website materials, such as speeches, annual reports, and conference calls. Filing cabinet-style sites dominate.

I found that one of the hot topics at NIRI09 was the role of social media in IR. We would like to continue the social media conversation with you and invite you to join us in a live webcast on July 16th, featuring our own social media evangelist, CEO Ryan Lejbak, who will take you on a tour across various social media platforms and demonstrate techniques IR professionals can use. This webcast will reveal the steps you should take on your own to begin to monitor, participate and engage investors. Look for your email invitation in the coming weeks.

I hope you enjoyed NIRI09 as much as we did. Check out our blog for regular IR industry updates.

Over the past few years, we have watched (and assisted) PotashCorp switch from a “Print First” to “Web First” strategy for their often award-winning materials. And the 2008 report titled, “More per acre… the sustainable solution“, was conceived and designed first as an online document. A PDF summary is also offered for those with money to burn on inkjet cartridges, or Kindles.

The sustainability report, including historical data was built around Global Reporting Initiative recommendations. It uses the same programming standards found in their online annual report and so opens in its own microsite—just how website users like it and how this premium web content oughta be.

Of course, not many companies tell the company story, or describe their plans for the future, or describe their sustainability efforts, better. And that makes the web presentation so much stronger.

Congrats to all involved on this one!