Good judgment comes from experience. Unfortunately, as the writer and Emmy-nominated screenwriter Rita Mae Brown once noted, experience often comes from bad judgment.
That comic yet tortuous circle of knowledge has actually played a role in Compliance Week’s conference strategy.
For the last six years, we’ve tried to create events that offer experience without Brown’s requisite bad judgment; or, more accurately, we’ve attempted to develop forums that leverage other companies’ experiences. Our annual conferences, for example, have showcased the experiences of compliance officers at Google, Yahoo, HP, GE, Starbucks, Pfizer, PepsiCo, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Coca-Cola, Sprint, McDonald’s, Intel, Boeing, Fannie Mae, Altria, Ford, BP, Office Depot, Wal-Mart, and dozens of other leading public companies. By hearing what works (and what doesn't) for those executives, our conference attendees can absorb performance comparables that they can use when developing, reviewing, or benchmarking their own programs and policies.
Our next event is no different.
On Wednesday, Nov. 19, Compliance Week will host an “XBRL Primer” on the dramatic 40th floor of the New York Academy of Sciences in New York City.
As most Compliance Week readers know by now, the Securities and Exchange Commission will require public companies to provide financial information using interactive data—officially known as eXtensible Business Reporting Language, or XBRL—beginning in 2009 for the largest companies and within three years for all public companies. Our one-day XBRL Primer will not only help attendees understand the new requirements, it will also offer lessons from companies already filing XBRL reports as part of the SEC’s voluntary filing program.
By offering the valuable insights of public company executives currently filing reports using XBRL, attendees will be able to understand what the process actually entails, how long it might take, how much it might cost, and more. And that’s information financial reporting executives are going to need. XBRL compliance won’t be as complicated as Sarbanes-Oxley (hallelujah!), but it will be a formidable undertaking the first time around.
What’s more, participants in the SEC’s pilot program all say there are many different ways to achieve XBRL compliance. Those companies not yet experimenting with XBRL—and that’s most of you—will need to find your own way to solve your own XBRL compliance challenges. We at Compliance Week don’t profess to know the best answer, but we will put a lot of possible answers in front of you during our XBRL Primer.
Our speakers, including chief accounting officers and XBRL project leaders at companies like Comcast and Xerox, will focus on lessons they learned while participating in the SEC’s voluntary XBRL filing program. What pitfalls should be avoided? What outsourcing partners were helpful? What might others consider as they start their own XBRL journey? And what do they wish they knew before they started?
By learning from their experiences, perhaps we’ll be able to achieve Rita Mae Brown’s sense of knowledge without the pain that sometimes accompanies wisdom.
We hope you will consider joining us for Compliance Week’s “XBRL Primer,” which takes place Wednesday, November 19, on the 40th floor of The New York Academy of Sciences in New York City. Details are at http://xbrl.complianceweek.com, along with an agenda, speaker biographies, CPE information, and a registration form. We hope to see you there.
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