Communicating With Shareholders During These Challenging Times

Stocks dropped today for the 8th straight trading day, and the Dow is down 25% over that period. The up and down swings in the market are enough to make any investor queasy, and no one knows where the bottom is. Now, more than ever, IROs need to be communicating with shareholders to let them know what is going on. The institutions have an IRO's ear already, so how does an IRO communicate effectively and efficiently to a large retail shareholder base?

There is no better time for companies with large and/or active retail shareholder bases to consider implementing Web 2.0 technology to engage in a dialogue. Electronic shareholder forums, in particular, are taylor made to help a company quickly communicate to large groups of shareholders. "Democratization" of shareholder information is available today through this technology. eShareholderForum (http://www.eshareholderforum.com) is a turnkey Shareholder Communications Platform that companies should strongly consider utilizing. Message boards, blogs, polling and Q&A all give retail shareholders an opportunity to find out from the company what is going on. No wonder there is so much interest!

iMiners to Present at NIRI SF Luncheon

On October 14 I'll be on a panel at the San Francisco NIRI luncheon, with the topic being "Electronic Shareholder Forums and Blogs". Joining me will be Abe Wischnia, IR Consultant for our first eShareholderForum client, Oxygen Biotherapeutics. This is a great opportunity for us to discuss the topic of e-forums to a wide audience of IROs in the Bay Area! For more details see: http://acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaID=168239

ev3, Inc. Goes Live with Press Releases By Type

ev3, Inc. is based in Plymouth, MN and uses Thomson Reuters for hosting their IR site. See iMiners' "Press Releases By Type" page seamlessly integrated into their site:
http://ir.ev3.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=189608&p=prtype

According to their IR home page: http://ir.ev3.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=189608&p=irol-irhome "Press Releases" are one of the most frequently visited sections of the site. So no surprise that ev3 immediately saw the value in having their news releases organized into categories.....

Compliance Week Writes About eShareholderForum

On September 23 there was a feature article in Compliance Week about electronic shareholder forums, and iMiners was featured prominently with several quotes. The story talked about how companies have been slow to adopt e-forums, but our position is that it just hasn't happened, yet! eShareholderForum was just announced 90 days ago, so many companies don't even know about us. But we know they are out there, companies who are looking for new ways to communicate with shareholders, but wondering HOW they'll do it? They are thinking of how they can possibly get internal tech resources to build something for them. But once they find out about eShareholderForum they will realize that their problem has been solved. eShareholderForum can immediately provide them with a turnkey solution: message boards, blogs, Q&A, and polling. And controls from an Admin interface to control who can post, ask questions, comment etc. There's no need for any company to try to build a solution. We've got you covered. Go to http://www.eshareholderforum.com for more information and to request a demonstration.

What Do the Lawyers Think of Electronic Shareholder Forums?

I enjoyed reading a recent article written by Brendan J. Radigan, a Partner at the law firm Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge. It's titled "Is Social Networking With Shareholders Safe", and addresses head-on concerns that companies might have regarding setting up electronic shareholder forums. We've seen the SEC encouraging companies to implement e-forums, so now it is refreshing to see a legal opinion also promoting the benefits for companies and shareholders (while at the same time, advising companies of where they need to be cautious).

I especially like Brendan's conclusion: "If thoughtfully structured and operated, a public company's electronic shareholder forum could provide an exciting addition to its investor relations program. Promotion of social networking by, with and among shareholders could well provide a public company, particularly one operating in a fast-moving technology field, with an innovative and cutting-edge way of distinguishing itself from its peers and competitors."

iMiners Continues Strong Momentum!

eShareholderForum continues to generate a tremendous amount of interest: Next month Abe Wischnia (IR Consultant for our first client, Oxygen Biotherapeutics) and I will be organizing a panel discussion for the San Francisco NIRI luncheon (topic will be "Electronic Shareholder Forums and Blogs"). We'll also have a feature story in an upcoming issue of IR Update. And this week I was interviewed by Compliance Week for an upcoming column on e-forums. Finally, PR pundit, best-selling author, and speaker David Meerman Scott blogged about us last week:
http://www.webinknow.com/2008/09/social-media-fi.html

It's been only about 90 days since the NIRI Annual conference in San Diego. It's very exciting to reflect back on the tremendous amount of progress we've made in such a short period of time: Starting to build a sales team, signing reseller agreements, getting lots of PR, enhancing our products, and finally, growing our client base! We are all looking forward to what we can accomplish in the next 90 days, and the 90 days after that!

Here Come the E-Forums!

It was nice to see we got a couple of mentions from some well followed IR bloggers regarding eShareholderForum in the past couple of days. Broc Romanek of TheCorporateCounsel.net and InvestorRelationships.com mentioned us in his 9/4 post called "Here Come the E-Forums" here: http://www.thecorporatecounsel.net/blog/archive/001888.html

Also, Anil Dilawri of Hill & Knowlton in Canada has an IR blog called "Taking Investor Relations to the Next Level", and his 9/3 post called "Not Your Father's IR Department" was about iMiners and eShareholderForum: http://blogs.hillandknowlton.com/blogs/anildilawri/archive/2008/09/03/not-your-father-s-ir-department.aspx

Lastly, and most significantly, we have been asked to participate in InvestorRelationships.com's January webcast event titled "The SEC's New Corporate Website Guidance: Everything You Need to Know – And Do NOW". I'll be contributing to a panel discussion with other experts and pioneers in the area of e-forums and blogging, including the Dell IR team, an IRO from Cisco, and representatives from ISS and Broadridge. The session is called "The Future is Here: E-Forums and Blogs". Go here http://www.investorrelationships.com/webcast/2009/01_14.htm and scroll to the bottom of the page to see the panel participants.

In summary, you'll be continuing to hear about iMiners and eShareholderForum in coming weeks and months. As Anil says in his 9/3 blog post "Leaders in the IR space are already blazing trails when it comes to evolving their investor communications practices to include meaningful and innovative digital communications. The followers are bound to follow."