Michael Doan

There’s a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson that I use to include in my email signature block:

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.

I’ve always interpreted “plain dealing” to include plain English which is very difficult to find in business writing. Most people writing for corporations (and accounting firms) are busy translating plain English in to nonsensical corporate speak. An example of this can be found in the recently leaked Yahoo! memo. I stumbled onto this memo from a G+ link. I could only read about three paragraphs of the memo before I gave up and commented “TL;DR” ¹ on G+.

John Gruber’s take on the memo, which I agree with:

[It] reads like something that was written in English, translated to another language by a computer, then translated back from that language to the bureaucratic dialect of English.

The end result is that many words were used to say absolutely nothing.

It must be a badge of honor to write long rambling emails in the corporate world. Perhaps the thought is length equates to thoughtfulness². However, the opposite is true. The thoughtful writer is brief and “omit needless words”. From Strunk & White ³:

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all sentences short, or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every world tell.

Contrast the Yahoo! memo to Steve Jobs’s resignation letter, reproduced in its entirety:

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Steve

Jobs’s letter doesn’t have any corporate speak or buzzwords. There are no unnecessary words or sentences. No one has to read a sentence twice to untangle the string of words to reveal its meaning. The message is concise because it was written in plain English by a human.

This morning I dropped my dog off to the vet for his regular teeth cleaning. Another customer was there for the same service for her dog. The technician helping me stood behind the counter and asked me to complete the form with my phone number and to sign the authorization/release form.

The technician helping the other customer, sat down next to the customer, asked for the customer’s phone number and the technician filled out the form with the phone number. The customer was then given the form to sign.

Both technicians were friendly and pleasant. Both technicians requested the same information from their customers. Both transactions took the same amount of time.

But, there was a difference. As I walked out, I felt that the other customer got the better service. This feeling was hinged on the fact that the other technician sat down next to her customer and wrote down the phone number instead of asking the customer to do it (saving the customer the trouble of writing). It was an extra level of customer care that was so slight that it’s hardly noticeable.

It seems silly, but that slight difference mattered¹. We don’t think they matter until we are witness to the difference. It’s all the little things that add up to create a great customer experience.

To further it’s mission to protect investors, the SEC turns to social media to spread the word. In this interview Mark Story, the SEC’s director of new media, explains how the SEC uses social media.

Tools like Twitter, YouTube , a mobile site and an investor-focused microsite enable us to put important information where our stakeholders “live” online, using tools that spread our reach beyond the SEC website.

The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert — in anything. In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again…no one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.

With all the posts I’ve been doing recently about the SEC, it must have been fate that I shared the same dining room at lunch today with former SEC Chairman Christopher Cox. We were a couple of tables apart, but that’s the closest I ever want to be to anyone or anything related to the SEC.

Lake Forest man uses fake tax theories to get tax refunds for his clients:

Cao used a theory called “redemption” or “commercial redemption” – which prosecutors called a “rejected tax defier theory.” This theory claims that the U.S. Treasury keeps millions in a secret treasury account for each taxpayer. The secret account can be used to pay a taxpayer’s debts and tax liabilities if a taxpayer sends the IRS and banks certain documents, the theory goes. “Cao’s theory is complete fiction,” the complaint reads.

I am pretty sure that his clients didn’t pay too much for his valuable tax advice. You get what you pay for.

I once reviewed my parents’ tax return which was prepared by some hack with an office and a computer with tax software installed. I’m not a tax CPA, but I’m pretty sure that it’s not a good idea to tell married couples to fraudulently file as “single”.

The Corporate & Securities Law blog has a great summary on how the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Proctection Act will affect the definition of “accredited investor”. The pertinent points are below:

• Net worth of $1 million excludes the value of the investor’s primary residence.
• The SEC can revise the definition for the first four years following enactment of the act.
• Within the next four years the definition of accredited investor must include an increase to the net worth threshold.
• SEC is required to review the definition of net worth every four years.
• the net worth amount will not be go below a $1 million floor.

Now that the Dodd-Frank bill has been signed into law, issuers of asset-back bonds are required to disclose their credit rankings in their regulatory filings. Credit rating agencies like Moody’s are not happy about this because it subjects them to expert liability , “meaning that they would face the same legal risks as accountants and other parties that participate in bond sales.” Issuers were not able to obtain ratings for inclusion in their flings wit the SEC so the SEC granted issuers a waiver for six months which allows time for implementation of the law.

The article briefly mentions that issuers will consider an alternatives to this a law by using Rule 144a but doesn’t adequately explain what 144a is. A good explanation of 144a is here.