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Perhaps I am too close to it (yes, way too close), but what is the appropriate measure to determine whether a conference was worth its salt? To me, the most important measure is the feedback we receive from attendees. So far, feedback from our three Conferences has been very positive – but we’re always looking to improve; please feel free to email me with any criticism you might have. [I feel the same way about our sites; we can only improve if we know what you are looking for.]

Another measure – albeit far less important than the attendee’s experience – is whether the conference received any media coverage. In this category, some of our speakers indeed created some news – the NY Times ran an article based on coverage of our Conferences on no less than three days! And other reporters told me that our Conferences continue to be on their “must attend” list for the content they hear and contacts they make. Here are links to the NY Times articles:

– Comp consultant Ira Kay and our own Jesse Brill discussed a variety of executive compensation practices during several panels of the “4th Annual Executive Compensation Conference”: see Saturday’s article entitled “What if C.E.O. Pay Is Fair?”

– SEC Enforcement Director Linda Chatman Thomsen discussed 10b5-1 plans during her keynote and the succesive panel on those plans: see Thursday’s article entitled “Stock Sales by Chief of Lender Questioned”

– SEC Corp Fin Director John White’s keynote analyzed executive compensation disclosures under the new SEC rules: see Wednesday’s article entitled “S.E.C. Finds Fault on Pay Disclosures”

Of course, the sheer number of attendees is another indicator of a conference’s success. In that department, the result continues to be overwhelming. We had over 2400 in San Francisco (we pulled off a nice wave cheer before Wednesday’s plenary session), with another 3500 online.

Status of Shareholder Access: Open Commission Meeting Soon?

With over 20,000 comment letters in (many of them “form” letters), the SEC appears to be set to hold an open Commission meeting sometime in November to consider at least some of the shareholder access ideas floated this summer. According to a Dow Jones article from last week, SEC Chairman Cox wants some rules in place for next proxy season – here is an excerpt from that article:

“Cox has said that he favored the second approach, under which investors with a 5% stake in a company for at least one year could propose changing bylaws in a way that would allow shareholder-backed candidates to appear on corporate proxy ballots. But the departure of one Democratic commissioner and the planned departure of the other may complicate matters.”

Here is a NY Times article from Sunday – and here is an article from the RiskMetric’s Governance Blog about the future on nonbinding proposals.

An Opportunity to Comment on RiskMetric’s ’08 Proxy Policies

Yesterday, RiskMetrics (formerly known as ISS) put up its “Request for Comment” tool for a number of potential modifications to its policies for 2008. Take advantage of this opportunity to influence these important proxy voting policies through an easy-to-use online form. This year, the topics include:

– Aggressive Accounting Practices (U.S.)
– Cumulative Voting (U.S.)
– Director Attendance (Japan)
– Independent Chair (U.S.)
– Non-Employee Director Limit on Equity Plan Participation (Canada)
– Stock Options for Non-Executive Directors (Belgium and the Netherlands)
– Poor Pay Practices (U.S.)
– Stock Option Overhang in ISS Governance Services’ Binomial Option Pricing (“SVT”) Model (U.S.)
– Say on Pay – Principles for Evaluating Remuneration (U.S. and International)
– Product Safety (U.S.)

– Broc Romanek