We hear a lot of talk about Web 2.0, but has the financial sector even got to Web 1.0, really? Lets take two key things: first, that data interchange should be rich, and second that everything important should be identified. But unless there is an accounting standards emphasis towards objective valuation, we can have all the good standards for financial data interchange we like, and it we won’t have reduced society’s risk nor improved evidence-based management.

Publicly-traded companies spend enormous energies, resources, and dollars to get their financial reports out the door, only to see them pop up on the portal in simplified formats that don’t tell the story accurately. So getting the ‘canonical’ rendering into the hands of the consuming stakeholders is an important aspect of financial report. In the Internet age, it’s all about getting the ‘eyeballs on the glass’ approach - aka what our computer screens show us is what we believe, and enabling the applications we use to consume this content accurately is the key to successful business decisions. The XBRL technical community has addressed this issue in three approaches - presentation linkbases, iXBRL, and rendering linkbases.

Resources for web designers are hardly scarce. Get subscribing to RSS feeds, get a good selection of favourite sites with regular news and tutorials and visit them regularly. I make an effort to spend a good 30-40 minutes (more if I get to the office early) every morning checking my feeds and bookmarking new sites full of inspiration.

Last year, Common Craft produced a great, short video explaining RSS “in plain English.” The company is back now with another wonderful one.

Subscribe to RSS FeedBarack Obama’s Religionon October 31st, 2008 by DeanI don’t think it goes without reason, that despite the hullabaloo made over Barack Obama’s affiliation with Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Barack Obama’s religious faith is wearing well with an increasing segment of America’s population.

If you’re used to Googling yourself the old-fashioned way – you know, through the search engine – a new feature could make your life a little more convenient. You can now get Google Alerts – automatic notifications when specific keywords are mentioned anywhere on the Web – delivered to you via RSS.