Entre Les Murs

XBRL for Breakfast

This morning I attended a breakfast presentation uptown.  The presentation was on the subject of XBRL (and was hosted by Edgar Online, my attendance facilitated by a friend of Janet's who works there), an XML standard for financial documents.  Not something you care about unless you're an accountant or a company officer; but since regulators worldwide are embracing it, including a little belatedly the SEC, if you are one of those things, you're going to start caring about it quite a bit.  I was there partly for networking, but mostly because it's an interesting XML standard that has the potential to precipitate significant changes to the way things are done in public companies.  I got interested in the area in 2002, but it was almost too early to be working with it then; now the standard is so mature and the tools getting so complete that it may already be too late for the innovative work.


It was held at the University Club, at 5th Ave. and 54th St., a very nice neighbourhood, near the Park and the Upper East Side.  I've always liked the University Club in Toronto, but the New York version made ours look like a mud hut.

posted 18.10.07