Financial Communications: Not Everything's a Show

As the first quarter draws to a close, I'm reflecting on how best to communicate Verizon's earnings results in the simplest, most direct way. The format for our 1Q disclosure becomes the de-facto template for the year and, these days, one year is a very long time -- considering the sea change in the way companies now report results.

It began inauspiciously as a live mic caught CEO Marissa Mayer calling the on-hold music for Yahoo's 4Q 2012 earnings conference call "garbage." Two quarters later, Yahoo's earnings call became a video production, and Netflix followed suit with its own video featuring questions from a CNBC journalist.

Since then, seemingly anything goes. And it begs the question: do investors, analysts and financial media really need to be engaged... or simply informed?

There are billions of dollars at stake when companies disclose financials. It impacts investments that support pension plans, college savings, the ability to buy a home or the ability to provide care for an aging parent.

This is real life. Not everything's a show.

And yet... not everything should be a boring news release either. Just two months after watching Yahoo and Netflix executives discuss financials on YouTube, I found myself sitting in an auditorium of Verizon employees in Basking Ridge, NJ. We were waiting for CEO Lowell McAdam to appear on stage to talk about Verizon's then-just-announced plan to purchase Vodafone's stake in Verizon Wireless -- for $130 billion.

The room was full of electricity. Blaring from the professional sound system was Jack White's awesome cover of Little Willie John's "I'm Shakin."

The person sitting next to me leaned over and asked, in all earnestness, "What time does the show start?"

Romance in New York

Pictured here is a street scene on my way to last night’s Inner Circle dinner – New York City Hall’s equivalent to the White House Correspondents Dinner. Journalists poked fun at Mayor de Blasio all night, and he responded by good-naturedly poking fun at himself. 

One sketch, modeled after “The Honeymooners,” ended with him kissing his wife Chirlane and proclaiming, “Baby, you’re the greatest!” It was nearly midnight – and the drunk, boisterous, black-tie crown reacted with an audible, unaffected sigh.

The Myth of No Corporate Taxes

This post originally appeared on Verizon's Public Policy blog site:

Verizon filed its 10K at the SEC last night. It’s available here – all 92,611 words.

Several years ago, when I took on responsibilities for Verizon financial communications, a senior accountant advised me that all information of relevance to an investor is contained in the company’s 10K filing.

“There’s not a question you’ll be asked this year where the answer won’t be found somewhere in the 10K,” she advised.

She was right. I’ve come to view these filings as the corporate version of an AMA, with every bit of information that’s disclosed having been personally attested to, under force of law, by the CEO and CFO -- and independently audited.

So how much does Verizon pay in taxes?

Search the company’s 10K for the number “3,786” and you will land on a table showing that Verizon paid nearly $3.8 billion in taxes in 2013 -- $422 million in income taxes, $1.282 billion in employment taxes, and $2.082 billion in property and other taxes.

This is the disclosure of cash taxes paid by Verizon last year. It’s the total of everything – the net amount after any and all pluses and minuses – in the more than 140,000 tax compliance filings that Verizon made in 2013. That’s about 6,000 income tax filings in various jurisdictions, and 135,000 property tax and other tax-compliance filings.

If you’d like more information, please see the more-detailed information in Verizon’s 10K, or the one-page summary posted here [PDF].

Pre-Christmas in Suburbia

The past two weeks have been strange and wonderful in New Milford, NJ.

It all started on "Small Business Saturday," a nationwide marketing event designed to be the antidote to the packed shopping malls on Black Friday.

Good idea. But, no joke, my hometown decided to post its "Welcome to the Neighborhood" Small Business Saturday banner on the local funeral parlor.

Then last week I was invited to a business meeting where the dress code was "business jeans." I shudder at the thought.

Finally, after last night's bitter cold, I awoke this Friday the 13th to the sound of something scurrying behind our bedroom walls.

"It's elves," my wife whispered. We're eternal optimists.

My wife dressed warmly for work, topping it off with a Notre Dame pullover.

"It's dress-down day," she explained.

"When you wear Notre Dame gear," I corrected her, "it's actually dress-UP day."

It's evening now, and she's attending a grade-school holiday show. She just texted me that she's coming home early: "I leave when 11 years olds sing 'All I want for Christmas Is You'!"

I told her not to worry, that they were no doubt singing it to Jesus.

The Folly of The Follies

Here are photos from last night's 2013 Financial Follies, a benefit dinner and satirical show organized by the NYFWA (New York Financial Writers Association) at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. That's me on the bottom right, with Verizon colleague Ray McConville. I've been going for a few years, and I'm always amazed when journalists who choose not to attend simply trash the event and everything about it. Some of the Twitter comments this year were (surprise) mean-spirited. And yet, the many people who attend the event always have fun.

It's not the show -- although last year there was an entertaining rendition of "It's Raining Yen" -- it's just the energy there... and the setting (always the Friday night before Thanksgiving, seemingly always the second busiest night in Times Square)... and all the people... and ALL the laughter.

It all reminds me of the scene in "Hannah and Her Sisters" when Woody Allen's character finds meaning in his life after he wanders into a Marx Brothers movie. In just that way, my annual ticket to the Financial Follies has become my personal "Duck Soup."  Very uncool of me, I know. But just let me enjoy the show.

Life Was Easier When I Knew Everything

When I first joined NYNEX, there was a hard-drinking PR pro who headed media relations: Jack Fallon. He was Tony Pappas' boss, and he soon retired... so I only got to meet him once. It was a breakfast for new hires arranged by Ted Federici, and I remember that morning the bus from Bogota (where Nancy and I lived at the time) was stuck in traffic for nearly an hour. So, even though I always arrived at work early, I arrived at this breakfast gathering a few minutes late.

I received a withering stare from Mr. Fallon, and an admonition later from Mr. Federici that it would have been better not to have shown up at all rather than to have arrived late. But I don't remember being too concerned about this, or being too impressed by Jack Fallon... after all, I was young and already knew everything.

For example, I knew that my Dad had worked with Fallon, and that he had been a reporter before joining the Bell System as a PR executive. Also, just a few months ago, John Bonomo passed along a note that Fallon had died at the age of 89.

Fast forward to earlier tonight. Nancy and I were watching a great PBS special on the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. It focused on the inner workings of the news coverage of the event, and was even narrated by George Clooney.

As I'm watching this, the name "Jack Fallon" was mentioned -- and it turns out that this Jack Fallon -- the same Jack Fallon I had met at 1095 Ave. of the Americas -- was the UPI Dallas bureau chief that day, and he played a significant, historic role in the coverage of the assassination. You could look it up.

If I had known then what I know now, I would have left the house at least two hours early that morning in 1986.

And, just perhaps, I can be a little more respectful of my job. Today, when a Guardian reporter sent me an email with a typo asking me to comment on some complicated issue at 3:20 p.m., I tweeted, "Just got a media request from someone with a 3 p.m. deadline today. Excuse me while I travel back in time."

And then tonight, I did.

Oh, the Irony

The message on this wall greets me every day as I walk to my office.

It. Never. Changes.

Last Day of Summer

The title and photo say it all.

Our household is always the last in the neighborhood to close up our pool. That's in case Gatsby wants to come by and take a dip.

Cell Phones Are the Opiate of the People

Here's a scene I don't always see on my way to work... it's a photo of the graveyard at Trinity Church in lower Manhattan. I was on my way to a meeting at the offices of the Sapient agency, which is working on a project to redesign the corporate PR and HR websites. The office building is all the way at the end of Fulton Street, near the South Street Seaport, and it was a gorgeous day to be walking around New York.

On the train ride in this morning, I was struck by how many people were engrossed in their cell phones. Many were listening to music, many were texting and I suppose many were just reading the news because I saw not a single printed newspaper among the hundreds of my fellow commuters. Everyone was so quiet and well-behaved, despite the crushing crowds as we filed into the PATH station at Hoboken and back out onto the street at the foot of the new World Trade Center.

I've come to the conclusion that, for better or worse, cell phones have become the opiate of the people.

I almost tweeted that phrase out too, but decided against it... given where I work.