My Friday Rant -- Transparency

Four things happened this week that sort of bothered me, and it finally struck me that all four revolved around the concept of transparency.

Transparency is one of those things I didn't realize was truly important until later in my personal development.  Once I learned of its importance, though, life became better for me and those around me.

I can only hope that others aren't as slow as I was to catch on ...

Example 1

Yesterday, Jerome M. Wendt of DCIG issued a breathless review regarding a particular vendor.  Upon closer examination, Mr. Wendt seems to have a habit of communicating specific corporate story lines in very high fidelity.

I went looking on his site to try and ascertain his business model -- was he being paid by vendors, customers, or perhaps something else?  I gave up after a while. 

Mr. Wendt isn't disclosing that information.

This is not a slam against Mr. Wednt's opinions (although I disagree with many of them), nor is this an indictment of a potential "pay to say" business model (although I find that somewhat personally repugnant as well).

My real beef?  He's not being transparent.

If you sell a financial product or advice, you are bound by law to disclose certain thing.  Ditto for real estate, medical decision, automobile purchases -- actually, a whole host of things require disclosure, including -- more recently -- new FTC guidelines for bloggers.

For anyone in our industry who offers up an opinion, being transparent is not only a good and ethical business practice, it's also becoming the law.

Example 2

A twitter-storm erupted earlier this week when Jim Haberkorn at HP wrote a blog post sharply criticizing another vendor for marketing a high availability (HA) solution that -- in fact -- could cause far more availability problems than it protected against, especially when compared to solutions from many other vendors.

I read the post, downloaded the documentation from both NetApp and IBM, and found myself strongly agreeing with Jim's assertion.  So I said so via a few Twitter posts.  And promptly got the cr*p kicked out of me -- not on the merits of what I said, but the fact I worked for a competing vendor.

This was a great example of transparency working against you. 

I attempt to be transparent with everyone regarding my employment by EMC and how I am compensated.  For example, blogging is not part of my assigned duties here, and I receive no direct reward or compensation for doing so.

That being said, over the decades I have amassed considerable experience and expertise on this particular topic, as has Mr. Haberkorn.  Undoubtedly there are people out there with more expertise than people like us, but there's not an awful  lot of them.

We, as vendors, had our opinions widely discounted and ignored, simply because we were employees of a competitive company.  That's frustrating, to say the least.  I'd match my personal expertise on these particular topics with just about anyone's, and most certainly be able to hold my own.

I got some good coaching from @aarondelp, @jpwarren and others on how best to handle these situations (thanks, guys!) so that's an area where I'm going to try and improve going forward.

That being said, Jim, myself or anyone else with deep industry experience shouldn't be unduly penalized for being open and transparent regarding our employment.

Example 3

If you go read CalvinZ's real beef with NetApp, it lines up with my own: customers aren't being told of the risks they're being exposed to.  He has his stories, I have mine. 

Feel free to completely ignore both of us, since we work for competing vendors (as above).

One example you can see for yourself is the treatment of various risk exposures in the NetApp documentation as compared to the IBM N Series documentation (details in the comments from Jim's original post).

The IBM version is far more forthcoming in being transparent regarding the risks involved.  I applaud them for that -- it's a good business practice that should be emulated.

The practice of exposing customers to well-known but less-than-obvious risks without full disclosure is not a good thing for anyone in this industry.  Given the facts, if someone wants to still proceed, that's a different story altogether -- there's only so much you can do to protect people from themselves.

Example 4

EMC is not as transparent as we should ideally be.  I wrote recently about many of our collective efforts to "open up" EMC and encourage transparency and sharing in everything we do.

We got a great example of how much farther we have to go this week.

Our Atmos team posted a message stating that the Atmos Online storage service would henceforth be targeted only at developers, and not production environments.

Although we were completely transparent about the facts, we were not transparent in communicating our motivations.  This "transparency gap" led to all sorts of wild and crazy speculation that wasn't even remotely true.

Chad and 'Zilla did a great job of setting the story straight -- no need for me to do so  here -- but it was an object lesson on the value of transparency in not only the facts of a situation, but the motivations as well.

Glad That's Off My Chest

We all work in a very competitive industry -- there's complex technology involved, and it's all moving pretty fast.  I'd like to think that everyone could be taken at their word, but I think I'm being a bit of an idealist.

That being said, we all can help out -- by continually demanding transparency from each other.

Go ahead -- tell the truth.  It's better that way.

Comments

[W. Curtis Preston]

I honestly don't know how you could do more than a few clicks around DCIG's website and not know that they are a pay-for-play blogging service. In the "About DCIG" page, it says their goal "is to provide evaluations and interview content on sponsoring and non-sponsoring companies" It also says "Our current clients are achieving several goals using our services: Bringing product managers closer to users and users closer to product managers, Giving direct sales teams fresh information about the market, Enabling channel and partners by distributing analysis using RSS to their sites, Creating openness and fostering communities of involved customers." He also explains what editorial control the vendors have over their entries.

Their "Membership" page clearly shows not only that they are paid to blog, but exactly how MUCH they get paid to blog, which is more than I can say for ANY other paid-for blogger in the industry. The same is true of their "Services" page, which describes services designed for vendors, not end users.

What I'm saying is that it seems obvious to me what DGIG's business model is. It's completely opposite of MY business model, but I don't see how he is not being forthcoming about what they do.

Now let's talk about Atmos Online. Just over a year ago you announced it's availability to the world here (http://www.emc.com/about/news/press/2009/20090518-02.htm) and here (http://chucksblog.emc.com/chucks_blog/2009/05/emc-takes-atmos-storage-online.html). A year later EMC announced that it's no longer available "for production use." Then you personally blogged something that I would sum up as "we meant to do that," and now you're saying that it was merely a transparency failure. That implies that it never was to be used for production use, and that it was just miscommunicated that way. If that's the case, then there why the announcement? If that's the case, there wouldn't be any production customers, right?

The movie buff in me immediately flashes to the quintessential scene in A Few Good Men when Kaffee asks

---- begin script ----

Kaffee: Colonel, I have just one more question before I call Airman O'Malley and Airman Perez: If you gave an order that wasn't to be touched, and your orders are always followed, then why would he be in danger, why would it be necessary to transfer him off the base?

...

Kaffee: Then why the two orders?

Jessup: Sometimes men take matters into their own hands.

Kaffee: No sir. You made it clear just a moment ago that your men never take matters into their own hands. Your men follow orders or people die. So Santiago shouldn't have been in any dangor at all, should he have, Colonel?"

---- end script ----

So why the two announcements? If Atmos Online was always an "incubator" to be used for testing and non-production use, and this was simply a miscommunication, why was there a second announcement that announced a CHANGE in its status?

As to the NetApp stuff, I found it interesting reading as well, and I completely agree that NetApp should be as forthcoming as their partner on any limitations or risks of the products that they're selling. But I'm more surprised by IBM's actions than I am by NetApp's. I've found very few vendors to be forthcoming about the risks (or downsides of any kind) of their products.

[Chuck Hollis]

Always a pleasure, W. Curtis Preston

Regarding DCIG, let's be clear -- I was pretty sure it was a pay-to-say outfit, but it wasn't made clear on their individual posts, per my understanding of the FTC rules. And as we know, content gets thrown around the web apart from the site where it was first posted. So I think you missed the point I was trying to make.

Regarding Atmos Online, I'm thinking of writing an extended post on the experience -- why we did it, and what we learned. It's an interesting story around how one goes about introducing radically new technology into an established marketplace.

Thanks (I think) for the comments ...

-- Chuck

[Jerome Wendt]

Chuck,

I appreciate you stopping by DCIG's web site but I want to be very clear about yesterday's post - it was not a pay to play blog entry. NetApp had no clue that it was coming out or that I was even going to reference their enterprise cloud storage strategy or their analyst event until after the blog post went live on DCIG's website. (And, no, NetApp did not pay me to post this comment either. Truth be told, I wrote it on my plane ride home from NetApp's Analyst Day and was so busy I did not get around to posting it until yesterday.)

This is not to say that I have not written blog entries for NetApp in the past (I have and they can be read at this blog entry - http://sponsored.dciginc.com/2010/04/the-maturity-of-nfs-v4.html) but I have also written blog entries and am in fact currently writing blog entries on behalf of certain business units within EMC which have and will continue to appear on DCIG's website.

But what you may fail to understand is why storage providers (even such as EMC) contract with DCIG to do blogging for them.

In part it is because DCIG is transparent about what blog entries are paid for and which ones are not. This forthcoming approach has gained a tremendous amount of respect from analysts such as Curtis, other storage providers and end-users.

The perspective I bring in my blogs and the high traffic that DCIG on its website comes as a result of my past experiences of having once been an end user and managed many TBs of EMC storage (like hundreds of TBs - ever hear of First Data?) along with IBM and HDS and God knows what else, so I know what I am talking about it.

The fact that you could not quickly discern which blog entries were paid for and which ones were not I take as a huge positive for both myself and DCIG. I strive very hard to be objective despite being a pay-to-play service. What many fail to understand is that even though DCIG is pay-to-play, it is not pay-to-say. I do not take any position without first researching it so I can stand by what I say in my blog entries.

To achieve that level of authenticity in its blog posts, DCIG strives to maintain a good relationship with all of its clients so I can access needed individuals and they feel comfortable sharing information with me that storage providers would normally not share with other analysts or journalists since they may take it out of context or use it inappropriately. It is for that reason that many readers come to DCIG's website so they can get information that they normally cannot get anywhere else.

In regards to the concerns you raise about DCIG complying with the FTC ruling, DCIG has spoken directly with the FTC and it is in full compliance with all of its laws and requirements for disclosure. DCIG is a deep believer in transparency, has always been transparent about its business model, and it was doing this before there was any government law passed requiring such transparency. If not, I doubt DCIG would be as successful and influential as it has become otherwise why would you feel obligated to comment on a blog post that has obviously generated a tremendous amount of interest and controversy.

Jerome

Jerome M Wendt
Lead Analyst and President
DCIG LLC
http://www.dciginc.com

[Justin Warren]

Hi Chuck,

Thanks for taking my comments with such good grace.

I've blogged up a more verbose version of the point I was trying to make, for those interested: http://www.eigenmagic.com/2010/07/03/customers-arent-idiots/

@jpwarren

[W. Curtis Preston]

@Chuck

First, as Jerome already posted, the blog that he's pretty sure riled you up WASN'T sponsored. It was just a blog.

Since you brought up the FTC guidelines I suggest people read them: http://ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf ...

The "Material Connections" is the one that applies to us bloggers. The section says this:

"When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience), such connection must be fully disclosed."

It then goes on to give some examples. Example 7 is the only one that's close to what pay-for-play bloggers are doing and it says this about a video game blogger that gets the video game free:

"Because his review is disseminated via a form of consumer-generated media [a blog] in which his relationship to the advertiser is not inherently obvious, readers are unlikely to know that he has received the video game system free of charge in exchange for his review of the product, and given the value of the video game system, this fact likely would materially affect the credibility they attach to his endorsement. Accordingly, the blogger should clearly and conspicuously disclose that he received the gaming system free of charge."

I believe the following rewording of that example works for our industry and is in keeping with the spirit of the guidelines:

"Because an industry analyst's information is disseminated via a form of consumer-generated media [a blog] in which his relationship to the advertiser is not inherently obvious, readers are unlikely to know that he is receiving money in exchange for his blogs about the product. If such an analyst/blogger is being given a fee in exchange for his blogging services, this fact likely would materially affect the credibility they attach to his blogs. Accordingly, the blogger should clearly and conspicuously disclose that he is receiving the fee."

Jerome displays any blogs that are sponsored at the top left. Look at the upper right hand corner of this blog: http://inmage.dciginc.com/2010/06/windows-recovery-solution.html -- I'm pretty sure that is both clear and conspicuous.

Regarding Atmos, I'll look forward to the blog. I'm only tangentially following cloud storage services -- and by extension Atmos -- but like I already said, it sure seems like your early comment was an attempt to rewrite history. I'll read the longer blog post before commenting further.

[W. Curtis Preston]

Even better than the previous link is this link:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/adv/bus71.shtm

It gives specific guidelines about even twitter. Here are a few important snippets:

My Facebook page identifies the company I work for. Should I include an additional disclosure when I talk about how great our products are?

It’s a good idea. People reading that discussion on your Facebook page might not know who you work for and what products the company makes. And many businesses are so diversified that readers might not realize the products you’re talking about are sold by your company.

Would a single disclosure on my home page that “many of the products I discuss on this site are provided to me free by their manufacturer” be enough?

A single disclosure doesn’t really do it because people visiting your site might read individual reviews or watch individual videos without seeing the disclosure on your home page.

Would a button that says DISCLOSURE, LEGAL, or something like that be sufficient disclosure?

No. A button isn’t likely to be sufficient. How often do you click on those buttons when you visit someone else’s site? If you provide the information as part of your message, your audience is less likely to miss it.

What about a platform like Twitter? How can I make a disclosure when my message is limited to 140 characters?

The FTC isn’t mandating the specific wording of disclosures. However, the same general principle – that people have the information they need to evaluate sponsored statements – applies across the board, regardless of the advertising medium. A hashtag like “#paid ad” uses only 8 characters. Shorter hashtags – like “#paid” and “#ad” – also might be effective.

Having read this, I'm wondering if the FTC would think that Jerome's box off to the side is obvious enough. (Jerome, I have to say I never noticed the little box before.) They seem to think it should be "part of the message," which would indicate that it should be part of the body.

[Jerome Wendt]

Curtis,

I merely defer to what I said earlier in my earlier comment, "DCIG has spoken directly with the FTC and it is in full compliance with all of its laws and requirements for disclosure" though I would amend that statement it to say "DCIG is in full compliance with the FTC's guidelines" as opposed to the "FTC's laws and requirements"

Jerome

[Greg Knieriemen]

In my not-so-humble opinion, if XYZ company is hiring your company to do researc and write papers, when you post a blog that the company did not directly pay for, you have an obligation to plainly disclose that. In this respect I completely disagree with Curtis and Jerome.

It's not that difficult - if you are writing about a company that is paying you - DISCLOSE IT RIGHT ON THE BLOG POST!

[Dominic Cody]

There are lots of companies out there in the UK as well as the US that write "non product biased based papers" however you always get the impression in a number of these that you are being pushed towards a certain companies product. After doing research on a number of recent papers around a certain vendors new de-dupe product, it is very clear that the vendor commissioned the "non product biased paper" as a result this has come across in the paper iteself. Dispaointing though it is, I do fear that this is the state of the world and the way the game is played by certain Vendors.

[Chuck Hollis]

All

It appears there are no good answers here, only good questions.

In retrospect, I was unfair to Mr. Wendt.

One could surmise by looking around his site that he has a variety of business models. He is very clear that specific pieces weren't of the "pay to say" variety. Finally, he states that he's clear about the FTC guidelines.

My apologies, Jerome.

That being said, as you can see from the commentary, it's still largely a guessing game for most of us. We see content every day, and wonder what motivated its creation.

Greg's suggestion around in-line disclosure seems to be a good idea. Greg Schultz, for example, frequently includes an "FTC Disclaimer" statement in his posts, even if there's nothing to really disclaim.

His consistent attention to in-line disclosure tends to make me more trustful regarding his motivations. Not to mention, he handles it with good humor :-)

-- Chuck

[josephmartins]

It seems this topic pops up each year, often with the same or similar participants.

Curtis and others know my perspective on the topic. We spent a great deal of time going back and forth about FTC guidelines and disclosure last year on StorageMonkeys (see FTC Rules on Blogger Disclosure: Will Storage Analysts Pay Attention? 10/06/09).

We seemed to agree that disclosure was a good thing. However, we disagreed about its relevance and usefulness in practice. I tend to focus on the validity of an individual's claims while others clearly focus on the trustworthiness of the individuals making the claims (i.e. argumentum ad hominem).

A few relevant comments of mine from that discussion:

Transparency should apply to those who author posts AND comments: "If your intent is to be genuinely fair and transparent you must require that ALL participants (those who post as well as those who comment) disclose affiliations where appropriate."

And to illustrate the nonsensical extreme of distrust and disclosure I wrote that: "Disclosure should apply to employees of XYZ and its competitors, and their immediate family members (spouses, domestic partners, parents, grandparents, siblings, children and grandchildren), affiliates, advisors, advertising and promotional agencies, subsidiaries, shareholders, contractors, customers and any person working on or with their products, projects and services. Technically, all of the above have 'material connections' to XYZ, directly or indirectly, do they not?"

On doing your own homework and not simply taking the opinions of others as fact regardless the source:

"A lack of critical thinking, combined with our tendency to judge a book by its cover or by its author, is something that disclosure will not remedy. I will repeat an earlier comment because it bears repeating,"Questionable motives and the logical fallacy of guilt by association do not, by themselves, render an individual's statements untrue or invalid. So while disclosure helps the credibility of an individual it does not address the credibility of the argument." That statement is irrefutable. And while I support disclosure, I see it for what it is - an intellectual pacifier."

"Disclosure is a good thing. However, don’t expect disclosure to amount to diddly-squat if the claims are not backed by solid analysis and evidence. Opaque advisers with an agenda appear to be as plentiful as transparent dimwits. And always, always, always do your homework, seek multiple sources and draw your own conclusions about the claims that you read. Never take someone else’s word for it. It’s not your adviser's job on the line, it’s yours."

I suppose I should plan to see this topic pop up again next year too. See you all there.

[W. Curtis Preston]

@Chuck

Classy mea culpa on the Jerome bit. Kudos.

@Joseph

Pretty much agree with what you said. Material connection and disclosure thereof (or lack of disclosure thereof) doesn't in and of itself render a piece of information valid or invalid. It merely helps color it.

@Greg

In a perfect world if might be nice if all material connections would be disclosed, but then the question is what constitutes a material relationship? I sell banners on BackupCentral.com. The FTC says that this is an "obvious" material relationship that does not need to be disclosed (e.g. "EMC paid me to put this banner on my site." Duh. Why else would it be there?)

But in your world, this now creates a material relationship between EMC and me that I now have to disclose in every blog that I write that has anything to do with their technology, which is pretty much every blog I write.

Re-reading your blog post, I'm thinking maybe you might say "I'm just talking about research/whitepapers." I don't see why; I have just as much reason to say nice things about EMC because they're paying me for a banner as I do if they're paying me to research something for them.

Alright, so let's go with research. Over 10 years ago I wrote an internal paper for EMC during which I was for my opinion of a product they were shipping at the time. It was for their eyes only. Throughout the years I've been hired by many vendors to help them evaluate their products for their eyes only. I've also written whitepapers (both branded and non-branded, internal and external). In every single one of those contracts I stipulate that this paper is a nuclear event and has nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of my world. You'd have me disclose every one of those in every single blog post I write? Are you kidding me?

And then there's the question of time. So lets say I write a whitepaper for a vendor and in your world, I now have to disclose this in every blog post I write. How long am I suppose to do that? How long does a given vendor stay on my list of "vendors who are paying me?"

I think that what you're saying would so overload us with information that we'd never read the statement. If vendor A is paying me to write a public blog or paper, then I'll disclose it in that paper (even though in my world that is not going to change the contents of that paper). That's what the FTC has asked me to do. Disclosing every vendor that paid me a buck in every blog post that has something to do with that vendor is crazy. Sorry, dude.

As long as I do disclose when I do write a post, it will be very easy to discover a material relationship by Googling "site:www.backupcentral.com W. Curtis Preston disclosure Vendor X."

I know the person you have a bone to pick with. He's disclosing more now than he ever did before (which was nothing) and that's a good thing. Neither he nor I is going to put every company he does business with on his blog entries, if for no other reason that sometimes those relationships are confidential. But he does disclose the blog entries that are paid for, which (just like Jerome) will be obvious if you look around his site a little.

@Jerome

Glad to hear you talked to the FTC. Keep up the good work.

[Jordans 6]

Thanks so much for posting these, they are fantastic! So bummed I missed what looks like a truly unique evening.

[Greg Knieriemen]

Curtis:

C'mon... no one cares if EMC is buying ad banners on your site and no one gives a $hit if your great aunt is on NetApp's payroll. What they do care about is if YOU are being paid by a vendor for consulting, advisory or marketing work. You and Martins can come up with absurd scenarios all day long, but the spirit of Chuck's point is spot on - if you are doing work for a vendor and you are publishing content about that vendor, it needs to be disclosed.

It's also just plain good business practice - forget FTC for a sec. Don't you think end users want to know the context of your commentary?

****
And just a note to people who don't know better... Curtis is a friend of mine and is completely transparent in his dealings with vendors. This is a philosophical difference.

[greg schulz]

Thanks Chuck for the call out and mention, appreciate and concur with Greg's note above which is the spirit of your post being spot on.

What is so hard about disclosing something if you are on the up and up, or as long as your content speaks for if self, or if you have nothing to hide or to worry about, not to mention if you use simple, straight forward disclosure statements its easy.

If nothing else, have some fun with it and laugh at those trying to do the dance around disclosure or other routines to mask what they are really doing while trying to fool others with what they say.

Nuff said on that, now back to regular programming or spamming or tweeting or blogging or disclosing or working.

Cheers gs
Disclosure can be found here: http://storageio.com/disclose

[josephmartins]

@Greg

I assume you read the thread that I referenced over at StorageMonkeys.

Referring to scenarios as absurd doesn't make them so. If your business partners, buddies, relatives or family members happen to be tooting your company's horn anonymously online, it should be disclosed. Either you fully support honest open conversation and disclosure, or you do not. Make up your mind. You say it's irrelevant and absurd. I disagree.

It's safe to say for many industry analysts, and with very few exceptions, that their client lists read like a who's who of their respective industries - whether they've been paid by a vendor in the past, or hope to do business with a vendor at some point in the future. Perhaps the only thing that would satisfy you is a blanket statement that says "Assume anyone mentioned in this report is a client". The reality is, they're all clients to some degree.

Some analysts harp on disclosure, not because of the value of disclosure itself, but simply because they see it as a differentiator for their own organizations. It implies that their competitors are less than honest and attempts to shift the readers' focus from the validity of what was written to the credibility of the person who wrote it. FUD by way of argumentum ad hominem. I support disclosure, but I believe it holds very little value.

Note: We've disclosed sponsored research (i.e. researched we were paid to write) since our founding in 2002. However we write/speak about many vendors and consider ALL of them clients. And while we rarely blog, when we do we purposely avoid vendor-specific discussions. We much prefer to contribute to the blogs of others.

[greg schulz]

Yes Joe, I saw yours posts and points over at storagemonkeys a while back.

Not sure where you are coming at with regard to "...scenarios as absurd..." in your above post, did I really say that somewhere and if so when or where? Otherwise, please clarify and/or give it a rest.

We all have our opinions and perspectives.

Cheers gs

[josephmartins]

Not you, Greg. My response was directed at the other Greg, Knieriemen, in the post above yours. I failed to notice your comment just below his. Sorry about the confusion.

As for giving it a rest. When the same folks stop bringing the same FUD up annually, I'll have no reason to respond.

As I wrote earlier, "I suppose I should plan to see this topic pop up again next year too. See you all there."

[Greg Knieriemen]

LOL, Joseph... what is the FUD? OK... you don't think disclosure has value. Fine. But bringing up obscure scenarios only dilutes the issue.

One example... you said "Disclosure should apply to employees of XYZ and its competitors, and their immediate family members (spouses, domestic partners, parents, grandparents, siblings, children and grandchildren)".

Give me 5 specific examples of a conflict of interest like this in our industry. If you can't then it's clear to me you are only diluting the real issue with absurd scenarios.

[greg schulz]

Joe thanks for the clarification, appreciate.

As for those bringing up disclosure topics, fine with me if they are on the up and up and have their own houses in order as opposed trying to throwing mud balls or deflect away from their own games.

However as you point out transparency should be two way.

Funny thing, if you are doing something confidential chances are you should not or cannot be talking about it anyway and thus no need for disclosure, wait, isn’t that called common sense?

Likewise, expand the discussion to bloggers, tweeters, media/journalist, consultants and other applicable parties besides just analysts, meanwhile, time to go back to reality and work ;).

Cheers gs

[josephmartins]

@Greg K

You cited an example. Now I want you to scroll up and reread the part of my response that you left out where I wrote "And to illustrate the nonsensical extreme of distrust and disclosure...". I clearly stated that it was nonsensical, but it is far more important to be fair and consistent.

If you support disclosure - genuine open and honest conversation - you should have absolutely no problem with the notion that everyone online commenting about anything at all should disclose whatever relationship they may have (monetary or otherwise) to the business/product/service that is the subject of their opinion.

It's fair, consistent AND it covers the analyst industry (and the issues that are of concern to you) too. What's not to like about it? That is genuine disclosure.

We seem to agree about disclosure. I simply believe there's no reason to single out a specific industry or profession. As Chuck wrote, "we all can help out -- by continually demanding transparency from each other."