Earlier last week I had the pleasure of spending some time (over the phone) with David Blaszkowsky, Director of the SEC’s Office of Interactive Disclosure. We covered a number of issues, too much in fact to put into a single article, so there will be more from David over the coming weeks.

The Office of Interactive Disclosure (OID) carries the heavy responsibility of implementing the SEC’s Interactive Data rules for GAAP for public companies, for mutual funds and for ratings (links and names), and in the minds of many observers of XBRL’s progress around the world, holds the key to demonstrating the real value for XBRL for public financial reporting generally. That’s a significant burden. After all, more so even than the FDIC, this is the largest implementation of XBRL in which the resulting data is being made available to consumers of financial information.

One consistent theme was David’s clear focus on the users of financial information, both in the SEC and by the market. Frequently the discussion returned to “what do SEC users and consumers need, how will they use this, and what can be done to make it even easier and more useful”.

We covered a number of topics, too many for one article, so here goes with the first installment. As you can see, the chit-chat is removed so that we can focus on the content.

1. David, can you give me a bit of background – when did you join OID, where did you come from? What motivated you to join the SEC.

DB: I joined the Commission in October 2007, as Director of the then-new Office of Interactive Disclosure. My background was in the financial services and financial information industry where I had run lines of business involved in the provision of financial information, research and analytics, as well as M&A work and business strategy. Clearly there is still a need to improve the quality of information provided to users of financial information. Frankly, it isn’t much different on the government side from the business side in terms of problems and needs.  Having grown up on the provision and consumption side, the opportunity to be part of creating the improvements is a wonderful challenge.

(From his “official” bio we also learn that “David spent 11 years at McGraw-Hill, including seven years with the firm’s Standard & Poor’s division. At S&P, he served as Director of Global Market Development for Institutional Market Services, and as Senior Director in Equity Research Services, where he led S&P’s Corporate Markets and Investor Relations Services businesses.” At this point we had the normal SEC side conversation, in which David asked me to include, and in fact did read aloud the “Standard Disclaimer”, so here goes:)

DB: As a matter of policy, the Securities and Exchange Commission disclaims responsibility for the private statements of SEC employees.  The views I am expressing today are solely my own, and do not reflect the views of the Commission, the Commissioners, or of any employees other than myself.

DB: that being said, my role has really been to shepherd, in terms of the technologies and their meaning, the SEC through the rule-making process process, and to ensure that the implementation and roll-out of the Rule is as smooth and successful. This includes, on the inside, making sure SEC staff themselves have the tools to use this content in their work.  Of course, the real work is done, and the real kudos belong to my world-beater of a team, with such stars as Jeff Naumann and Walter Hamscher, that is completely dedicated to just that goal, so I’m not alone here.

2. Lets start with the “easy” question; what would you say were the greatest successes / benefits to date?

DB: I can’t really point to anything specific yet, because the filings data is still too limited, but we’re looking forward to building on what has to date been a successful roll out of the public company Rules, shall we say “on time and on spec”. Of course, we have another two and half years of implementation in front of us, but based on progress to date, I’m pleased and quietly confident.

(I’d say that’s a pretty big success so far.)

DB: And of course now we are ramping up on Mutual fund Risk and Return reporting, which will be required starting next year.

DB: Of course, probably one of the most satisfying “leading indicators” of success, although it is not down to us specifically, has been the rapid expansion of the software community and the range of new tools and analytic capabilities that are being built and delivered.

DB: Of course there will be use of this data by the markets, but a primary beneficiary of the XBRL data submissions has to be the staff of the Commission, and it has to improve our abilities to evaluate risk, among many other critical roles.  When we released our RFI last summer, we gained the opportunity to talk with vendors and to see what they had been building. We saw nearly two dozen applications, and I have to say some of them were really cool. It was especially pleasing as the RFI was specifically written with a view to asking “Here’s what we staff at the SEC as users will want to do, what are you building that might help?” Through the demonstration and discussions we had representatives from across the Commission’s staff, including Enforcement, Examinations, Corporation Finance, and our new “RiskFin” Division. It was interesting to see how each of these user groups responded to different applications based on their responsibilities, and their wants and needs. We’ve come away with a lot to think about, and these informed the RFP we posted in early January.

DB: In terms of where I see this going, well, I think it is very important to understand that we have all entered a new phase. When I first became involved back in 2007 the majority of the tools we saw were designed mostly for the creation of XBRL content, for the preparers and accountants, and some for the taxonomy developers. There was not enough focus on delivery and usefulness of the information. Of course, when there wasn’t content there wasn’t the same need.  But we’ve crossed the divide, where we now have to make good on the XBRL aspirations, promises and investments.

(So with content we see a virtuous circle, content drives tools drives content?)

DB: Yes, I’d say we’ve finally closed the circle. Content is now being provided, and the applications for consumers and users of the data such as for investors and regulators, are being built. There remain opportunities to improve both the content and the process, of course, and we’re monitoring closely our program, as well as others around the world.  Experience with XBRL data and tools will suggest more uses, more and better kinds of data and apps, and so on.  Yes, a classic virtuous circle.

DB: Next I think we’ll see tools and applications that will enable the consumption and use of XBRL as well as other datasets to do interesting and novel things.

Our conversation continued through the hour, and toward the end David suggested that I would probably bore my audience if I attempted to put everything into a single posting. So I won’t. Expect to see additional excerpts from our conversation, and quotes from David sprinkled into posting on other topics.

As a preview, some of the other topics we covered included:

n          Detailed Tagging

n          Where are all the XBRL experts?

n          Any big plans (with a predictable response)

n          Assurance

n          Tagging of the MD&A

The volume of questions and impact of the AskOID@SEC.gov e-mail and program