In addition, XBRL US last month hosted its first annual Pacific Rim Technology Workshop at Hitachi Data Systems HQ in Santa Clara, Calif. The event brought together XML and XBRL developers and product managers to discuss topics ranging from maintenance and development to XBRL change management.

Here, Savage calls out takeaways from the conference, highlights key XBRL challenges for IR, offers some resources to help IROs bone up on XBRL, and outlines why she believes companies like Microsoft and United Technologies are "doing XBRL right":

What big takeaways came out of last month's XBRL event that IR people should know?

The focus was largely on the technology and development side, which can get more granular than IR or financial executives may want or need to know. That said, a major theme that came out of conference was the need to continue having a global dialog about how the development and maintenance work continues forward worldwide, because the whole focus of XBRL is having a dialog from the creator of the information and data to the user of that information—whether those people are in the U.S., Asia, Latin America, Europe or wherever. We want to make sure everyone is talking the same language. The beauty of XBRL is being able to compare a company in Brazil with a company in California using precisely the same language infrastructure.

The upshot is that you’re now seeing a convergence of accounting standards around the globe. We mean to make sure the tech infrastructure is the same—that was the focus. The conference featured a lot of discussion and case studies about how that works.

So what companies are doing a great job using XBRL?

You can't point out a single company. The largest 500 companies are all submitting using XBRL. That said, one of the companies that is certainly ahead of the game is United Technologies.

What, specifically, are they doing right?

They've been in the filing program for a long time, and they've begun to look at how to incorporate XBRL into their internal financial structure. That's different than most companies, who complete their financials in the traditional way—and then convert it to XBRL. Ideally, your internal systems would be in XBRL format already. They're making that happen. That's where this is all going next.

Microsoft is also at forefront of using XBRL from an investor standpoint. The investor section of their website, called “Investor Central,” is powered by XBRL data. It gives investors the ability to go to their site, look at their reported XBRL data, pull reports, do charting and save that information down.

Is there still a lot of confusion around this in IR circles?

I think the issue is that IR officers see this as a compliance issue and not a communication-with-investors issue. But Microsoft proves this is an opportunity for IR to reach more investors. It allows you to have your own data and peer data that you can work with more flexibility. Second, it lets you tell your story in your own words and tags so your data is not filtered or tagged by an intermediary. Analysts will be pulling company data directly and working with it—as you provided it. How is that not a communications function? How is it not IR-focused?

We have a few people on our XBRL US team with a technology bent, but our chief standards officer comes out of the accounting and investment world, and was with Morgan Stanley and KPMG. So, if you’re in IR, you need to understand what people need to report and what investors and analysts need to see.

What, then, is the biggest XBRL challenge from an IRO standpoint?

The challenge is getting educated and feeling comfortable with what elements are being chosen—and being comfortable with how your own financials are converted into XBRL. That comes down to understanding not the technology, per se, but rather how your financial guys define your statements using XBRL tags, as well as how your industry or market peers and competitors do the same thing. Those are the kinds of questions analysts will start focusing on—e.g., “Your peers use this particular tag for ‘inventory’—why don’t you?” IROs need to get used to that, and need to start thinking what questions analysts and investors will be asking about how they’re using this.

The second big challenge from an IR standpoint is that management is going to begin looking to the IRO to figure out how you can use this. IROs will need to say, “This is an opportunity. What can I do when this data starts coming through and is more readily available?” For example, you’ll want to look at other IR websites to see what others are doing. You’ll want to analyze how XBRL can help you provide better answers to management. You’ll also want to determine how the tool gives you the information you need to provide better answers to the investment community, which will now be getting better and more consistent information. So, it’s a challenge with many opportunities for IR—if you’re educated on these things.

So how do we get educated on XBRL—what resources would you point our IR readers to?

We hold educational webinars on this every month. Look on our site’s events section (www.xbrl.us) for these. In addition, we have created a software tools matrix to help you convert your statements into XBRL. In a few weeks, we’ll be creating a matrix that shows the different types of analytical tools available, which explains their feature sets while also providing contract information for each. So, if you’re interested in a tool that helps you develop IR web pages, for example, it will be listed there with contacts.

In addition, we are holding a conference on this on November 17 and 18 that will focus on issuer-to-investor education. That is tailored in part to IR. Jeff Morgan (NIRI president) will be speaking at that event.

Another resource is the Hitachi "XBRL for Dummies" booklet. But this is all so new that there aren't many simple books out there on this. The best thing to do, really, is to attend a webinar, seminar or live event where you can get your questions answered and see live case studies.

What's next for XBRL—how might it impact business beyond financial reporting?

One area that we’re focusing on now beyond financials reporting that does have impact on IR is the area of corporate actions. This is when an event happens like a merger or something, that information is transmitted by the company in form of a release or prospectus or a combo of those things and others. Today, it’s in a free form document—and we’re advocating that it gets announced via XBRL. If it’s a prospectus today, the document could have tags embedded or pieces of it pulled out to create those tags and separate elements.

Companies don’t do that today. They issue a free form document and think they’re done. What happens after that, for the most part, is that the issuer has no idea what happens in terms of how that information is consumed. It goes to a ton of different players. Each one of them has to re-key the information and put it into their own databases. The chances for error are huge, it’s complex and costs are enormous from the standpoint of the intermediaries consuming and working with that information. Also from the standpoint of the investment managers, they have to service all this stuff and interpret it and re-key it and decide what actions to take as a shareholder.

This would make the information streamlined and make the message coming from the issuer totally computer readable, more clear, more usable and more track-able. Nobody is doing this now—we are in the discussion phase of this and building the business case and awareness for it in the business, financial and investment communities at large.

What do you love about your job?

It’s working with passionate people who are excited about this. We’re doing something that makes a difference. I have friends in the nonprofit world doing things that certainly have greater world impact than this. For example, I have a friend working for Doctors without Borders. But this certainly can make a big difference and give smaller companies access to more capital. What’s not to love about that?