Annual Reports

Ah, the rites of spring . . . robins, crocuses, Daylight Saving Time and most important of all, corporate annual reports and meetings.  Today, the Sassistas! will take on corporate annual reports.  Tomorrow, corporate annual meetings.

A couple of weeks ago, Warren E. Buffett, founder and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, released his 2009 annual report letter, a document Flann always reads carefully because Buffett, unlike most of corporate America, actually employs the English language and writes in a clear, folksy way to his shareholders.  "Big opportunities come infrequently. When it's raining gold, reach for a bucket, not a thimble," he wrote this year.  Now why can't all CEOs write that clearly in their shareholder letters?  Following are ACTUAL excerpts from annual report shareholder letters:

1. "We met expectations because we were certain to extrapolate; further, we remembered that verification had to be kinesthetic."
2. "Last year, we considered the implications of the demise of geography as a constraint, as a consequence of advances in information, communications and transportation technologies, globalization, environmentalism and spirituality regarding decisions that enterprises made concerning the locations and attributes of the physical and virtual environments in which they operate.  These concepts had profound implications on how businesses and individuals related to tangible and virtual environments."
3. "This was a result of part of our strategic plan priority goal to 'improve the fiscal optimization to increase net revenue variance'."
4. "Sometimes results reflect an incumbent sense of onus."
5. "This past year, XXX launched new products and sales programs to drive growth, globalized consulting practices to reflect scale and markets and increased [company's] visibility within important industry specific communities."
6. "A vertically-focused consulting and systems integration capability allows us to leverage our deep industry expertise to provide clients with innovative, end-to-end, IT-enabled business solutions and services."
7. "A significant opportunity exists to identify and capture value by utilizing consulting and financial services to collapse the transactions/supply chain and improve transaction transparency utilizing e-commerce solutions.  We believe that an e-commerce portal addressing the retail sub-vertical segment of the commercial real estate market would be of great value to the marketplace."

The Sassistas! need your help, sistas and mistas.  You sassignment is to share your own examples of corporate jargon from corporate annual reports and/or translate into simple and clear English any one of the above seven excerpts.  Or take an excerpt and compose a haiku. 

We know you can do it!  Don't forget to hold your nose.

Comments

[Flannista]

I have examples of annual report jargon coming out the wazoo because members of the corporate rank-and-file send them to me all the time. Plus I conduct writing workshops to train corporate America to write like living, breathing humans are reading their words and not machines.

Society has become so litigious that corporations are often forced to obfuscate the truth. Also, corporations want to sound like they aren't screwing their shareholders. I'll be back with a sample from one of Enron's annual reports . . . written the year before it tanked.

Anyhoo -- have fun translating today. I mean it. Read that crap above and turn it into sass. Or poetry.

[Flannista]

nowayasista: Shakespeare is NOT worse than this corporate b.s.

[Flannista]

In a struggling economy, the first thing that corporations cut is creative. The second is clarity. Then the rank-and-file. As I said in a comment last week, three years ago, I had contracts for three annual reports. Last year: one annual report. This year: zero. Three years ago, writing annual reports was 20% of my annual income.

[Flannista]

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TRANSLATION OF ANNUAL REPORT EXCERPT #7 (above):

To increase sales, we are launching a website.

[Flannista]

Picture Flannista as a member of the Beat Generation -- with black beret, black turtle neck, dark glasses and and bongo drum -- sitting on a stool in a coffeehouse to recite her new poem, "CERTAIN COOL" (inspired by corporate b.s. excerpt #1):

Expectations, expectations
Extrapolations, extrapolations
Verifications, verifications
We met
Remember
Kinesthetic
Remember
Kinesthetic
We met
certain

(The minds of my generation destroyed
by jargon, starving hysterical
naked
certain)

Expectations, expectations
Extrapolations, extrapolations
Verifications, verifications
We met
Remember
Kinesthetic

certain
naked

Kinesthetic, kinesthetic
Remember

[half-a-sista]

Translations of Items One thru Seven:

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[Carolyn]

In her corporate drag, out to her corporate job, to delegate to her human capital, Betterhalf hurriedly said that number 6 meant: "Because we are so awesome and know everything about everything, we are able to help you in the one thing that you are awesome about and make you more awesomer to your customer."

[Flannista]

half-a: NO FAIR, darlin'!

Of course, items 1 through 7 are easily translated to "blah, blah, blah." But check out betterhalf's translation of #6. Now that's just poetry, honey!

Work with me.

[Flannista]

From Enron's annual report the year before it tanked:

*****
Enron's performance was a success by any measure, as we continued to outdistance the competition and solidify our leadership in each of our major businesses. We have robust networks of strategic assets that we own or have contractual access to, which give us greater flexibility and speed to reliably deliver widespread logistical solutions.

We have metamorphosed from an asset-based pipeline and power generating company to marketing and logistics company whose biggest assets are its well-established business approach and its innovative people.
*****

BULL SHIT.

[Jerseysista]

#5. "This past year, XXX launched new products and sales programs to drive growth, globalized consulting practices to reflect scale and markets and increased [company's] visibility within important industry specific communities."

TRANSLATED: "This year we made things and told the world about them but we really made a nuisance of ourselves spamming select targets." [DELORIS works for this company]

[Jerseysista]

#4. "Sometimes results reflect an incumbent sense of onus."

TRANSLATED: "We're depressed. We'll try harder next year if we feel better."

[half-a-sista]

"This was a result of part of our strategic plan priority goal to 'improve the fiscal optimization to increase net revenue variance'."

This (whatever "this" was) resulted from our goal to continue to milk the company for every last dollar whatever happened to our sales which varied wildly.

Blah, blah, blah...BULL SHIT.

[Flannista]

Great translations, Jersey, and it's before noon. Good for you.

#4. "Sometimes results reflect an incumbent sense of onus."

TRANSLATED: "Sometimes we meet our bottom line. Sometimes we don't. When we do, we're responsible. When we don't, you're responsible."

[half-a-sista]

Actually, now that I have re-read that quote, I think the company said:

This (which I now think is "bankruptcy" moral and business) resulted fom us spending as much as we could to bankrupt the company (who would want to "increase net revenue variance"?

Blah, blah, blah...BS.

[Flannista]

For the love of sass, can ANYone explain the use of the word, "spirituality" in annual report excerpt #2:

"Last year, we considered the implications of the demise of geography as a constraint, as a consequence of advances in information, communications and transportation technologies, globalization, environmentalism and SPIRITUALITY regarding decisions that enterprises made concerning the locations and attributes of the physical and virtual environments in which they operate. These concepts had profound implications on how businesses and individuals related to tangible and virtual environments."

[Flannista]

half-a: you are referring to excerpt #3:

""This was a result of part of our strategic plan priority goal to 'improve the fiscal optimization to increase net revenue variance'."

This is an excerpt from a non-profit that helps children with learning disabilities. I'm not kidding. Your translation is a good try. The non-profit is still operating, but perhaps the report is trying to say:

"Sometimes results reflect an incumbent sense of onus."

[Flannista]

#6: "A vertically-focused consulting and systems integration capability allows us to leverage our deep industry expertise to provide clients with innovative, end-to-end, IT-enabled business solutions and services."

TRANSLATED: "I want you now. I want you long. And I want you hard."

[nowayasista]

I think Shake was the founder of corporate B.S. He would have loved this stuff.

The only thing I read in annual reports are the financial statements. They tell me what I need to know. Corporate jargon has mostly become useless. All business boils down to this: Were revenues (sales) up or down? Were costs up or down? Thus you know what profit is. So, in 2009, I could draft our annual report. Fees and transaction revenues were down in 2009 as investors remained fearful. The advisors made less money thus our costs were down. We were fortunate not to have to lay off any support staff. Thus our profitablility was still good.

I used to own stock in a little company in California, Provena Foods. They distributed sausage and other items. The report was one paragraph and the financials. Too bad it was bought out.

[PEACEsista]

6. "A vertically-focused consulting and systems integration capability allows us to leverage our deep industry expertise to provide clients with innovative, end-to-end, IT-enabled business solutions and services."

#6 HAIKU

focused consulting
and systems integration
end-to-end dead ends

[Matissta]

My eyes glossed over after reading Nos. 1-3. I have to read this in stages.

#4. "Sometimes results reflect an incumbent sense of onus."

TRANSLATED: "We f*'d up! But we're management, we'll be fine. It's the staff that needs to worry."

[PEACEsista]

1. "We met expectations because we were certain to extrapolate; further, we remembered that verification had to be kinesthetic."

I just can't translate it better than the Beatles already have:

"Oh-bla-dee, oh blah da, life goes on, bra ... la,la,la,la life goes on!"

[Flannista]

If only nowayasista was the CEO of all of corporate America.

Oh well.

I am determined, before the end of the day, to transform what I think is the WORST excerpt (#2) -- like there's a worst -- into Shakespeare, just for nowayasista.

PEACE --love the haiku, plus your assessment of the folks who run the company represented in excerpt #6 in the last two words of your haiku.

Matissta -- hope your eyes are better. Again, do what I do when I deal with corporate b.s. -- close you eyes and hold your nose.

[Flannista]

Just saw your 10:32 translation, PEACE.

Brilliant.

Another Beatles translation of #1 could be taken from "I Am the Walrus":

"Goo goo ga joob goo goo ga joob. I'm crying."

[half-a-sista]

#2 - "Last year, we considered the implications of the demise of geography as a constraint (translation: it's a small world after all),
as a consequence of advances in information, communications and transportation technologies (translation: because of better communication),
globalization (translation: It's a small world after all),
environmentalism and spirituality (translation: we are the world)
regarding decisions that enterprises made concerning the locations and attributes of the physical and virtual environments in which they operate. (Translation: You do the hokey-pokey.) These concepts had profound implications on how businesses and individuals related to tangible and virtual environments." (Translation: It all comes back to you.)

Translation: It's small world after all because of better communication. Really, it's a small world after all. We are the world. We do the hokey-pokey. It all comes back to us.

Environmentalism and spirituality were really only thrown in for the religious, spiritual or tree-hugger stockholders.

[Jerseysista]

I'm still pondering the line, "we considered the implications of the demise of geography as a constraint." Demise of geography? Are they saying an earthquake may constrain their business? Or, is that a lament about our education system?