Yes, I know I've been neglecting my blog. Normal service will be resumed, etc.

In the meantime, a quick drive-by post for the attendees at today's lunchtime seminar at the Canadian Investor Relations Institute.

This was a fun and really interesting session to participate in, given the current market climate and the pressure on Investor Relations professionals these days. These are certainly interesting times for IROs, given the SEC's extraordinary July 30th announcement and subsequent publishing of new disclosure guidance (PDF) regarding corporate websites and blogs.

Any Investor Relations professional who isn't actively seeking to understand how social media can and will impact their job has - as my friend and co-panelist Parker Mason pointed out - their head stuck ostrich-style in the sand. As I was tempted to crack in today's session - when you bury your head in the sand, think about the target you're presenting. Things are a lot more complicated than they were when I was an IRO, but the fact that much more information about public companies is now readily available online to much wider audiences has got to be a good thing, IMHO.

As promised during my session today, here are a couple of quick links to some pages I've bookmarked that should be of interest to IR pros considering a dive into social media:

- a collection of links to blogging policy examples and guidelines, and;
- a growing collection of blog posts and comments of interest to the IR community

For all those who attended today, thanks for coming out. Hope it was useful to you. If you have any follow up questions, don't hesitate to get in touch (mocc AT thornleyfallis.com).

And to Parker and the splendid Natalie Johnson from General Motors - many thanks for your great contributions. I'm particularly grateful to Natalie for agreeing to extend her visit to Toronto so that she could participate in today's seminar - great to get the real-world experience from someone deeply involved in social media at a very high-profile public company.

Next up... more of the kind of blogging I used to do before I got so corporate. Promise.