1.	In the overall scheme of things, annual reports to shareholders aren’t that big a deal except in your mind. True or false? Answer: False, certainly if you’re talking about its monetary place in the scheme of things, as you put it. While sales of video games ran $5.5 billion "last year," according to The Wall Street Journal, and movie box-office receipts reached $6.9 billion, annual reports are an $8.5 billion business, even adjusting for possible distortions. In Chief Executive we call it "the key corporate communiqué."
	2.	Well, then, companies spend far too much money on their annuals. True or false? Answer: False, at least, to my way of thinking. Investment per-copy among 1989 annuals was $3.35 a copy, according to my annual Producer Poll. The 14th annual version of that exclusive poll shows the cost is running $3.32 a copy, three cents less than nine years earlier. That’s with results distortions omitted (a low of 65 cents a copy, high of $11).
	3.	You’ve long opposed the summary annual report (SAR). But you really don’t have any evidence to support your position. Isn’t that true? Answer: No, that’s false. Ignore, if you will, the myriad of opinions indicating the summary annual report is a bad idea, the "down-and-dirty" version of the "real" thing. In fact, everyone from college professors to stockholders to Wall Street analysts has weighed in in opposition to the summary report. If you needed more support for my opposition, look at McKesson Corp. It was world’s very first with a summary, its 1987 document which we named year’s worst. Today, McKesson has shown its true colors (I could have told you so!) with resignations (or firings) galore—of its chairman, its CEO and five top officers—in conjunction with a classic case of "cooking the books." My working hypothesis: Show me a company that produces a summary report and I’ll show you—well, one to avoid. Proceed at your own risk. In fact, that’s precisely the position I articulated in a Manager’s Journal piece a decade ago.
	4.	All your palaver concerning repeat-attendees signing up for your annual conference is—well, just so much hot air. True or false, Sid? Answer: Just this past week alone, Bengt Hane, formerly with AB Volvo, signed to come back. He was at the 1992 New Orleans conference (if not before). (A Volvo employee was at the Chicago conference in 1990, again at Minneapolis three years ago.) Another: Wells Fargo’s Larry Haeg, who attended our Baltimore conference in 1993. Cathi Christopherson, a vice president with MDU Resources, likewise was at Baltimore initially. Also, Cinergy Corp.’s Mark E. Craft, a frequent attendee and speaker at prior Cato conferences, has reserved. Each year, in fact, four dozen attendees are repeats—that is, have attended previously. So, no, it’s not just talk; it actually happens the way we said.
	5.	You’re an advocate of annual report producers being rotated—say, after a year or two on the job—to other positions within the company. True or false? Answer: On the contrary: I’m in strong, and vocal, opposition to producers being shifted to another job just when they’ve started to comprehend what this one’s all about. In fact, in the July 1999 issue of my newsletter—191st in a row—I publish an open letter to AT&T’s Mike Armstrong, berating his company for taking talented annual report producers and then promoting them out of their slots. Their replacements take a couple of years to get up to speed and, just as that happens, THEY get promoted. The current producer has one report under his belt, appears to have reversed AT&T’s downward plunge. My advice: Let him stay there. Leave him alone. I contend the annual report slot isn’t a springboard to greater heights (or shouldn’t be, at least). You’ve arrived when you’re assigned this task, I say.