Site name change, GEO Conference, Exec Comp Pay Czar and more

I apologize for being a bit behind on site updates.  During the past two weeks I have attended the WorldatWork Conference in Seattle, Washington, USA and the Global Equity Organization Conference in Paris France.  Expect a large number of new articles and discussions on the ECE site over the next week or so!

First the ECE site name change:  CollectiveX has rebranded itself as "Groupsite.com".  This means that the new web address for the ECE is:  www.equitycompensationexperts.groupsite.com.  Please make the change in your bookmarks and add the "groupsite" domain to your "white list" in your email.  (The old web address will look for a long while.)

WorldatWork:  I saw several ECE members at the conference in Seattle.  The weather was atypical (sunny and the high 70s/20s).  The conference attendance was down quite a bit and it seemed as if a large number of the attendees were from non-profit and government organizations. The providers were a mix of compensation consultants, sales performance tools, reward card vendors (Sears, Best Buy) and interesting additions (Honey Baked Ham, Pet Concierge and Pet Insurance). There were only a few truly relevant sessions for ECE members.

GEO: Paris was amazing.  Bucking current trends, the conference was very well attended.  The people in Europe are passionate about learning and networking, there were many people from the US there as well.  Attendance was above the levels in London in 2007 (and not down too much from last year in San Francisco).  Most importantly the sessions were interesting and well done.  During every session period there were at least 2 presentations I wanted to attend.  This is rarity for me as I am often hard-pressed to find even one session in every time period at some conferences.  The conference next year will be in Chicago.  Start saving your money.  Don't wait to see if you company has the budget.  The GEO conference once again proved to be useful to anyone in the Equity Compensation field.

Pay Czar: Those who have known me for a long while or who have attended my presentations over the years have probably heard me say that if we didn’t fix the way we did things, someone would fix it for us.  You have also heard me say "perception is 100% of reality".  Unfortunately, I think the new Pay Czar (dumb nick name by the way, why does the media always call government heads "Czars" and government scandals "-gates"?) was a prophesy nearly anyone could have foretold. While I do believe that there have been problems with the accountability of some executive pay packages, the concept of a Pay Czar puts an unwelcome patina on everything that is related to compensation.  I would be interested in talking to ECE members who are motivated to help recolor this discussion to ensure that equity compensation in general is not irreparably damaged in the forum of public opinion.  This is an amazing opportunity for us to explain that equity is not evil, when used properly.

Lastly, the ECE has been around for about a year now.  With more than 700 members, this group has grown to include individuals from many backgrounds, countries and types of expertise.  I just wanted to thank everyone for being involved and I hope that you will all invite a few of your colleagues to join this week.

All the best,
Dan

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