Bob Schneider is a Partner in 
Wilson So is the Director of Hitachi America, Ltd. My XBRL Reading List
Written by Bob Schneider Posted January 12, 2007
Robert Bork, in his hearings to become a Supreme Court justice, apparently doomed his candidacy by saying he regarded the position as an “intellectual feast” (presumably, he was supposed to say “a golden opportunity to help working families across America”).
But I’m certain I’ll suffer no harsh reprisals by expressing a similar joy at being editor of Data Interactive. XBRL is an intriguing topic on so many levels — technological, financial, political that one of the job’s great pleasures is simply reading what smart people have to say about it.
In this vein, I offer some suggestions of who and what to read on XBRL. I know many readers will finish this post and wonder why I left out this person or that journal. The most likely reason is either ignorance or oversight, so please add a comment or email me and I’ll post your suggestions. In my recommendations, I have tried to include articles that are either on the Internet or can be easily accessed from databases like InfoTrac OneFile that are available from the websites of large public libraries.
First, let me put in a word for the guest bloggers Data Interactive has published to date, including (in alphabetical order) Gianluca Garbellotto, David vun Kannon (”Why Is XBRL So Hard?”, Strategic Finance, August 2004), Gary Purnhagen, and Mike Willis. I find anything written by them interesting, informative, useful.
Next, at the risk of appearing sycophantic, I strongly recommend the speeches of SEC Chairman Christopher Cox and Chief Technology Officer Corey Booth. Their presentations are always thoughtful and well-written, and they provide insight on where these important decision-makers believe XBRL is headed.
Neal Hannon is one of the best and most prolific writers on XBRL, particularly on its many and robust uses beyond financial reporting. His articles appear regularly in Strategic Finance, and the IMA’s Suggested Reading page has links to many of his pieces.
CFO.com consistently offers high-quality, informative articles. Take a look at XBRL You Can’t Ignore it Anymore, which has links to their recent pieces on interactive data.
Eric Cohen has a long history of making accounting technology topics interesting to readers, as his piece on “Interactive Data and the Tax Executive” (Tax Executive, May 1, 2006) demonstrates. And Christopher Whalen, head of Institutional Risk Analytics, has important things to say about XBRL, by no always favorable.
Other authors well worth reading are Mark O’Connor (see his XBRL are we close to the tipping point? in CMA Management), and Maria Trombly, whose work often appears in Securities Industry News. Interviews with XBRL luminaries such as Charles Hoffman and Walter Hamscher are certainly worth your time too.
While not the work of a single individual, I should mention the XBRL Educational Resources Center at Bryant College. It is an extremely useful page with loads of links to articles, news, tutorials, etc. Of special note is an index of XBRL articles from 2000- to mid-2006.
Of course, some of the best commentary on XBRL now takes place in blogs and on forums, and I will address these venues in a separate post. Again, I encourage you to add a comment or send me your suggestions of articles that should be on everyone’s XBRL reading list.