Have a "Don't Do That Story" for Equity Compensation?

Despite, or perhaps because of, the extensive regulations surrounding equity compensation, wherever industry professionals gather, it only takes lifting your ear to hear exciting and scary stories of ill-planned transactions, poorly designed awards, unexpected tax consequences, frustrating accounting situations, or any number of what may be called equity compensation horror stories. It's the nature of the industry.

So we have decided to take the beast by the horns and use some of the scariest stories as teaching opportunities. We recently published Don't Do That for ESOP companies. Don't Do That was so much fun, we've received requests to write a companion book about broad-based equity compensation surprises.

The NCEO is soliciting stories for publication in the first quarter of 2011. If you want to submit something that does not identify you or the company, we've set up a submission site at this link to protect the anonymity of our sources. We'll be accepting submissions and title suggestions through September 15 and then have a voting period September 16-30.

We are also asking professionals from across the board, including equity administrators, accountants, attorneys, and human resources and tax professionals, to contribute their most compelling stories and story ideas. These stories can hide the identity of the company, but the author can get a byline. If you know someone who has a good (bad) equity compensation story or if you belong to an online professional discussion group whose members may have appropriate stories, please feel free to re-post this announcement with the link to the submission site so they can participate, too.

Our goal is to gather as many stories as possible across the spectrum of equity compensation issues (e.g., administration, plan design, tax, accounting, law, communication, or international/mobility) and then ask everyone to come back and vote for their favorites. The most popular and well-written stories will be included in our upcoming book, scheduled to be published in early 2011. Please follow the link above to our submission guidelines, which explain what we're looking for and what you should expect. Good luck and we look forward to reading your stories!

If you're not submitting stories or title suggestions, watch for an alert when the voting period opens.