3-in-1: CALU 2009 / Lousy Books / Tweeting Financial Plans

How time passes. The last post, the 100th, took place three weeks ago. What happened to a post per week, most weeks? Life. In particular:

• CALU 2009
• lousy books
• Twitter

CALU 2009

As usual, CALU was exceptional. Stephen Harper, Jim Flaherty and Michael Ignatieff. Preston Manning spoke. I sent live messages to Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. I blogged at Riscario Insider. I had my portable scanner, voice recorder, Bluetooth headset and newly-upgraded Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10.

Highlights were

1. The Honourable Donald Bowman, the former Chief Justice of the Tax Court of Canada. He spoke about interest deductibility, GAAR and 10-8 leveraging. I had the opportunity to speak to him privately for a few minutes.
   
2. Two members of the Richardson family (Carolyn the Chairman, and Hartley the President & CEO) on running a family business (now in its 5th generation) and succession planning
   
3. Dr. Lance Secretan on the CASTLE Principles
   

I may write about these sessions in the future from my dozens of pages of notes.

Lousy Books

Most of the books I read or listen to come recommended. Recently, I've been judging books by their titles, covers and authors. This adventure didn't work well. There's lots of fluff out there. I won't mention titles. Luckily, you can learn from the bad: just do the opposite.

Twitter (@mActuary)

Twitter is the easiest way to communicate timely information. I mainly post links to articles that may interest you. Distilling messages down to 140 characters makes your message more potent. More like headlines. More likely to get read and recommended.

Can you summarize your financial plan in 140 characters? Jonathan Chevreau started with his 76,000 word book, Findependence Day, and got whittled down to 126 characters: Lose debt. Join pension. Own home. Spend little. Save tons. Invest wisely. Be tax wise. Marry 4 life. Insure life. Make will.

Impressive! I'm going to create my own summary. Why don't you try too?

Links

• A complete financial plan in 140 characters (Financial Post, May 2, 2009)
• CALU 2009: Preston Manning on Financial Planning
  
• CALU 2009: Seven In A Row - Prime Minister Harper Live Again
  
• CALU 2009: Jim Flaherty on the Economy and Financial Literacy
  
• CALU 2008: Sharing The Wisdom
  
• CALU 2008: The Prime Minister And The Producers
• CALU 2008: The Cost of Low Reinsurance Rates
• CALU 2008: Advisor Succession Planning
• The CASTLE Principles (with a link to a 2006 presentation)