Welcome to the Blog

If We Only Knew

The power of public records

I've been a blogger before. For a while, when people did such things, I wrote about my food adventures.  Because I was cheap enough to use blogger/blogspot, the site still exists, unlike the food site I ran for ten years, which is gone from the 'net.  I also blogged about business research when I had my old website, but that one too is lost to the depths of not paying something that no one was watching.  I've tried to say what I need to say via social media, but even with an expanded 280 characters, Twitter's not enough.  This is my chance, again to pontificate on how I think research should be done, as well as highlight various things I come across that may be interesting.  If that does not work, you may hear about my latest restaurant find.  Or poker.

I heard about this story today and it seemed apt for my first blog post.  Every AM, I take my wild dog, Molly, for a walk with a few others.  One of us walkers was in the electronic medical records biz, and today he told me a story about Jonathan Bush and Athenahealth.  It turned out to be the perfect tale to start this blog.  See Mr. Bush has quite the rep in the electronic medical records biz, and not in a good way.  As we see in a lot of stories, there were things that were, well, open secrets.  In the past, Bush was called loquacious, which may or may not have a bit or pejorative to it, but not much of the real stuff came out.  Until it came out.  2005 divorce and allegations of domestic violence and another report of improper sexual conduct--see here for the details.  All in the context of some fighting with activist investors.  Poop out there, the investors got their wish and Bush left his post. And none of this is really my point.

I should say I never heard of Jonathan Bush until this AM, unlike my friend who's been privy to industry rumor mongering for years.  What I have heard of is the power of public records, and that's one of the primary purposes of this blog. I heard the story, and I thought two angles for the blog.  First, what if you were the activist investor and you were pining for change of management at a company you did not think was being run well by its CEO.  Would not digging up things like a divorce file help.  Second, what if you were at a company facing activist investors and their team of pitbull researchers.  Would not you want to know what they were finding, what they would turn loose on you?  You only know if you search.  

So, that's my first post.  Think about where the past can come up and bite you, and ask yourself, are you prepared.  Or think about where you may be able to bite someone to better get at what you want.  It's all there in the public record.