Eric, that is a nice expression that summarizes a description in a report. I took your idea and adjusted it so it will show the latest updates on any object. This can be added to any report and is full of useful information, and avoids having to use shared columns. This will present in the report as follows:
Less than 140 chars:
This is my update. -- Narayan Raum on 5/25/16
Greater than 140 chars:
This is my update where there are more than 140 characters in the update...(open for more) -- Narayan Raum on 6/7/16
displayname=Latest Update namekey=latest update textmode=true valueexpression=IF(LEN({lastNote}.{noteText})>140, CONCAT(SUBSTR({lastNote}.{noteText},0,139),"...(open for more) -- ", {lastNote}.{owner}.{name}," on ", {lastNote}.{entryDate}), IF(LEN({lastNote}.{noteText})>0, CONCAT({lastNote}.{noteText}," -- ", {lastNote}.{owner}.{name}," on ", {lastNote}.{entryDate}))) valueformat=HTML