Baseball aficionados know the frustration of their favorite teams promising "wait until next year," at the tail end of yet another season that even the best PR spin could only be described as "rebuilding."
In a sort of restructuring parallel, it's now been roughly 10 months since the changing of the guard at the New York State Society of CPAs, when long-time executive director Lou Grumet stepped down from the 28,000-member organization and was replaced by insider Joanne Barry.
I wrote in this space at that time, that while there were some notable initiatives at the NYSSCPA under Grumet's purview such as the passage of the Accountancy Reform Act, the founding of the Trusted Professional newspaper and repeated calls for CPA mobility, there were by contrast, far too many areas that were left wanting.
Technology for one, was nearly non-existent, and while that's improved somewhat with assorted entrees into social media, the NYSSCPA still does not offer any technology-centric conferences, seminars or even Chapter CPE programs according to its website and as a result, remains light years behind tech-embracing societies like Maryland.
Ditto for financial literacy programs which essentially remain MIA, a rather curious track considering the stellar efforts in this area from societies like California, Texas and NYSSCPA's neighbor to the west, New Jersey.
Since the executive-level change, there's also been a failure to proactively reach out to the Fourth Estate, a retrograde tactic I've never quite understood in my 10 years of chronicling the profession and for all the pros and cons of previous leadership, not a strategy that was ever deployed under Grumet's aegis.
You don't hold out the twin promises of progress and a new beginning to your membership and not make a concerted effort to communicate with the media unless you intend to simply function as a caretaker and not a much-needed change agent.
New York is inarguably, the hub of public accounting - 18 of Accounting Today's Top 100 Firms are headquartered within the Empire State including all of the Big Four. The state society should be reflective of that heavy concentration and never take a second-tier position to a number of others in terms of progress or initiatives.
Because society members, like baseball fans, are only going to wait so long.
