Voices

CPAs gone wild!

[IMGCAP(1)]What do you get when you combine two right-brained CPA firm owners with a penchant for innovation, a comedian, the CEO (Tom Hood) of the hippest state CPA society (Maryland), and incredibly cool cloud vendors like Freshbooks and Cloudsway? Wait don’t answer yet…there’s more. Take all these people and place them dead center at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Digital Interactive and Music Festival held in Texas…then what to you get? I’ll tell you: you get an unmatched level of innovation, inspiration and synergy required to start a movement!

Like I promised in my last blog, I want to update you on my participation at the recent SXSW event. As the title of this blog suggests, we were CPAs gone wild (and right in the middle of tax season). We facilitated a podcast that highlighted the new movement of digital CPAs. That is, those of us who refuse to track billable hours and embrace the cloud, social media and other advanced technologies to run our businesses—and seek clients with the same mindset.

SXSW offered the ideal forum in which to locate these types of clients, because everyone in attendance understood the value of today’s technology landscape and how to use it to create positive cultural change.

With a cadre of future-thinking professionals, there was enough energy, humor and intellectual power to change the world. Well, okay, maybe not the whole world, but the CPA profession for sure!

One topic specifically was at the forefront of discussion: Thought leadership within the profession has changed. In fact, it’s more fitting to term what’s going on as "feeling leadership,” because those leading the new movement are doing so based on the passion and love they have for the profession.

As a group, we are standing up, speaking out, and working to educate and enlighten others on harnessing the power of technology and new channels of communication. We call our movement the "New Vision CPA Movement,” and our message is clear: Change will continue to happen, and it won’t wait for the profession to catch up. It’s time to get on board and envision your firm’s future. Movement leaders are standing by to help you

Read or listen more about our adventures on the Freshbooks Ranch, mechanical bulls, our podcast, and just how wild our group of CPA’s got here

 

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
MORE FROM ACCOUNTING TODAY