Boomer Technology Circles™—Right For You?

The Boomer Technology Circles were established by Gary Boomer, CEO of Boomer Consulting, Inc., to facilitate an opportunity for leading, non-competing CPA firms to participate in what might be described as group therapy for winners—an open and honest network facilitated by the industry’s leading technology consultant who demands accountability from all participants.

The coaches for the Boomer Technology Circle meetings include Gary and fellow consultants Sandra Wiley and Ken McCall, along with other experts that address timely and relevant topics. However, Circle members start and end each Circle meeting with a peer session. These allow (or, in some cases, force) participants to discuss important projects and ideas that they want to incorporate into their own firms.  In turn, participants receive feedback from peers who have often traveled similar paths. Not surprisingly, Circle members regularly discover new solutions to common problems.  Participants identify this honest evaluation and accountability period as one of the unique properties that make the Boomer Technology Circles valuable.

What does a firm get out of the experience?

“There’s a couple of things the circles do,” says Dan Hillegass, a Partner in the Tax Department of Gifford, Hillegass & Ingwersen, LLP.  “First, they bring a lot of new ideas to us – either through the Mad Lab and things that Gary and Ken present or through some of the things that the other firms are experimenting with in terms of trying to improve their efficiencies and processes.”

“The other thing that they give us is a good read for where we are and what we ought to be looking at next,” Hillegass continued.  “I think it’s something that’s a good barometer for us. It makes sure we’re heading in the right direction.  And when we do the 90 day game plan and have some accountability review at the beginning of the next one – it sort of keeps us on our toes.  You know, it’s like every time you have to go for a review with someone – if you go talk to someone about your receivables, well the day before you make sure you make those ten phone calls… ”

Gifford, Hillegass & Ingwersen is an Atlanta-based full-service accounting, audit, business advisory, tax, and financial services provider with approximately 60 full-time equivalent employees.  The firm was named among the “Best of the Best” for 2003, 2004 and 2005 by INSIDE Public Accounting, a distinction granted annually to 25 accounting firms based on a variety of financial client service and management criteria.  They have been a member of the Boomer Technology Circles since 2001.

More than pen pals

These ‘user groups’ create relationships that feel like they are inter-office even though they actually span the country.

“I’m very pleased with the Boomer Technology Circles and how it seems to be fresh each time we have a meeting,” says Jake Jacobs of McDonald Jacobs Accounting & Consultants in Portland Oregon.  “I don’t just walk away feeling, ‘Oh that was the same thing we talked about last quarter.’  We’re able to develop working relationships with peer firms from across the country and with the Boomer staff – and I think they’re both important.”

Jacobs is the IT specialist shareholder for McDonald Jacobs and has been a Circle member since 2002.  His firm has clients throughout the Pacific Northwest and has a staff of around 20 professionals.

“We always come back from the meetings with a pretty clear idea of where we’re going and how we’re going to get there,” continues Jacobs.  “The circles kind of ‘grease the skids.’  It’s just fun to be able to say, ‘Ok let’s do it’ and start with implementation instead of just dragging feet and positioning and gathering more information and on and on.”

The 90 Day Game Plan – ‘It works’

Members commit their goals and objectives for 90-day periods to paper (the 90 day Game Plan) and then describe them to their peers because, as Boomer Consulting’s COO Sandra Wiley relates, “You are 50% more likely to succeed with a written plan and 80% more likely if you tell someone else your plan.”

Jacobs also values the accountability factor.  “The other thing that makes it all really fly is accountability,” he said.  “It’s not just ‘go to Kansas City, have a nice session or two and then go home.’  We know that we’ve got to be accountable when we get there, we know we’ve got to be accountable when we come back in three months – that changes everything.  I’ve gone to lots of technology conferences over the years that have been intense in terms of content, but there’s no accountability and there’s almost no relationship building. So, it’s a great show but you get back to the office—which is buried in stuff—and a lot of those great ideas just end up getting lost.  They dissipate.  With Boomer’s 90 day game plan and the follow-up that’s attendant with that, we get four or five items done every 90 days and it’s not long before we have 20.  It works.”

New ideas, relationships and honest evaluation

Mike Marchesseau is the Chief Technology Officer for Gifford, Hillegass & Ingwersen. He echoes Jacob’s comments about the relationships that are developed at Circle meetings.
“Over the last five years I’ve also had really good contact with other technical people in our circles,” said Marchesseau.  “And not only do you get technical support while you’re there at the Circle meetings, but we take that back home.  I’ve got two or three people that I stay in contact with so whenever I have a project I can call them, or we e-mail back and forth.”

New ideas, relationships developed with peers, and the honest evaluation and accountability for growth are the components that make the Circles valuable.

“I just keep wandering back to initiatives that we picked up in Kansas City and have assimilated into our organization and our way of doing things,” said Jacobs.  “There are a lot of them, when you start to think about it, that have changed the way we operate.”

Big decisions, wise counsel

Jim Bourke is the shareholder in charge of firm technology and IT consulting services at WithumSmith + Brown, widely regarded as one of the finest accounting and consulting firms in the New Jersey/New York/Pennsylvania region.

“Every single major technology decision that we have ever made as a firm—I have to be honest with you—we have done it as a result of our involvement in Boomer Technology Circles,” said Bourke, a Certified Information Technology Professional and the current President of the New Jersey Society of CPAs.

WithumSmith + Brown is ranked among the Top 40 accounting firms in the United States by Public Accounting Report and has been rated “Best of the Best” for eight consecutive years by INSIDE Public Accounting. The firm has been a member of the Boomer Technology Circles since 1999.

“Every single major decision, I tell you,” he continued.  “Whether it’s going paperless, document management, going back to our selection of CPA software, accountability application way back when—every single major technology decision started and had a foundation at Boomer Technology Circles.”

Adding authentic value

“I keep saying that we wouldn’t be where we are today, as far as our technology goes, if it wasn’t for our involvement in the Boomer Technology Circles,” said Bourke.  “It has really added a tremendous amount of value to our firm.  It has allowed us to stay right there cutting edge where we need to be to be competitive in our marketplace.  There’s one check that I don’t mind writing and that’s the check to renew our annual membership in the Boomer Technology Circles.”

“There are just a lot of real positive things about it,” said Hillegass.  “I think the price is certainly reasonable.”

Jacobs adds, “I don’t know of any other resources quite like this that are available to a firm our size.”

READ MORE about Boomer Technology Circles