January 2006 Circle Update
The Boomer Technology Circle™ program year drew to a close on a high note as BTC #5 and BTC #8 met in early December. Both Circles were well attended and had excellent presentations.
As with the other Circles, Gary Boomer presented insights into current events in the accounting profession and their strategic implications for the years ahead. We also featured a Mad Lab with reports on new products, new services, new technologies, and updates on past reports. Each group also took the opportunity to break into specialized focus groups with accounting partners discussing management issues, while the technology specialists delved into topics of greater engineering interest. Both Circles also had the opportunity to hear from key vendors on their workflow management products, designed to ease the congestion and improve the efficiency of client production tasks within the firm.
In addition to these common agenda items, each Circle focused on topics of their own choosing. BTC #5 looked at tools and techniques for scheduling jobs for professional staff, and at ways to improve network documentation. The recent attention to disaster recovery operations made network documentation a key topic. Both these presentations received very favorable feedback from participants. BTC #8 used their time to examine a practice management product, now available in ASP configuration, offered by one of the member firms. This stimulated an excellent discussion of the merits and risks of hosted applications. Another firm presented information on open-source software, and the ways in which it has been used in their IT package. Open source remains a topic of interest to many, and both of these presentations where highly related as well.
2005 was quite possibly our best year yet for the Boomer Technology Circles. Memberships are up, attendance is up, and the programs are excellent. From this high note, the Circles now go into a planned period of "down time" during tax season, but we will be working on ways to make them even better when they return to activity next May. If your firm is not yet a member of this self-selected group of "the best getting better" now is the ideal time to get on-board. Contact Eric Hunt at 888-266-6375 (erich@boomer.com) and he can have you ready to go when the Circles resume in May 2006.