clients

Introducing Rotary to the art of the Blog

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I have been invited by my local Rotary club to present on blogs and the like – them being somewhat less than informed regarding blogs, apparently! – on 10th August 2006 at 7:30am.  The club meets at the Mt Coot-tha Botanical Gardens (at the Lakeside restaurant near the planetarium) – they also apparently meet rather early in the morning. 

The presentation overview is:

Introduction to Business Blogging 

This presentation will introduce and define the topic of ‘blogging’ – an online chronological diary of a publisher(s)’s thoughts and comments on a topic of common interest. 

This tool has enormous implications for business communication – both internally within larger organisations and externally with clients – and so some potential business applications for blogging are introduced. 

Finally, some practical ‘next steps’ on blogging and how you might dip your toe in the water with this new publishing phenomenon are explored.  Handouts will be provided. 
Micheal’s own blog is available at www.michealaxelsen.com. 

It should be an interesting morning, with any luck, and I will be certainly interested to hear what Rotarians think of such things as blogs.  I will post the presentation here first chance I get. 

Eddie Fee – he of Rostrum fame – is the instigator of this, as Eddie is a member of my Rostrum speaking club (Club 17 – we meet at Indooroopilly Library every Wednesday at 7.30pm – except when State of Origin is on, apparently!) as well as of this Rotary club. 

IT outsourcing – selecting the ‘best’ infrastructure model

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This article was published on CEO Online a month or two ago, and I did promise I would post it here eventually.  And as I am of course absolutely certain that there is a raft of readers out there who would like to see the full article on the basis of that promise (delusionment is a wonderful thing) I am posting the article here.

In order to keep us all sane, you will need to click through to see the full article.

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Invitation to Present at Queensland CPA Congress

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I have been kindly invited by CPA Australia to present at the Queensland CPA Congress in October 2006 on the topic ‘Implementing Systems for Improved Reporting Efficiency’.  Since this has the potential to be drier than last week’s dog food, I am trying to ensure that the audience doesn’t go to sleep 5 minutes after I do through what will hopefully be an interesting presentation for most people. 

This I will do by giving a comprehensive companion guide (that has all the boring details) to attendees, and focussing the presentation on a strategic approach to information systems implementing for reporting efficiency.  This discussion will be livened up with some war stories from the field.  Most of our clients do struggle with their reporting efficiency problems and these stories will be used to illustrate some of the issues we all cope with.

The official session guideline is:

Presentation Overview:  Implementing Systems for Improved Reporting Efficiency

This presentation addresses issues in selecting and implementing information systems – including but not limited to accounting information systems – in order to ensure efficiency in business reporting. 

A strategic framework to building your information systems is provided that can be used to assess your reporting efficiency and to suggest strategies that will improve your business’ response to this important commercial issue.

The presentation will include ‘case studies from the field’ in Micheal’s experience in addressing these issues for clients.  All attendees will receive a comprehensive guide with detailed discussion on the approach to implementing systems to achieve improvements in reporting efficiency.

The presentation is set down for 25th October 2006 from 3.20pm to 4.20pm at the Sofitel Hotel in Brisbane.  Hope to see CPA members at Congress this year.

CPA Australia – going places

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Anyone who has half-glanced at my CV or some of my blog posts will note that although I provide information systems consulting services to my clients, I am actually a lapsed accountant.  The reason I remain so passionate about CPA Australia is that I think a Commerce or Business degree from a university is the best entry point into the world of business, bar none.  This is even more true if, as a student, you are not certain of your future direction.  Commerce generally, and accounting particularly, lets you direct your career to meet your changing circumstances and professional preferences.  And of course I think CPA Australia is the best accounting professional body for allowing you this flexibility.  Naturally.

By way of example, I quote the members of the CPA Australia Information Technology & Management Centre of Excellence (which I chair) – all qualified accountants (with one exception), all working in very different fields.  This wasn’t necessarily because they felt that accounting was their best entree into the world of IT, but rather because it allowed their career to be flexible and follow their interest whilst maintaining a leading business professional qualification. 

All of which is leading up to the fact that I note that CPA Australia’s new advertising campaign was launched this week.  I had a sneak preview at the new Queensland President’s networking drinks last week (Lyndal Drennan is the new Queensland CPA President) but the ads are, I think, their best yet.  You can see them here:  CPA Australia Advertising Campaign 2006. 

Nicolette Sharp - the only time she goes backwards...

Professional Services Firms and Technology

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I have been working for professional service firms since 1997 (nearly 9 years!), and I recall sitting in a meeting with the national board of a former employer – a national accounting firm – in 1997 when the topic of email came up.  Most didn’t understand it, most thought it could be an expensive exercise and ‘anyway, clients pick up the phones to talk to me, they don’t email me’.  A reasonably rational response in 1997, but in 2006, particularly as Generation X and Y take over from the baby boomers, email is becoming a preferred medium of communication.

Email is still a particularly dangerous form of communication when communicating with clients – confusion can reign supreme and ambiguity can become the order of the day if you are not careful, and I now have a policy of making a phone call before sending an email for that reason (however, policies were made to be broken, I have found!).  However, clients do expect email communications fairly instantaneously, which is why I found Ross Dawson’s Blog‘s entry on ‘The Seven Mega-Trends of Professional Services‘ particularly interesting.  I can only concur with most of the comments made regarding professional services firms in terms of client sophistication, transparency, governance, commoditisation, and so on.

What is also interesting to me is that this is a white paper that Ross Dawson wrote for Epicor, which is business software we recently recommended to a client as a management system for a professional services firm.  Much to my surprise, in many respects, given that it wasn’t a dedicated practice management system (like, say, Solution6/MYOB, APS, CMS Open, or Keystone), it met all our criteria (proven capability, functionality, low-risk) for the client in that circumstance.

Serendipity drives the world.