Accountants And Social Media Dream Panel @MDBIZEXPO

I had the very good fortune of being invited to participate in a dream panel at the Maryland Association of CPAs Business Expo last week.  The panel was moderated by Bill Sullivan of the MACPAs and included Edith Orenstein of FEI, Will Burns of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, Alexandra DeFelice of the Journal of Accountancy, and Rick Telberg of CPA Trendlines.

A lot has changed, except for the Big 4, since I wrote this post.

We covered a lot of territory.  Suffice to say, there’s much to talk about when it comes to accountants’ and accounting firms’ use of social media tools.  Much of this is thanks to the leadership of Tom Hood and the Maryland Association of CPAS.  They’ve now encouraged several other state societies to have a presence on Twitter (where I met them) and are also the ring leaders of a significant new initiative on Second Life.  Edith Orenstein has written about both their and FEI’s experiments in Second Life extensively, but from what I saw of a demo last Monday, it’s more than an experiment.  It’s a viable alternative to live meetings and conferences and may fit the bill to help professionals stay in touch and maintain their CPE while also saving travel dollars and time.

Take a look at the tape on You Tube.  It’s in six parts, here, here, here, here, here and here.  

Name checks in my comments to Edith, of course, but also Matt Kelly, Bruce Carton and Doug Cornelius, as well as Allan Schoenberg of the CME Group.

I welcome your feedback and your invitation to speak on the subject at your firm or in future meetings/forums.