Remember the beginning of the Internet? Do names like Prodigy, Compuserve and AOL bring back memories? Or 2400 baud modems?
The year was 1996 and Barry Ricewas asked to do a road show for the MACPA's seven chapters to promote this new “technology” that would greatly affect the way CPAs do business. That is Barry in the middle with me and the MACPA's COO, Jackie Brown, holding the handouts from that 1996 era. He remembered that we were one of the first state CPA societies to have a Web site and one of the first to have a computer lab.
Barry, a professor of accounting at Loyola University in Maryland,.was featured in the CPA Vision Project as one of the pathfinders in the CPA profession with the use of technology in teaching. He truly saw early on significance of technology to us as professionals. (See Barry's pathfinder profile on the CPA Vision Web site).
He pioneered collaboration via his still-active listservs, Accounting Educators using Computers and Multimedia (AECM) and the CPAs-L Listserv. His passion for teaching and technology has earned him awards and recognition. He was the MACPA's outstanding educator and was recognized by the CPA Vision Project, AAA and Loyola for his contributions to accounting education.
Did I mention that he was one of my favorite accounting instructors at Loyola?
But he did not come to talk about himself. He came to reconnect and see where he could help by volunteering. He also came to tell us he was proud at how far we had come in the use of technology. He loved hearing about our blogs and our efforts to connect with the young generation (and even us older CPAs) using the latest social media tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and even YouTube.
The big ah-ha for me is that technology continues to shape the way we do business as CPAs and the way accounting is taught in schools. In fact, when you think about how much has really changed, we have adopted an amazing number of changes in the last 12 years. That gives me confidence that we can continue to deal with the ever-increasing amount and pace of change being thrown at us.
- What are CPAs doing online? Complete the first survey by Rick Telberg here.
- See my earlier post on the state of accounting education.
- Edith Orenstein at FEI mentions us in her post Social Media, YouTube and Us.
Thanks, Barry, for making us take the trip back to the future!
Visit the MACPA on Facebook:
- The MACPA's main page on Facebook
- New / Young Professionals Network page
- Business Learning Institute page
- CPA Careers page
- Tomorrows CPA student Web site
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