End of the road or beginning of the journey?

MACPA's multiweek tutorial on Web 2.0 enabled me to learn about technologies I had long been curious about (Second Life, Facebook, Flickr, Wikis) and to refine my knowledge of those I had some familiarity with (blogging, YouTube, podcasts).

The applications I enjoyed the most were blogging and the online image generator. I had been interested in blogging but never took the time to create and use a blog. The program, with its mandatory blogging at regular intervals, provided considerable practice at putting one's thoughts together in this format. The online image generator was lots of fun and could be a good source of humor in all sorts of communications. I certainly plan to use blogging for Tomorrow's CPA, once we have it established.

I was less enthusiastic about SecondLife and FaceBook. SecondLife may have a great future, but I find it very difficult to navigate, the avatars are cold and eerie and the whole linden dollars concept is remote to me. It was nevertheless intriguing to participate in the program and at least establish a working knowledge. I was also not entirely comfortable with FaceBook and MySpace, though I think FaceBook as it evolves will replace personal emails. To me it was too much like dating Web sites and leaves one too open to a rather more personal type of spam. I have already been subjected to unwanted contacts and I don't even have a profile or picture.

Several applications seemed to me fairly redundant for my purposes, such as Technorati, del.icio.us, Rollyo. It is possible that in the future I will find a use for them, but for now they seem to duplicate resources like bloglines and Google that are already sufficient for me.

In my previous blogs I identified the applications I thought would be most useful to our members. I know SecondLife can be a marvelous resource for meetings, recruiting and marketing in general. Our blogs and podcasts are off to a positive start. Internally, Wikis can be an effective way to brainstorm and hold other types of dialogue. While the social networking sites have captivated the younger generation I am not sure that at the present stage of evolution they offer us much opportunity as an association. My sense is that these sites are strictly social and an escape from such issues as career or school.

What stands out most for me is the enormous benefit MACPA has provided staff. This has been such an imaginative yet disciplined introduction to technologies we really need to be acquainted with--both professionally and in our personal lives. Even if we don't apply these learnings regularly, our technological literacy has been considerably increased. I like the week to week progression, the blogging commentary, and the incentive to complete the whole course. We all owe MACPA thanks for putting our continuing education as a priority.

I do not have any important suggestions about administering the program. I would hope there is some kind of follow up to encourage people to use these applications, and maybe future tutorials to refine our skills or introduce new applications as they emerge.

MACPA podcast tops, natch

I have enjoyed all the MACPA podcasts, both for the relevant content, the incisive presentation and the spot-on questioning of Bill Sheridan. The podcasts complement the MACPA blogs by providing excellent brief commentary on developments in the profession, in a very absorbable format.

On this occasion I listened to Bill's interview with Judy O'Dell, who is chairing the FASB committee on financial reporting standards for private companies. This would have been a good "trailer" for the Nov. 30 town hall meeting in Salisbury, which I was unable to attend. It was valuable to hear directly from the chair's mouth about the rationale for the committee, some of the challenges it faces, and the judicious decision to delay the process. I appreciated the inside look into something I had heard about but had only vague notions about.

I wonder if there is a way to have a visual component for the podcast. I do not mean a video but rather a photo of the speaker, in this case Judy O'Dell; or perhaps some background text--a bio of the speaker, bullet points about the topic, or somesuch. I know most people won't be looking at the screen while listening, but I feel that instead of a moving ball the kinds of things I mentioned might add another dimension to the experience. Just a thought.

These podcasts are just one more way MACPA is going to extra lengths to inform members. I hope the number of listeners will grown exponentially.

Becoming one of the Pod People

I have listened to a variety of podcasts in the past year--everything from book reviews to jazz discussions to the MACPA podcasts. Along with YouTube and blogs, podcasts are a useful way to get information in a very immediate way--in both senses of immediate. I love the oppportunity to see or hear people in the flesh, in addition to reading blogs. I don't see any real downsides to podcast; the sound quality is generally good. I would like to be able to fast forward, especially in a lengthy podcast like the New York Times Book Review, where some topics are more interesting than others. (I am not sure there is that capability with all podcasts.) I will probably turn to blogs more than podcasts for information, because I absorb information better through reading and I like to skim longer texts. But I know I will use podcasts on occasion as well.

Direct from You Tube: Maryland CPAs

I have seen this MACPA video 100 times but I never dreamed I could house it on my own blog. It is such a perfect distillation of the Maryland CPA, all in an incisive 7 minutes. It has become a staple of our presentations to everyone from high school students to members at town meetings and it never fails to inform and impress. So glad to have it here.

Desultory thoughts about technology

I love technology, in this case computers and the Internet, as much as anyone. As an erstwhile scholar, I revel in the immediate gratification of finding bits of information so quickly. Email is a godsend. Shopping online is invaluable. I can even catch up on tv shows I have missed. I spend the better part of the day and some of the night online. My work is more gratifying than ever and there opportunities to expand what I do for the company and our members. For my son, who is autistic, the computer has provided a lease on life and potentially a career. Heck, I even met my wife online.

Nevertheless, there are a few things that do frustrate me about the technology.

1. You become completely dependent on it.
2. The latest program becomes obsolete in a trice.
3. It replaces, but cannot replace, direct human contact.
4. Laptops will never be inexpensive enough.
5. Technical problems arise and I never know how to resolve them; it I do find an expert, it take them a long time and the expense can be enormous.

I see countless opportunities in Web 2.0; by now I am conditioned to believe that the newest craze will be tomorrow's necessity. Yet I wonder if, by choice or catastrophe, I suddenly turned my back on computers and returned to the ante-bellum world of reading and phone calls (but never handwritten letters!).

But why would I want to?

Not much ado about Rollyo

Perhumps I didn't use it properly, but I found little enchantment in Rollyo. I selected jazz as my topic and copied down sites from my favorites. Many sites had URLs longer than one line, so I was prohibited from entering them--the 25 character limit is stifling. I don't really see the point of this program, when just visiting my favorites will give me pretty much the same result. The related searches seem to be about what you would see on Google. This is the first Web 2.0 application that I found rather redundant, but again, I may not have used it properly.

Generating a monumental image

Hey, you can be a rocket scientist too! Just go to http://www.hetemeel.com/einsteinform.php and let Einstein scrawl one of your profundities.

My wife is always asking me how much I love her, but she is never convinced of the magnitude of my affection. So I figured I would post it in Einsteinian terms.