Future-Proof

Business Learning Institute

How should you future-proof your organization and your career in a complex and chaotic world? Host Bill Sheridan, thought leader with the Maryland Association of CPAs, gets answers from some of today's most forward-thinking thought leaders.

  • 34 minutes 6 seconds
    71. Your Business Model is Not Your Why | with Will Hill

    Summer's over, October's here, and things are changing. But that's the state of our world today, isn't it? And not just when it comes to the weather.

    Change is the new normal, and that can be an uncomfortable thing, especially for

    CPAs. But for those who are ready to embrace it — to adapt a more nimble and flexible mindset — there are a lot of opportunities just waiting to be taken advantage of.

    The question is, then, how do we do that? How do we start embracing flexibility and fluidity as competitive advantages? How do we start thinking about transforming our very business models so that we'll remain relevant in a changing and complex world? Those things aren't baked into our DNA, are they?

    But here to help us figure it all out is Will Hill, the Tax Professionals Advisory product manager for Thomson Reuters. He's also been included on CPA Practice Advisor's "40 Under 40" list twice and he's an iInnovator with TR's Practice Forward service offering, which is focused on helping firms make the transition to having client relationships that are centered on Advisory Services.

    To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.

    Resources:

    Future-Proof is a production of Crate Media

    30 September 2019, 10:00 am
  • 29 minutes 23 seconds
    70. The Culture Key: Bet on Talent | with Dee Ann Turner

    We're jumping back on the culture train today. As you can probably tell, we're big believers in getting your culture right. We've had conversations on the topic with Tom Peters, Karl Alrichs, Jamie Notter, Richard Silberstein, and David Barrett — and that's because it's a REALLY important conversation to be having!

    Really, there might not be a bigger or more important differentiator in business today than your culture. If you get it right, you're going to have a leg up in recruitment and retention, for one, but you'll also just be doing business with really great people who will sing your praises and be loyal to you, and evangelize what you do to the world.

    To help us take this conversation a step further, we sat down with with Dee Ann Turner, who speaks and consults with businesses around the world on how to leverage talent and culture to create what she calls "legendary customer experiences." And she ought to know. She spent more than 30 years with Chick-fil-A, including a stint as their vice president of talent and human resources.

    To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.

    Resources:

    Future-Proof is a production of Crate Media

    23 September 2019, 10:00 am
  • 29 minutes 47 seconds
    69. Color Accounting: Teaching the Language of Business to Everyone | with Peter Frampton

    Today's episode is all about Color Accounting — and if you're not familiar with Color Accounting yet, you need to be!

    So, we invited Peter Frampton, co-founder of Color Accounting, onto the show to teach us all about what Color Accounting is and why it's so important to the future of our profession.

    To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.

    Resources:

    Future-Proof is a production of Crate Media

    16 September 2019, 10:00 am
  • 37 minutes 20 seconds
    68. Blunt Talk About 'Cannabiz' Issues | with Emily Burns

    Today we're going to talk about something you probably didn't expect from this show: Cannabis.

    But legalization for both medical and recreational cannabis products is growing at the state level. At this point, it seems like a hard trend. So it's high time we talked about this stuff (pun intended) if we want to future-proof this profession.

    To help us come to a joint understanding, if you will, about how we can best serve our clients in this area, we are joined by Emily Burns, who provides customized legal and consulting solutions specifically for the rapidly evolving cannabis industry.

    To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.

    Resources:

    Future-Proof is a production of Crate Media

    9 September 2019, 10:00 am
  • 36 minutes 19 seconds
    67. Why you need a cloud strategy | with Blake Oliver

    We've been talking about the cloud for so long now that it's easy to assume that everyone already has it figured out – but that's the wrong assumption to make with our profession.

    There are exceptions, of course. There are some accounting and finance pros out there who take pride in getting ahead of new technologies early. But a sizeable part of the profession hasn't made that leap yet.

    So Blake Oliver, co-host of the Cloud Accounting Podcast, joins us to assess where we're at in the profession when it comes to cloud adoption, as well as what's next from here.

    To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.

    Resources:

    Future-Proof is a production of Crate Media

    2 September 2019, 10:00 am
  • 38 minutes 2 seconds
    66. Doing Digital Vs. Being Digital | with Matt Loeb

    How do you transform your organization into a truly digital organization?

    It's not as simple as it sounds. You can't just about employ some digital technologies and think that you've made it. Doing digital and being digital are not the same things. Not even close.

    So, we're joined by Matt Loeb, principal of Optimal Performance Seekers and acting CEO of SECURE, who is simply one of the deepest thinkers about what it means to be digital in an increasingly digital world. Quite frankly, too many people get this stuff wrong, and Matt is here to point us in the right direction.

    To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.

    Resources:

    Future-Proof is a production of Crate Media

    26 August 2019, 10:00 am
  • 54 minutes 6 seconds
    65. How Maryland saved Washington ... and the country | with Chris Formant

    To know where you're going, you have to have an understanding of – and an appreciation for – where you've been.

    Publisher and activist Marcus Garvey said, "A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots." And Michael Crichton, the bestselling author of Jurassic Park and Westworld, said, "If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree."

    Why are our two favorite quotes about history also about trees? Who knows. But these quotes encapsulate what we're going to be discussing on today's episode: a glimpse back at a little-known but hugely important event in this nation's history and the role that little-old Maryland played in that event.

    Our guest, Chris Formant, is a businessman by trade – a former top executive of a multi-billion-dollar global business and now the CEO of a technology company – but more to the point for this episode, he's the author of a riveting new book called Saving Washington: The Forgotten Story of the Maryland 400 and the Battle of Brooklyn.

    It's a piece of historical fiction; all of the events in the book actually happened, but they are told through the eyes of two fictional characters who give life to an event that most people know little or nothing about. And we can really learn a lot about history, and the present, through their eyes.

    To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.

    Resources:

    Future-Proof is a production of Crate Media

    19 August 2019, 10:00 am
  • 25 minutes 2 seconds
    64. Regulation: A Hard Trend with a Big Impact | with Russ Golden

    We spend a lot of time on this show talking about future trends and technologies — things like artificial intelligence, blockchain, and automation – and, more importantly, what those things mean for the future of our profession.

    But there are many other hard trends — a.k.a. future facts, a.k.a. things that we know are going to happen – that will have a huge impact on what we do. The topics aren't always as sexy, sure, but they're equally impactful, and if we want to get serious about becoming future-ready, we need to be talking about these things, too.

    So, that brings us to the decidedly un-sexy world of regulation this week. It probably doesn't excite you, but we have to talk about this stuff, as a profession, because it might have more of an impact on what we do going forward than anything that technology can throw our way.

    Luckily, our guest, Russ Golden, is one of the best people to talk to about regulation in the accounting and finance world because Russ is the Chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, better known as FASB.

    To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.

    Resources:

    Future-Proof is a production of Crate Media

    12 August 2019, 10:00 am
  • 27 minutes 3 seconds
    63. How to Win in a Winner-Take-All World | with Neil Irwin

    Our guest today is Neil Irwin, who is the senior economic correspondent at the New York Times and the best-selling author of The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire, about the global financial crisis and its aftermath.

    And Irwin recently wrote a new book titled How to Win in a Winner-Take-All World: The Definitive Guide to Adapting and Succeeding in High-Performance Careers. It's a fascinating and important book, given the changing and complex world we live in.

    To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.

    Resources:

    Future-Proof is a production of Crate Media

    5 August 2019, 10:00 am
  • 38 minutes 46 seconds
    62. People Problems | with Paul McDonald

    Today, we're talking about the elephant in the room, or what Tom Hood would call the dead moose in the room. That thing that's stinking up the joint but that nobody wants to do anything about – or, more to the point, nobody knows what to do about it.

    That dead moose is talent.

    How do you find it? How do you keep it? How do you set your organization apart from all the others out there so people want to work for you?

    It's a HUGE problem, and here's why in three short words: One point five.

    That's the unemployment rate for accountants and auditors. One point five percent. The national average is 3.7 percent. That means it's more than twice as hard for employers to find great employees than everyone else.

    Welcome to reality, and reality continues to get more and more harsh. Ten thousand Baby Boomers reach retirement age every single day. That means one of two things: they're retiring and they're taking all of their wisdom and experience with them or they're continuing to work, which means younger professionals have fewer opportunities to advance their careers, which means they're more likely to look elsewhere for those opportunities.

    So, from a people perspective, accounting and finance professionals are dealing with a lot these days, and it's not getting any easier.

    So we sat down with Paul McDonald, Senior Executive Director at Robert Half, which specializes in the placement of professionals in the accounting and finance, technology, legal, creative, and administrative fields. Paul has more than 30 years in the recruiting field and he has advised thousands of company leaders and job seekers on how to hire and get hired.

    To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.

    Resources:

    Future-Proof is produced by Podcast Masters

    29 July 2019, 10:00 am
  • 29 minutes 49 seconds
    61. Bringing Innovation into Accounting & Finance | with Jordan Kleinsmith

    Today's show is all about innovation – which, let's face it, it's not something the accounting and finance profession is known for. We're all about accounting for what has happened, and history tells us that what will happen is not our problem.

    Except, here's the thing: We're living in a world where we'll be flattened by what's in front of us if we don't take the time to look for it, if we don't take the time to turn around and look for what futurist Andrew Zolli would call those "weak signals of disruptive change" on the horizon. If we don't start training ourselves to look forward to what's next as much as we look back to what's happened, we're doomed.

    And here's why: A few years ago, the Sleeter Group released the results of a survey that showed the top reason why clients decided to leave their CPA firms is that their CPAs were providing reactive services instead of proactive advice. In other words, their CPAs were holding them back instead of helping them become future-ready. At the same time, CPA.com released a survey that found 92 percent of CPAs said they weren't prepared to provided that proactive advice.

    So, to recap: Our clients are demanding proactive, future-ready advice – and 92 percent of us aren't prepared to provide that type of advice.

    That's a problem.

    And that's where this week's guest comes in. Jordan Kleinsmith is the Director of Innovation for the Tax and Accounting business at Thomson Reuters. He's the guy who's keeping an eye on what's happening in the profession and figuring how Thomson Reuters needs to respond, in terms of innovative new ideas, strategies, and products.

    To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.

    Resources:

    Future-Proof is produced by Podcast Masters

    22 July 2019, 10:00 am
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