Midwest Accounting Show in Review

After spending a few days talking to CPA's from across the spectrum I think I've learned a few things. I couldn't believe the diversity of opinions on the internet while at the event. I was told by one person that he "didn't trust the internet". I am amazed that in 2009 there are still people who refuse to go online. Unfortunately, he will never read this blog post. I was even told by someone else that LinkedCPA is behind the times. The great majority of people though seemed to think of us as right in the middle. We're pushing the envelope with Cloud Computing literally as fast as we can. The great part is, everything feels like you're on your desktop. I realize that the new term du jour is SaaS. Everyone is blogging and twittering about it but how far off are we? We are at least a few years away...and considering there are people still using DOS applications (as I learned in Chicago) I don't think we'll have a a full transfer anytime soon. The future is exciting, netbooks are going off the shelves quickly and with SaaS it makes a lot of sense. But the accounting world is not one to be swayed by fancy tech gadgets. A calculator is a calculator and if it ain't broke, why fix it? It seems that a great divide exists between the older generation of accountants and the new. I'm curious to see how the next decade will go.