Blog Archives
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Top 10 Tech Toys for 2012
By Dave McClure, Contributing Writer/Columnist - Monday November 26, 2012What to buy for the holidays. Sadly, us geeks tend to buy what we want for ourselves with little or no room for receiving gifts at the holidays. But there are exceptions. Let’s start with the things you don’t want to give. Sound bars made by Vizio, which have more problems than you can shake a stick at. Tablet PCs, which tend to be a very personal choice and hence easy to get wrong. GPS units, which are so…last year. Digital cameras, which are even worse. And while a portable hard drive is always a handy thing to have, it’s a pretty impersonal present. So here is my list of relatively cool gifts for the tech or semi-tech in your life. My list of gifts tends to lean toward the practical, and so what I look for are things that... -
Is Marijuana taxation a new market for accountants who handle sales taxes?
By Dave McClure, Contributing Writer/Columnist - Thursday November 8, 2012
From the Bleeding Edge Blog . As a member of the Boomer generation, you might think that I am all in favor of those states that recently approved the recreational use of Marijuana – Washington and Colorado. But in fact I have no strong feelings in the issue, except this: When 18 states have legalized the use of this herb for recreational and medicinal purposes, and when people begin to talk about the impact of it on revenues and business generation, it behooves accounting firms to start to pay attention . I grew up a Navy brat, and after college volunteered to become a pilot in Air Force during that long ago, far away war. Truth is, using recreational drugs was never a part of our culture, in spite of what you may read in the... -
Rethinking Social Networks
By Dave McClure, Contributing Writer/Columnist - Friday October 5, 2012
From CPA Practice Advisor's Bleeding Edge Blog . You would think, with Facebook now surpassing the 1 billion subscriber mark, that accounting firms would be happy using social networks as part of their marketing strategy. Instead, my survey indicates just the opposite. Admittedly, my survey is informal and lacking in most of the things I learned to look for in the three times I have taken statistical analysis at the post-graduate level. But when a company as prestigious as Ford Motor Company announces that Facebook ads don’t work, I tend to pay attention. Add to that the fact that Facebook is diddling with its ad formulas in ways that don’t benefit its advertisers. And the bizarre announcement this week that the social network... -
Stopping the Mail-In Rebate Scam
By Dave McClure, Contributing Writer/Columnist - Monday October 1, 2012From the Bleeding Edge Blog . Mail-In Rebates (MIRs) are a noxious scam that have infested the tech and software markets, and it is time we put an end to them by refusing to buy products based on a MIR. Forget about boycotting businesses because you disagree with their politics, or because you think their corporate logo shows they are in league with Satan. Let’s boycott the truly evil companies that use rebates to entice you to buy their product when their plan is to cheat you out of some of your money. Mail-In Rebates are a scam, and not just for the obvious reasons. You already know that the manufacturers do everything they can to reduce how much they have to pay out, a practice known in the industry as “breakage.” It’s... -
Afraid of Losing Your Mobile Phone? You May Have Nomophobia!
By Dave McClure, Contributing Writer/Columnist - Thursday September 20, 2012
The “Bleeding Edge” Blog. There are not a lot of perks associated with being a magazine writer. Sure, we get to interview an occasional celebrity, but those esteemed persons remember us mostly as a nuisance – if they remember us at all. We get to go to conferences at exotic places like Las Vegas, but frankly after a few years, hotel rooms and conferences start to look the same. As for the pay, I could make more money making French fries at McDonalds. Mostly what we get as magazine writers are news releases. Tons and tons of news releases. From eager PR staffers who buy distribution lists with little or no regard for what we write about, pitching stories that would bore our readers to death, often so badly written that it is... -
Death and Taxes: Make Sure Your Firm Survives Tax Season
By Dave McClure, Contributing Writer/Columnist - Friday September 14, 2012Benjamin Franklin said it first: the only certain things in life are death and taxes. In the case of accountants, though, he might have mentioned that the greatest risk is death during tax season. Forget about last minute changes to the tax code. Forget software updates, and clients without proper receipts, and identity theft, and problems with the IRS electronic filing system. The biggest threat you may face during any tax season is when the owner and majority partner of the firm stops speaking in the middle of a sentence, looks slightly confused, and them drops dead in front of a client. And while no one seems to be keeping statistics on how often this happens, I’ll bet a paycheck that it is much more common than we like to talk... -
Writing White Papers
By Dave McClure, Contributing Writer/Columnist - Wednesday August 29, 2012There are three kinds of “white” papers that an accounting firm should create. Papers that should be posted to the web site, sent to clients and included in new business proposals. The three kinds are: Client Case Histories The “Ten Steps To…” Papers The “Thoughtful Analysis” Papers I did not create these categories, nor did I cause them to be important. Back in the early Eighties, a wise old Greek-American named Mike Vasilakes did that. He had already been a trade magazine editor, industrial publicist and corporate communications expert for a century or more when he took me under his wing and taught me the trade, but I have used what he taught me every day for more than three decades since. Think of him as Yoda to... -
The Future of the Internet
By Dave McClure, Contributing Writer/Columnist - Friday July 13, 2012Those who were around in the early days of live television were treated to a cultural bonanza unlike anything seen before or since. The new medium attracted the finest writers, directors, producers and actors from around the world to present amazing and entertaining shows night after night. You wouldn’t know that now, when the world of television consists of phony reality shows cobbled together as a cheap paste for the 24 minutes out of every hour devoted to advertising. The talent has fled, and what is left is as satisfying as a bowl of stone soup. The Internet is rapidly following the same path. I know, because I was one of the pioneers in the early days, when Internet Service Providers banded together to fight for consumers and... -
Celebrating Women in the Profession
By Dave McClure, Contributing Writer/Columnist - Thursday July 5, 2012
It is no surprise that women now dominate the accounting profession in terms of sheer numbers, just as they do the advertising, law and many other service professions. And while they are still under-represented at the partnership level, it is clear that this dominance by women will both continue and will fundamentally change how the profession conducts itself. Updating its Quick Take on Women in Accounting for 2012, women’s advocate organization Catalyst notes that: Women are 61.3% of all accountants and auditors in the United States. In a 2011 study, women were half of newly hired accounting graduates at CPA firms, and 40% of all CPAs. Women are 21% of all partners at firms, although they are 45% of all accounting employees... -
Blog: The Coming Tech Crash
By Dave McClure, Contributing Writer/Columnist - Wednesday June 13, 2012Every 10 years or so, the technology markets crash. Not dip, or slump. Crash, as in a company like FaceBook sucking in untold billions of investor dollars only to spiral downward. Taking other tech stocks, and the markets in general, with it. Every 10 years, the US economy hits a slump that may be caused by this tech crash. Or perhaps it is that the tech stocks – often bereft of business models or common sense – are the early casualties of the downturn. But in 1982, people who worked in “traditional” tech companies were thrown out of work as the markets re-tooled to meet the rise of the new-fangled “personal computer.” In 1992, while Word Perfect was busy dying in the word processing market and Windows 1.0 was beginning to...
