Mind of Murph
Years ago I openly commented “this internet thing will never last”; and even before that, because I had been a long time mainframe user, I was known to say “these PCs are a flash in the pan, they will never be able to do anything.” I know, I know, I am showing my true age now, unlike that photo of me you are always seeing.
Joe Woodard’s keynote address at yesterday's Scaling New Heights General Session got me thinking, and while Joe used a ‘cat comparison’ I am not into cats, so I will just start this article with a question: “have you ever missed your flight at the airport?”
Perhaps you were delayed by traffic, or the long lines trying to check your bag at the ticket counter, or even the longer lines at airport security (Thank You TSA, “right”), or maybe that quintessential bathroom stop, or any number of other reasons. You finally reach the gate to find the door to the jet-way closed, and the plane backing away from the gate.
You rush right over to the gate ticket counter (mad at yourself, and even more mad at the airline) “stop the plane”, but the plane won’t stop; you have missed your flight and are being left behind. Then the airline gate attendant tells you that she can get you on the very next flight out with a few connections to get you to your final destination (what a relief), and “oh, that will be an additional $600" (hey it wasn’t the airline’s fault you missed the flight this time, your boarding pass told you clearly what the departure time was.)
In a little while you board the flight, let’s say you wanted to travel from San Antonio to Oklahoma City. Well your reroute takes you first to Phoenix, then to Denver, and finally back to Oklahoma City. By the time you get there, unless you are going home you have probably forgotten why you are even going there, then you realize that you are so far behind you can never catch-up.
Well folks, I am here to tell you that the flight is boarding, and this time the destination is ‘your future’, and the plane is QuickBooks Online. If you are like me you have been resistant, you have said something like “this QBO will never last” (I used to say that), or maybe you have told yourself “until QBO is the same as desktop my client’s simply can’t use it” (I have thought that too). But for those thinking that, I have one thing to say, and another airport question to ask.
First, QuickBooks Online is definitely here to stay, it is not only the focal point of Intuit’s current mission, but it is their future (as well as ours). Second I will simply ask you, “when you go to the airport, do you refuse to get on the plane because it is a 737 as opposed to a 777?” Heck, you may not even know the difference in planes, and guess what, the vast majority of your new clients within a few years won’t know the difference either (between QB desktop and QBO). What you don’t want to do is find that YOU have missed the plane, and by the time you finally get on-board, you are so far behind you will never catch-up.
I for one am going to ‘change my old ways’; when I get back home I am going to migrate my own ‘books’ to QBO (I mean we get it free as a ProAdvisor anyway), and “take the test” to earn that blue QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor certification because I want to make sure that I never miss the plane again. Don’t you want to join me on the flight? (By the way, it's aboard the Intuit Corporate Jet with tail number "QBO".)