I’m "on the road again1"...and on my way to Xerocon 2017 being held in Austin, Texas this year. Since I live in Moore, Oklahoma, best known as 'the tornado capital of the world', and a suburb of Oklahoma City, I’m driving down rather than flying. It seems like I have been flying way too much lately. I should arrive in Austin about 3pm, just in time to check-in at the Hilton hotel ahead of the rush hour traffic.
Tomorrow, Tuesday (December 5) is Pre-Con Day, there are several day-long tracks to choose from, and I will be attending one of them.
‘Bookkeeper X: Rise of the Accounting Technologist’ which provides an interactive workshop focusing on building out a stack of Apps that fit the needs of different client types. There have gotten to be so many Apps that nobody, not even Murph, can learn them all.
In my way of thinking an Accountant, Bookkeeper or Xero Advisor should focus on 3 or 4 Apps that fit a specific type of client, for example a time tracking App and an Expense App and a Construction Management App for Small to Medium Contractors. Another example might be a Law-firm Management App and a data capture engine App to turn legal briefs into fully indexed digital data at light speed. A key factor in this process is finding those 2 or 3 apps that all of your clients need and can use.
Another of the tracks being offered during Pre-Con is ‘Accelerate’. This workshop focuses on taking your practice to the cloud, completely. What it takes to transition a practice, and how to build your practice around the change that occurs when you go from ‘desktop’ to ‘cloud’.
This is not just theory, there are a lot of nuts-n-bolts being offered like defining components of an actionable business plan and outlining meaningful goals and objectives. Rumor has it that there could even be 'checklists' distributed. I don't know what it is, but tell a group of people that you are passing out checklists and the whole world will be trying to get in. (Now let's see if that boosts attendance....)
Going right along with this ‘cloud’ emphasis is a third workshop offering called ‘Unleashing mobile to build your niche practice’. In my way of thinking this session combines many of the principles outlined in the two sessions I just discussed. It focuses on identification of niches that maybe right for your practice, and once identified, then provides specific solutions that work for each niche. One of the unique aspects of this session is that much of the content has been a collaborative effort between Xero and Apple.
Kind of makes me think of that song, “here a niche, there a niche, everywhere a niche, niche…” I wonder if anyone has thought about developing a niche of helping people identify the right niche for them? I guess you would call that a ‘Niche Guidance Counselor’!
This is the third time I have attended Xerocon (USA). They haven’t invited me to the one ‘Down Under’ yet. (Hint, hint)
Over the last three years I have taken the opportunity to sit through Advisor Certification training which is always offered during the Pre-Con. I’m not so interested in the actual certification as I am in seeing all the changes and improvements in the product, and I have found this is the single best way to see them all.
Xero has extremely good training content, and it has always been ‘up to the moment’ in terms of the product. The course instructor(s) review a section of the product, then participants work through several exercises covering those product features while logged-in to a training file. That approach really reinforces what you have just been taught.
The Xero certification exam is ‘work oriented’, not so much theory. Rather than answer questions about a feature, you perform the work associated with that feature in your training file. This might include activating the feature, setting-up related information, and then processing transactions or running a report using the feature. It is about as ‘hands-on’ training as you can get.
I always ‘walk away’ from my 8 hours of Pre-con training with not only a better understanding of the Xero product, but all the enhancements and major changes that have taken place during the months since the last Xerocon.
Of course, tomorrow evening we will have the opening reception, and I am looking forward to seeing Amanda Aguillard who is my co-host for Insightful Accountant's 'The Xero Zone' webinars. Amanda was my 'first' Xero instructor a couple of years ago, but is a former Xero Ambassador and Xero Evangelist of the Year. In addition to all of that Amanda has a dynamic accounting practice in New Orleans, and a training company, and several other ventures in the mix. Somehow she manages to balance all of that against friends and family so well that I hope she will do some writing for Insightful Accountant in the near future on just how she accomplishes so much. Maybe if you post some 'comments' at the bottom of this article encouraging her to do that, I can use them as a form of cyber-arm-twisting.
Over the next few days you will find several Xero related features appearing within Insightful Accountant as I try to bring you not only what’s happening at Xerocon but the announcements from Austin that will be impacting our industry. My Wednesday and Thursday are packed with ‘press events’ and one-on-one sessions with Xero executives and product managers. So be on the look-out for some ‘in the news’ headlines.
I guess I had better get back to my driving..."On the road again, I just can't wait to be, on the road again...1"
Footnotes & Disclosures:
"On the Road Again" is a song made famous by country music singer Willie Nelson, recorded in the fall of 1979 and released in August, 1980 on the Columbia label. Music and lyrics were both written by Willie Nelson, who also produced the song. Much of the 'Austin, Tx' music scene is attributed to the support of Willie Nelson; he originated, produced and starred in the PBS series 'Austin City Limits' starting in 1974.