"

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 43 seconds

Gen Y-er Peter Sheahan is Huge Hit at CCH User Conference

This morning at the CCH User Conference in Palm Desert the keynote speaker was notable first in that he is less than half the  age of a great many of the attendees -- including me.

Mike Sabbatis, CCH President and self-proclaimed 50-something year-old, spoke before Sheahan and was not only comfortable and conversational in his delivery, but absolutely spot-on in his analysis of the state of the profession and his intentions for company’s role in the profession tomorrow.

Sabbatis used audience-pleasing metaphors describing “digital natives” and “digital immigrants” and their thought processes involving photography. “Does ANYONE print every photo they take?" he asked. “Does ANYONE print and then mail photos?”  When the crown answered “NO” he used the occasion as a “teaching moment” and compared those photos with an accounting professional’s workpaper. “Does ANYONE print every workpaper they prepare?”, he challenged -- much to the delight of the more technologically advanced in the crowd.

After some final remarks, including references to the MMORPG (look it up!) game World of Warcraft and declaring “I have a Facebook page,” he introduced wunderkid Peter Sheahan.

Sheahan challenged the much older, much more conservative, and decidedly Baby Boomer crowd to begin (quickly, please) to understand that the world has changed and that the very demographics that shaped their (our) generation are now shaping a completely different one. Not better, not worse, but most assuredly different. Sheahan is a very talented speaker with a razor-sharp message -- one that CCH obviously “gets.” The ovation at the end told the full story -- this crowd LOVED Sheahan!

[Editor's note:] Here’s a personal hint -- if your employer blocks Facebook at the network level they most assuredly do NOT “get it.”   

The Progressive Accountant
Greg LaFollette, CPA.CITP, is the executive editor of The Progressive Accountant. He has been involved with public accounting for nearly 40 years and to ensure he stays completely current with the needs of the practicing accountant, he is also a senior manager of tax and technology consulting with Top 25 firm Eide Bailly LLP.
Read 5645 times
Rate this item
(1 Vote)

Visit other PMG Sites:

Template Settings

Color

For each color, the params below will give default values
Tomato Green Blue Cyan Dark_Red Dark_Blue

Body

Background Color
Text Color

Header

Background Color

Footer

Select menu
Google Font
Body Font-size
Body Font-family
Direction
PMG360 is committed to protecting the privacy of the personal data we collect from our subscribers/agents/customers/exhibitors and sponsors. On May 25th, the European's GDPR policy will be enforced. Nothing is changing about your current settings or how your information is processed, however, we have made a few changes. We have updated our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy to make it easier for you to understand what information we collect, how and why we collect it.