I missed this earlier in the day:
Microsoft officials are describing it as a “MySpace for financial pros.”
I’ll be interested to see whether this site gains much traction. Corporate controllers and accountants don’t strike me as folks who have a lot of time or interest to blog, chat and share photos and play lists.
All kidding aside, I do wonder about Microsoft — or any software vendor — building community sites for these kinds of folks with the expectation that they’ll gravitate to them.
Taking shots at financial types is not uncommon and it is true that time constraints make it unlikely that CFOs will commit to blogs in numbers. Nevertheless, I find it discouraging that CFOs are characterised in a way that confirms the stereotype.
Regardless of geographical territory, CFOs are faced with numerous regulatory challenges, demands to expose information to non-financial professionals and find new ways to squeeze financial efficiency out of constrained resources. Meeting those challenges doesn’t happen in isolation and while consultants provide useful assistance, my experience suggests that finance professionals prefer to hear from their peers. Blogs provide one way to achieve that.
Whether that shared experience should be articulated in the public domain is an interesting topic for debate. I prefer open debate because the open exchange of ideas often yields insights that would otherwise be missed. I accept certain topics are difficult to articulate in a manner that minimises potential risk when exposed to public debate. Even so, I believe there are ways to overcome this issue.
Making this community work won’t be easy but I congratulate Microsoft for at least making the effort.
Update: CPA Success is an example I found courtesy of VeraSage.
Technorati Tags: Dynamics, Microsoft Convergence
