Ideas in Motion: Greg LaFollette: Vision, Victory and Verve
By Scott H. Cytron, ABC
If you attend any of the TECH conferences, read up on the latest trends in accounting and software, or even venture to the Web to check out the newest blog, there’s one person that has his finger in all three of these pies … and then some – Gregory L. LaFollette, CPA.CITP.
Greg is like a jack-of-all-trades in the accounting marketplace with two seemingly full-time jobs, a position as a part-time tax professional and a background with one of the leading accounting software vendors. Based in Ann Arbor, Mich., Greg is executive editor for The CPA Technology Advisor, president & CEO of the Accounting Technology Resource Network, a senior tax manager during busy season with Weidmayer, Schneider, Raham & Bennett, P.C., and operates his own blog at www.TheTechGap.com. He previously held an executive position with Thomson Creative Solutions and helped form LaFollette, Jansa, Brandt & Co., LLP in Sioux Falls, S.D., in the late ‘70s.
| |
Gregory L. LaFollette, CPA.CITP
|
When does this guy find time to sleep?
“I’m really only good at very few things – and not very good at a lot of other things,” he says. “My former partners and staff in the South Dakota accounting firm – who are still friends, by the way – my colleagues at Thomson Creative Solutions, and now the staff at The CPA Technology Advisor would probably agree, especially about the latter. My strengths, I believe, are vision and the ability to explain complex concepts in simple, understandable terms.”
Greg built his career through consulting and advising in the high-tech marketplace – yet always going one step further by being a proactive participant in helping develop a service offering in technology consulting. More than 30 years ago, for example, when he was in South Dakota, the firm he helped start became a “technology showcase” for the latest and greatest high-tech gizmos and even had a sabbatical program so that the staff could venture out and learn new ways of doing business. Greg says he fulfilled an early dream by working for four months in a software house in Beaverton, Ore.
“The firm was generally first with almost everything high-tech and began to share our productivity improvements with other firms in the upper Midwest,” he says. “Every firm we consulted with made us smarter, and through user group meetings, I met executives of several major providers and began consulting with them regarding product development. My daily interaction inside a CPA firm, along with consulting with my peers, allowed me a perfect platform; I simply synthesized information and began representing the profession to the vendors.”
From 1998 to late 2003, Greg was seen and heard frequently at accounting shows across the country when he represented Thomson Creative Solutions, a marriage that proved insightful.
“Thomson has considerable resources, and Creative Solutions had a culture of ‘measure everything and manage the important stuff.’ This measure-everything mentality meant that we gathered huge amounts of data. I quickly gravitated to slicing and dicing empirical data and rethinking what I thought I knew from previous anecdotal evidence. The most important realization was that our profession is so incredibly flat – only 10 percent of the firms in America have more than 10 people – it’s the small and medium sized firms that are the face of public accounting in our country. These are the firms that interact with Main Street businesses and are the firms to whom I most closely relate.”
Now that Greg is in the publishing business, he provides his professional acumen to The CPA Technology Advisor, a publication members of the AICPA’s IT-Member Section receive as a benefit of membership. However, he does not consider himself only in the publishing world.
“I’m at the intersection of technology and public accounting. In fact, we’ve adopted that as a tagline for the magazine and we even own the street sign – you can see it at most of the trade shows!,” he says. “The accounting publishing space is very, very crowded with six national publications that, with only a few exceptions, aren’t particularly well defined. Most seem to address larger firms in their content. For example, less that 5 percent of the firms resell software, yet some magazines devote page after page of space to “what’s happening in the reseller market.” I frankly don’t understand the allure.”
As is the tradition with ITU Profiles, Greg knew he was going to get the “why the CITP” question. As a member of the CITP Credentialing Committee, Greg is passionate in the pursuit to build on the CPA designation.
“We must specialize to survive; if we fail, we’ll simply watch others pick off sections of the profession, ultimately leaving only the riskiest and least profitable for the ‘generalist,’” he says. “I firmly believe that the CPA of tomorrow will have to specialize. Think about being introduced to a person at a cocktail party --- someone says, ‘Scott, I’d like you to meet Dr. So and So.’ One of your first questions in conversation will certainly be, ‘What kind of doctor are you?’ We’ll be having that same sort of conversation in our profession in 25 years, and in my opinion, the ABV, PFS and CITP are just the beginning.”
Back to Greg’s vision of the future of the profession, a component he believes comes from more than 30 professional years of “sheer laziness.”
I have always tried to see an easier way of doing everything, looked for the shortcut, the process improvement or the perfect tool to complete a one hour job in 10 minutes. I’ve spent hours and hours and hours looking to save those 50 minutes. Fortunately, with age often comes judgment, and as that judgment improved, so did my track record in choosing what processes needed “improvement.”
Continuous improvement is the key – just take a look at his blog, for example. He was somewhat skeptical at first whether a blog would be efficient and effective, but became a true believer once the community established itself and readers began commenting on his view.
“Practicing accountants are literally bombarded with information, so the blog provides immediacy that the magazine can’t while allowing me to present people, processes, products and services that might not otherwise be introduced to the community. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about – a community where we’re all trying to be more productive. The blog helps build community and also helps new vendors get attention in a busy marketplace. Those are good things.”
This article is reprinted with permission by the American Institute of CPAs.
About Author:
Scott H. Cytron, ABC, is an accredited communications and public relations consultant working in the accounting, health care, high-tech and finance industries. He can be reached at scott@cytronandcompany.com or through his Web site, http://www.cytronandcompany.com.
About Column:
Ideas in Motion is a monthly column designed to focus on best practices within CPA firms and organizations involved in providing technology related services.
Comments/Feedback about this column... AS411 is constantly looking for new companies and people to profile in this column so If you feel your organization stands out from the crowd we'd like to hear from you (Feedback Form)
|
|
Sponsor Messags & Links
Red Wing Software
With more than 25 years of experience developing accounting software, Red Wing Software knows businesses. We specialize in providing software at a reasonable price to companies who are outgrowing their current software and need more functionality, especially where inventory is concerned. Red Wing Software offers a complete suite of software products that can integrate and work together, including General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Inventory, Order Entry, Purchase Orders, and Payroll. For more information about Red Wing Software products, please call 800-732-9464, or...
Visit Red Wing for more details
AS411 - Software Search Service
Tired of searching for software?
AS411's complimentary software search service will help you locate professionals in your area who can help you with all your software needs. It's simple, easy and only takes a few minutes.
Click Here to learn more
|
|
|