accounting partners and academics - who'd a thunk it

they actually share more than you think. they both tend to gravitate towards the assumption of a moral high ground - their role is to uphold standards, be they fiscal or intellectual. They both conflate who they are and what they do (academics think the ideas they create - their intellectual production - is indicative of the value they produce as people - their output and their selves are undifferentiated. accountants think the same thing. what is worse than a cheating bookkeeper? weak intellects, and weak accountants, are boh shameful failures as people, according to the institutions that develop and foster them.
accounting partnerships are like universities - once upon a time you got tenure (partnership) and it was almost impossible to ever get let go. and both forms of tenure are changing now, with less stability. both are bastions of arcane trivia. both accounting and academia grapple with the constant conflict between codified rules/tenets/ontologies on the one hand, and interpretive license/critical inquiry/"readings" on the other.

addicted to work

I do not work in a place that I would have ever considered working had not a strange coincidence of events taken place; i worked in a web consulting firm, it was 2001, i was firing people on a biweekly basis, one of my clients kept asking me if i wanted to work for them instead, i finally said yes, after an incident when my work amex card malfunctioned buying an Amtrak ticket and I was convinced I had been fired but not yet notified (living in fear of getting fired - that's for another post) and there it was, the cultural anthropologist specializing in Lithuanian cultural history was now an IT director at an accounting firm.

I don't care a whole lot about accounting as something to actually DO. The notion of accounting itself is another matter, as is the notion of consulting. Now there's two cultural histories that have been waiting for an ethnography. Mary poovey did great work on numerical representation, and leigh weiss i hear did her diss on the history of consulting, but i haven't really looked for it - anthro's ignorance of business culture - another post for that too, as it involves lengthy fuming...ok, back to the original narrative, which is accounting as an avocation. Which is something I struggle to understand. what makes someone want to be an accountant? to know and use rules all day long, rules that determine if 1) a company has been true to the letter, and MAYBE the spirit, of both law and "generally accepted accounting principles," in attesting to their financial actions over the past year, and the fiscal condition that these actions have put the company in, 2) a company can pay less tax without appearing to be taking advantage of legislative and/or bureacuratic errors and/or loopholes. somehow i doubt an accountant will ever read this and answer me.

real time taking it to the next connected level breakout session

This is a meeting I avoided going to. I think you'll understand why. I've used the highly unusual alias "FIRM" to stand for my employer. Oh yeah, I work in Infrastructure. That's the people who make the company function - IT, HR, Finance, Marketing, etc. The very people who should not be driving vision and strategy for a services firm.

There are a number of items in this agenda that are terrifying. The "Team Blast" that kicks off day two, the breakout sessions, the uses of the meaningless phrases "real-time connected," "connected thinking for excellence," "taking it to the next level;" all bad. all very very bad. The vacuous, opaque possibilities of business speech are taken to their "next level;" incomprehensible communications and fruitless actions for two solid days. I feared the Caribbean Beach Party. You were asked to "dress appropriately." But it rained. So they played Poker.

VISION AND STRATEGY SUMMIT
FIRM Infrastructure services will enable the "Real-Time Connected" FIRM to provide the highest quality and deliver the Firm through end-to-end business process excellence.

SUMMIT OBJECTIVES Develop Awareness; Create Buy-in; Inspire Action

OPENING WELCOME
1) Welcome 2)Table Introductions & Icebreakers 3) Goals for the Meeting 4) Top 3 Qs to answer
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
1) The Infrastructure Journey 2) State of the Union - Current State of the Firm 3) Vision of "Delivering the Firm" 4) Presentation of FY05 Imperatives (Retention, Quality, Simplification, Relationships) with focus on Coaching & Simplification 5) Line of Service FY05 priorities 6) Taking Infrastructure to the Next Level - Case for Change
SHARED VISION FOR INFRASTRUCTURE
1) Real-time Connected FIRM 2) Four components of the vision
Guest Speaker - Jerry Blakeslee
1) The value of Business Process Excellence 2) Examples of Process Success Stories
BUSINESS PROCESS CHANGE - SIMPLIFICATION
Connected Thinking for Excellence
BUSINESS PROCESS EXCELLENCE (Process Change Building Blocks)
Taking it to the Next Level - Strategy --- Processes ---- Systems ---- Imperatives
1) Business Processes in a Professional Services Firm - FIRM'S Process Framework 2) Client/Engagement Lifecycle Map - End to End Process 3) Art of the Possible Demo 4) Functional and Systems Updates 5) Breakout Sessions - PSoft - Human Capital - CRM - Markets - GFS - Finance
CLOSING COMMENTS
Dinner & Caribbean Beach Party

DAY 2
MORNING SESSION
Day 2 - Welcome & Teaming Exercise. Team Blast - Coaching, Simplification, Collaboration
SHARED INFRASTRUCTURE STRATEGY
1) Day 1 Recap and Day 2 Agenda 2) Evolution of the Shared Strategy 3) Key Messages
4) Strategic Priorities 5) Development of the Strategic Improvement Goals (SIGs) 6) INFRASTRUCTURE Strategy Framework
Breakout Session #1- Strategy
1) Facilitated discussion of Priorities and SIGs 2) Each team to develop list of current opportunities for their segment - People, Quality, or Profitable Growth.
Breakout Results #1 - Top 10 Actions
1) Teams present Top 3 opportunities 2) Group votes to select Top 3-4 actions for each segment of the strategy
Breakout Session #2- Strategy (Action Plans)
1) Action planning exercise 2 ) Teams engage in a facilitated discussion of assigned action 3) Develop a detailed action plan for execution
Breakout Results #2 -Strategy (Action Plans)
Teams present summary action plans.
CLOSING COMMENTS
1) Summarize meeting accomplishments & agreements 2) Respond to the 3 Questions 3) Next Steps & Expectations 4) Timeline & Milestones 5) Closing Comments

Participants Depart

against fame

I'm trying to withdraw from any interest in celebrities. The entire notion seems dangerous. I cannot determine what good thing comes out of finding out whether Britney's wedding was "real" or not. I'm clearly not fully addicted, as I had to spell check Britney on Google (originally had two Ts in there), but all the same, the more I inquire into the habits of celebrities, the more boring I feel myself to be. The more jealous I am of others' ability to acquire celebrity status. The more competitive I feel in comparison to my friends. The more downhearted I feel about my singing. The less able I am to be creative. The tie between youthful beauty and celeberity is also more and more painful here on the other side of 40. There is an age + weight math that, when exceeded, can make you publicly invisible, at least in NYC. When I weighed 30 pounds more, people used to bump into me more on the street, the subway, stores. And not because of there was more of me to confront. Because I mattered less.