CPA Island

How second life & social media transformed MACPA

The top five ways that Second Life and social media have transformed MACPA :

1. Connecting - Going to where our members, prospective members, and students are

2. Building our Whuffie (Social Capital)

3. Access to thought leaders, ideas & information

4. Innovative ways to deliver CPE to our members

5. International recognition and relationships

Join us for our special "mixed reality" session on Monday, December 7th, 2009 8:10 am - 9:50am (EST) as part of MACPA's Technology Conference at the Sheraton Columbia Hotel in Columbia, Maryland or live in Second Life at our BLI Conference Center (click this link to teleport to conference).

Here is what we will be covering in this special 100 minute session:

We can’t hide behind the web any longer, to get your company and yourself adaptable for the 21st century learn the real life story of how MACPA has used blogging, twitter, and other social media tools to reach out to current members and find new members.  Learn what it was necessary for the MACPA to do this in order to keep up with the younger generation.  Learn what it took to get there, what it takes to keep it up, and what wasn’t such a good idea.

Date: Monday, December 7, 2009 8:10 am  9:50 am (EST) 5:10 am - 6:50 am (PST/SLT)

Location: BLI Conference Center on CPA Island in Second LIfe

How to save money by training in Second Life

Is Second Life a legitimate training platform?

After "what the heck is Second Life?", this is the most frequent question we continue to hear.

As you know we have been using Second Life for training applications for awhile now. Having run over forty events virtually and "mixed reality" for over 500 people, we believe in this format as a viable, cost effective training platform.

But don't take our word for it listen to what the experts are saying:

Virtual Meeting Rush - Treasury & Risk magazine, September, 2009

A Second Chance for Second Life - WSJ, August 19, 2009

A Second Look at Second LIfe - Chief Learning Officer Magazine, May 2009

Accounting for Second Life - Journal of Accountancy, June, 2008

Virtual Worlds were also featured as one of the Top 5 Training Trends for 2009 by Chief Learning Officer magazine.

Want to see more -check out all of the articles about business uses of Second Life on the SL wiki and the last two recaps of sessions we did for XBRL and at the AICPA Tech + Conference this summer:

XBRL International Conference via Second Life

How to be in two places at one time

Are you ready to try Second Life for training?

How to be in two places at one time

Can you be in two places at the same time?

That was the dilemma I faced when I agreed to present at the AICPA Tech + Conference in Las Vegas and found out my session was scheduled for after lunch, the day before our big conference, the MDBIZEXPO. It turned out that there was no way to physically get back to Maryland from Las Vegas in time for our show setup. So I decided to use the virtual world of Second Life to solve my dilemma.

Our volunteer leader, Byron Patrick(a major influence of how we got to SL) ran his avatar from Vegas, showing the session on the big screen, and I presented from in-world or virtually to the group in Vegas. We then added ten guest speakers (seasoned SL CPA/accounting types) who joined me on stage to present to not one but three audiences. We had a live audience in Las Vegas and Baltimore, and a virtual audience in Second Life. We even had the founder of Second Life, Philip Rosedale attend and give our audience a glimpse into the future plans for SL. Ten people from all over the US and Canada  presented to these three audiences without any travel expenses, talk about green!

Check out our brief clip of the event below:

Byron sums it up pretty well in his comments to our post on www.cpasuccess.com Forget best practices, think next practices:

"This session was an experience like no other! Not only 3 locations but hundreds of people were involved plus panelists in additional locations. Could this of been accomplished via other methods...sure. But this isn't about what we can do now, its about what we will do tomorrow. This session was a look at today but more importantly a peak into the future of communication and collaboration."

So I guess the answer is you can be in three (or more) places at one time...

Check out a copy of our presentation here

and photos from our session on Flickr here

What do you think about our session?

XBRL International Conference via Second Life

Check out our video clip of the opening of XBRL International's 19th Annual Conference live from Paris, France and virtually in Baltimore (at MACPA offices) and on CPA Island in Second Life.

This highlights the power of this medium for education and learning activities.

See more photos of both the live and virtual events on our Flickr stream

More resources on XBRL:

CPA Success articles about XBRL

Our earlier virtual event featured a mixed reality session with the SF Feng live in an Francisco and virtually from CPA Island - see our blog post with links to archived video of the entire session

CPA Island welcomes University of Texas - San Antonio

Who said virtual worlds aren't really "real" networking?

I just finished a meeting with UTSA Professor, Jim Groff, Accounting Department Chair, in front of their new kiosk in the Accounting Education Pavilion on CPA Island 2 in Second Life. He was in his office in San Antonio and I was in my home office. I popped in to check on the work our interns did and there he was.

He mentioned that he wants to hold virtual office hours and possibly have guest speakers and even suggested a meet the firms event. These are all possible and in fact effective uses of virtual worlds.

Jim and UTSA join eight other University Accounting programs who are exhibiting on CPA Island (Salsibury, Stevenson, Cornell, UMUC, Towson, Frostburg, University of Central Florida, and Suffolk). We are excited to have UTSA join us - welcome!

Here is the link to their kiosk http://slurl.com/secondlife/CPA%20Island%202/159/196/27

This also follows the big news about UT being the first to roll-out a statewide university initiative in Second Life.

XBRL International Conference live from CPA Island

Wow! We just completed a test of broadcasting the Main Stage of the XBRL International Conference into Second Life and it worked! We were able to particpate by hearing the live speakers and seeing their presentations from the comfort of our virtual conference center.

Once again, this supports the concept that this technology can be used to effectively run "mixed reality" meetings from anywhere. With our team capturing the footage, we could have streamed it out as a webcast saving thousands of dollars from renting a video crew on-site. This was accomplished with an audio in plug from stage to Eric E. Cohen's laptop on-site and him driving the avatar on stage for speaking. We loaded the powerpoints ahead of time and voila - we had a great "virtual" version of the conference.

Our thanks to Eric E. Cohen (PWC) and Tony Fragnito (XBRL Int'l) for taking the chance to pilot this session.

Stay tuned for archive video & photos.

CPAs & Second Life featured at AICPA Tech+ Conference

What are CPAs doing in Second Life?

Find out by attending the upcoming AICPA Tech + Conference in Las Vegas. Or pop into Second LIfe and join us as we present this session in Second Life along with real life!

Join Byron Patrick (in-world as Bean Wollongong) of Hosted Solutions (and one of the founder's of MACPA's NYPN group) and Tom Hood of MACPA (appearing as Rocky Maddaloni) in a session, CPAs & the Virtual World of Second Life. This session will feature the major activities of CPAs in the virtual world. Watch for some special guests that will be joining us... 

Including a surprise visit by Linden Lab & Second LIfe founder Philip Rosedale (Philip Linden).

From accounting education to continuing education, meetings, student recruitment, and even consulting and business development. The virtual world of Second Life offers an exciting new medium to do real work!

Register for CPAs & the Virtual World of Second Life Monday, June 15th 4:00 pm - 4:50pm (ET) or 1:00 pm - 1:50pm PT/SLT

Here are our materials for the session: CPAs & Second LIfe and a post on our companion blog CPAs in Second Life

Pictures from the session are here on Flickr - STay tuned for archive of video from today.

Resources & recent articles:

See our blog post – 2008 Year in review – CPAs start adopting Second Life for Training

and our post at CPAs in Second Life – Is Second Life for Real?

Accopunting Technology (Alexandra DeFelice)  article - Second Chance for Second Life - May 20, 2009

Hypergrid Business (Maria Korolov) – Do You Need a Virtual World – May 13, 2009

Accounting Web article (Gail Perry) – Flying Around CPA Island with Tom Hood – March 5, 2009

SLENTREPENEUR MAGAZINE - Real Life in Second Life

Ground Breaking article in Journal of Accountancy – Accounting for Second Life June, 2008

Is Second Life for real?

We are often asked if Second Life is THE Virtual World platform. This latest report indicates the leading virtual world platform continues to be strong.

Linden Lab released encouraging statistics this past week on their Second Life blog from their CFO and frequent guest presenter on CPA Island, John Zdanowski aka Zee Linden (pictured at right on podium) in-world. This is great news for educational institutions and training organizations as the platform continues to grow and mature.

"Linden Lab is pleased to announce results for Q4 and 2008.  User hours increased by 61% over 2007, highlighting the tremendous growth rate in user engagement that Second Life maintained throughout 2008.  User hours increased steadily each quarter, culminating in a record-setting 112 million user hours in Q4.  In addition:

• Peak concurrent users were up 31% over 2007
• Land owned by Residents increased 82% over 2007
• Exchange Volume increased 33% over 2007
• User-to-user transactions in Q4 increased 54% over Q4 of 2007.

Financially 2008 was an outstanding year for the company from a profitability and cash flow perspective. We are in a strong position to weather the economic downturn while continuing to invest in the Second Life platform." - Zee Linden, CFO of Linden Lab

The other thing I noticed, is that Second Life seems to be maturing and finding its niche - meetings and training. Considering that everyone is looking to cut costs and improve efficiency, I am bullish on the potential of Second Life to do real training, meetings, and business. As Zee Linden said during last year's "mixed reality" session at the MDBIZEXPO, "Second Life is more compelling than a conference call, less intimidating than a video conference, and a hell of a lot better than business travel."

We held

See our prior posts on Virtual Worlds & Training:

CPAS in Second Life blog post A Second Life for training

CPA Success blog post Four tips to help you cross the digital divide

CPA Success blog post Here's a look at Second LIfe's business potential

Accounting Education & Second Life:

CPA Success blog post Accounting for Second Life

Journal of Accountancy article (June, 2008) Accounting for Second Life

CPAs in Second Life post about Accounting Education

Leading Knowledge Workers - Human Capital - Not Cattle

Join us as bestselling author Ron Baker, CPA, Founder and Principal at the Verasage Institute discusses Leading Knowledge Workers - Human Capital - Not Cattle.

The number one MAP issue facing firms across the country is the challenge of recruiting and inspiring team members.  This program will provide insights and methodologies enabling firm leaders to develop their human capital program into a competitive advantage.

• Transitioning from a Human Resources to a Human Capital Model
• Explore the motivating forces that propel knowledge workers to success
• Build a repertoire of Key Predictive Indicators that measure the right things, thereby facilitating the performance and success of knowledge workers    
• Becoming a lightning rod to attract human capital to your business, and how to develop that human capital
• Current developments in leading, developing, and motivating knowledge workers

Date: Monday, February 23, 2009 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm (EST) 9:00 am - 10:00 am (PDT/SLT)

Location: BLI Conference Center on CPA Island in Second LIfe

CPE Credit - 1 Hour if you register by clicking this link

Check back to this post for updates and materials

New to Second Life? Follow these easy steps:

Use the new Direct SLURL feature by clicking on our link http://slurl.com/secondlife/CPA%20Island/149/159/23 to go to the Second Life URL. On that page, click “sign up” and quickly register, download and login to the viewer, and arrive at their originally intended destination. A quick tutorial will open upon their initial arrival.

Already have a Second Life presence?

Just click our SLURL http://slurl.com/secondlife/CPA%20Island/149/159/23 and login and you will be teleported right to the BLI Conference Center on CPA Island in Second Life.

Steps to Qualify for CPE:

1. Register via this link - sponsored by the Maryland Association of CPAs
2. Login and attend the virtual session in Second Life - use this SLURL
3. Join the Group - SLACPA (Second Life Association of CPAs) in SL
4. Answer questions via chat during the session
5. Complete the post-session evaluation for on-line at this link

Resources:

Business Learning Institute - Knowledge, Innovation, Leadership

Journal of Accountancy article - Accounting for Second Life

Check out the latest developments in the virtual world at our blog www.slacpa.org

Want to learn more about Web 2.0  & CPAs- try our free on-line self-directed learning program "15 minutes a day" www.cpalearning2.com

A Second LIfe for Training - Chief Learning Officer Magazine

2008 Year in Review - CPAs start adopting Second Life for training

2008 was a big year for CPAs and Second Life!

We held over a dozen events, 13hours of free CPE (Continuing Professional Education), had demos at 4 colleges & universities and did a presentation to the AACSB International conference. We had thought leaders from all segmentsof the CPA profession speaking from the podium in our BLI Conference Center on CPA Island.

We were featured on the Metanomics show with Beyers Sellers, interviewed by the Mike O'Hara of the iinternational Virtual Worlds Business Cast, and even made the Journal of Accountancy.

We had Bob Laux of Microsoft, John Zdanowski of Linden Labs, Chris Newman of Restoration Hardware. We covered hot topics like Fair Value, XBRL, Enhanced Business Reporting, using social media for job searches, and more. Who could forget the Maryland Business & Accounting Expo where Intuit came and did the Future of Small Business session live and in Second Life, followed by John Zdanowski projected to the EXPO floor from his office in Silicon Valley.

The biggest highlight for me gets to the whole point of social media. It is not about the technology at all, it's all about the relationships!

We met lots of new friends and built new relationships with cool people. There ie the San Francisco Financial Executives Networking Group, the Bay Area chapter of the Financial Executives International who worked to hold several "mixed reality" sessions. Mixed reality is an event that is both live (in the real world) and live in the virtual world (see our recap here). Special thanks to Gladys Lam (SF FENG & SF FEI) and Richard Acton-Maher of Linden Labs.

We met three innovative accounting educatorsand CPAs, students, accounting educators from all over the world. We even connected with CPA Australia as they held their inaugural event in Second Life this past October and all of our friends that took the risks and ventured into the virtual world with us.

2008 was indeed a great year and we are already making plans for an even better 2009. Check back for updates and special events.

Mark your calendar now for the Maryland Business & Accounting Expo on June 16th & 17th, 2009 where we will feature more Second Life and social media sessions.