THE SCRUTINY OF BEANS

Working in the nonprofit sector it's easy to forget about the resources in the for-profit world. So today, I'm going to recommend poking our heads out into the sun once in a while. I sat down to read a copy of CFO magazine. I figured it wouldn't have a lot to relate to, but was I wrong. Keep in mind no endorsement received, I love this rag!

One article in particular, Finance in History: Here's to the Bean Counters: A slur to finance folks and accountants, the term has a noble past byR.G. Voorhees captured my imagination.

I won't quote it away, but just give you the opening paragraph (emphasis mine):

"Bean counting" has long been an insulting term for what finance professionals and accountants do. Often, it's been used to tar CFOs as transaction processors—a role largely relegated to the back office. What's more, people like to use the phrase to ratchet up the pedestrian aspects of finance by tagging practitioners as "mere" bean counters or "little-more-than" bean counters or "simply" bean counters.

It is not a surprise that this should relate to my last post on IT (and Allan's comment on relegating IT to the backoffice), Giving: Donation or Investment? You decide

The movement toward integration (and mutual respect) is on! I'd love to think I was the first to spot the trend, but I think the CRM's (and even Microsoft) have their eye on convincing us of this new wave. Does that mean we should view it with skepticism? I'm sure. Does it mean it isn't valid? Not at all.



Technorati Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE LIES PEOPLE TELL US (AND THE ONES WE TELL OURSELVES)

"I don’t understand these fundraisers, …they waste all this money…why don't they just give the money to …the sick people?" "…you know what? They don’t! They throw a party so rich people like me can spend $10,000 on a table and then they give it to the sick people!" ...that’s how it’s done ! Joan Cusack to Jennifer Aniston in "Friends with Money" Alright, let's get this over with folks: Fundraisers are a Lie! Yes that's right you heard me. A few months back, I attended a luncheon to raise funds for a school for the deaf. Yes, it was luncheon and a fashion show and a fundraiser all in one. First there was the obligatory silent auction, then (during lunch) the not-so-silent auction, and then after lunch when the plates were taken away, we were asked if we would like to purchase the Orchid Centerpieces! Hadn't they got enough from us? Let me think-No! Easy as it is to lampoon a fundraiser, that is not where I am going today. One of the ladies w...
Read more

GRAFITTI OR SOCIAL CHANGE?

Image
art institutions are a severely limited arena of reception for ideas about public issues --Robbie Conal If I can't take my coffee break, Gone is the sense of enterprise ...something within me dies. -- How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying I was born with a "Question Authority" bumper sticker metaphorically stuck on the back of my car. I grew up with that expression (and what it represents) as my moral imperative. But I've been worried lately. I've been worried because it doesn't seem to be turning out the way I thought it would. Seems a QA attitude is not necessarily conducive to civil society. It all depends on who's the authority I suppose. I seem to have the easiest time applying it to government and politics. But at what point do the concepts of "questioning" and the notion of "participating" intersect? Becoming a manager was a pivotal point in my life. A place where I had to make the transition from "hating t...
Read more

BIRTH OF A BLOG: GUERILLA MARKETING, EFFECTIVE USE OF TECHNOLOGY & GOOD CONTENT WIN THE DAY

Birth of a Blog: Guerilla Marketing, Effective Use of Technology and Good Content Win the Day by pam ashlund A funny thing happened when I started using Technorati. All I wanted was a quick way to see who ( if ANYONE ) was linking to my blog. First, I had to sign up with one of these services and I picked Technorati because it was the first one I came across. Second, I then found out that I was right from the beginning, no one was linking to my site. Third, I decided to try my hand at a bit of self-marketing, which went as follows: Get my brother-in-law to link to my site Set up another dummy blog and link to myself Arm wrestle another friend to link to my site None of that had much of an impact (of course) so I moved on to some actual strategy: Add tags to my blog configuration on Technorati Add tags to my posts (this was painful and manual although I later found a script for it) Test the results - found I showed up in search engines a LITTLE bit more frequently Still no links (tap, ...
Read more