Taxes, Investments and Retirement affects most of us. The rules keep changing and we must learn more just to keep up. And if we can't, our consultants (tax advisors and accountants) have to.

I recently attended the Midwest Accounting and Business Management Show, a show that your accountant or business advisor may have attended, or certainly should have. It was one of the most informative and well run seminar series I have ever attended. The speakers were knowledgeable and gave informative presentations and the show staff was very pleasant and courteous.

Attendees received an easy to carry handout before each seminar, instead of the huge "metropolitan yellow pages"-sized proceeding books that you have to drag around to each seminar. Seminars and tutorials were from 1 to 8 hours in length and were about various topics of accounting, business and taxation. There were also many computer related seminars in BPR (Business Process Re-engineering), computer technology and computer software. They also had "shoot outs" between different accounting packages and income tax preparation software programs. It was an excellent mix of high-quality seminars.

Other computer industry trade shows should have such a well organized and prepared seminar series. Accounting industry professionals have a legal requirement for continuing education credits and while I'm not saying that the government needs to become further involved in the microcomputer industry, continuous improvement should become part of life, not just a new trendy business strategy.

Although the trade show floor was not nearly as large as a single section of Fall Comdex, it was sufficiently large to allow you to see what you needed between seminars. Local banks were there, along with accounting software and income tax vendors, Microsoft and even one multimedia company.

Bottom line -- A great show -- Be sure to attend the next one.

Copyright © 1995 Rick Smith All rights reserved.