CPA Practice Advisor - 4

FROM THE EDITOR

Staying in Touch
I FEEL EXCEPTIONALLY connected these days. In general, I always feel pretty tuned in
between email and texts and social media and the constant bombardment of news alerts
for which I cannot resist registering. Add a pandemic to that mix, and it seems I'm online
almost every waking hour - not just doing my job which thankfully can be performed from
home, but reading, watching, listening, chatting, staying connected with friends, family,

GAIL PERRY, CPA

Editor-in-Chief
gail.perry@cpapracticeadvisor.com
@gperrycpa

colleagues and clients using video conferencing - immersing myself in all the information
I can absorb from all over the world.
Juxtapose this with the sobering
fact that 49.3% of the entire world's
population does not use the internet
(Internetworldstats, Q1, 2020). Add
to this the (unknown number of)
people who have access to the internet but are unable to comprehend

CPA

Today's Technology for Tomorrow's Firm

certain things. My mother-in-law,
for example, can (sometimes) use
the internet for email, but she only
understands that the coronavirus
is impacting her and her small
retirement community and seems
surprised every time we mention
that people all over the world are
suffering. Similarly, small children
who are home from school or others who don't have a concept of the
world outside their home area, may
feel like it's just summer vacation,
or may not have noticed any change
at all. When you don't have a grasp
of how far the world actually
reaches, global events become small
and even simple or nonexistent.
There are those who may look to
parents or caregivers with confusion, wondering when they can get
together with their friends again,

NSA

as if nothing has changed outside
their doorway.
The connectivity I feel, however,
masks how blind I am to where we
will all land when the pandemic
becomes part of our history, something we can look back on instead
of something we're looking through.
When we experience a large
weather event, such as a hurricane
or a tornado or an ice storm, we
understand the inherent devastation, we know that when the bad
weather passes, we'll all get busy
fixing and repairing and replacing
and pushing ourselves back to some
semblance of normal, as quickly as
we can. We know what that normal
looks like, and we have a pretty
good idea of how to get there. With
the coronavirus, however, I can't
even see what the normal life will

Today's Technology for Tomorrow's Firm

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VOLUME 30, NUMBER 4
Publisher: Barry Strobel
Editor-in-Chief: Gail Perry, CPA
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Jim Boomer, CPA.CITP
Kristy Short
Randy Johnston
Roman H. Kepczyk, CPA.CITP
Paul McDonald
Amy Vetter, CPA.CITP, CGMA
Becky Livingston
Brian Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA
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MAY 2020 ■

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Bob Cedergren, CPA.CITP, CGMA, CISA
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look like on the other side. How will
we get there if we don't know where
we're going?
And as advisors, how best can
we help our clients when the future
is murky to us? The silver lining
is exactly the connectivity I've
described above. If we can maintain
the level of communication and
information sharing that surrounds
us as we make it through each day
of this pandemic, continue to innovate, care, listen, empathize, and
just plain muddle through together,
and offer suggestions based on the
body of knowledge we already have,
the so-called new normal, which is
a mystery to us now, might be able
to unfold more gracefully with our
guidance.
- Gail Perry, Editor-in-Chief

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