I always enjoy reflecting on the year, and finding out what others think has made a difference...so from many of the "best of" lists that come out  at this time of year, the one that first caught my eye:

7 Most Important Tech Trends Of 2012 posted on CIO's web site...

What struck me as interesting was how many of these technologies (5 out of 7) have implications for accountants:

1.  Big data - if we're not analyzing it, are we doing our job?

3.  Near-field communications - what are the audit implications?  Privacy issues?

4.  Biometrics - sure it helps with security, but, again, what about privacy?

6.  Bring Your Own Device (BYOD—oh, don't I wish it was a "---B"?) - the technology challenges with consumer devices are huge, as are implications for processes (and SOX compliance), security, and potentially privacy

7.  3-D Printing - We have entered the Enterprise and can have replicators in our homes!  Think how this could turn manufacturing on its head: no more "work in progress" and a lot less inventory!  Would ABC costing still be needed?

My questions to all of you - are you including these in your classes and your research?  Do you think the accounting profession sees these initiatives as ones they should be involved in?  Do you think the article missed anything important?

And if these aren't too interesting, here are a few more "best of's" for 2012:

• Movies by Rotten Tomatoes
• Trends, especially focused on marketing and millennials - a good help with understanding some of our students
• Trends in academic libraries, I found especially insightful when we think about the future of intellectual property

Happy New Year to you, and yours!

Auditing Section Research Summary Database

The Auditing Section’s new initiative—Auditing Section Research Summary Database—is available to the public through the AAACommons and is targeted to support practitioners. The Section has compiled a database of 15 research topics and each topic area has numerous sub-topics. The Section launched the project recently with over 130 topic-specific summaries and plans to continue to add more summaries over time.

Check out this great new resource directly at AuditingResearchSummaries.org or from the link on the Auditing Section's Commons Home Page.

Thanks to the Auditing Section Leadership and Committee Members who contributed to make this initiative possible and especially all the Ph.D. Student Members who helped write the initial set of research summaries.

The new Digital Library platform has a lot of features that can help us stay on top of what's happneing in research, and it just takes a moment to sign up for alerts to make it automatic.  Just follow these simple steps:

1. Go to the digital library  http://aaajournals.org/
2. Log in with your email address and Digital Library password
3. Click on your name in the upper right hand corner;  this will bring you to your personal area within the Digital Library.
4. Click on the Alerts tab (as shown at left)
5. Want to receive table of contents alerts?  Just click by the journals, and they'll come automatically!
6. Want to receive notices of articles before the journal is out?  Just specify how often you'd like to get the "Ahead of Print" alert.

Last month, the Accounting Program Leadership Group had their mid-year meeting, and those in attendance had the pleasure of learning from Dan Roam, the author of The Back of the Napkin and Blah, Blah, Blah.  I was struck with several things that he said:

• He who draws the best picture, wins!
• You don't have to be an artist to make visual (vivid) represenations
• We could use visuals to represent financial concepts - and help those for whom numbers are hard

To test his theory, several of us went to see his representation of the health care reform act.  And if you click on the picture here, you'll be able to see it, too... and I was amazed that he and Tony Jones, MD, were able to make something really complex (14,00 pages long!) pretty understandable.  Click Here to let us know what you think - and what you might be able to do for your students.

If you didn't go to APLG, you'll have another chance to meet Dan:  he's going to be the speaker at this year's TLC WOW! Event at the Annual Meeting... Keep your eye out for more information!

The AAA Digital Library now has Online Early posting of pre-print versions of accepted articles. This is a wonderful new feature that allows readers to access journal articles within a couple days of acceptance … no need to wait for the journal to print and mail to access the latest accounting research. Go to http://aaajournals.org/ and click on the “Online Early” links to see the available articles. You can see abstracts of all the pre-prints and full text of the articles in the journals you subscribe to.