ADVANCED INTERNET RESEARCH TECHNIQUES FOR ACCOUNTANTS
How to Increase Your Online Firepower as a Financial Detective
Level: Intermediate
Course duration: Half day
Overview
When you search the Internet, do you type a word or two into Google.com, hit enter and hope for the best?
You don’t know what you’re missing!
Actually, you’re missing 99% of online information since Google.com indexes barely 1% of the web.
Practical and concise, Advanced Internet Research Techniques shows CPAs, CAs, CGAs and other accounting professionals how to dramatically improve their online search skills, instantly increase their web productivity and seriously boost their Internet firepower as financial detectives.
Agenda
6 pages, 695 KB, PDF
Why Attend?
Even if you consider yourself web savvy (and especially if you're not), you are guaranteed to learn new search tips, techniques and tools that will take you to the next level of online intelligence gathering. Considerations:
Searching is harder than it looks. Most believe Internet searching is dead simple ("a chimp in a diaper can do it, right?"). Unfortunately, no it's not! Perhaps more than we care to admit, searching is often difficult, highly frustrating and a huge time suck. According to recent surveys:
- 90% of users experience some degree of “search rage” -- acute feelings of anxiety because they can’t find what they want on the web.
- 66% of web users get distracted or sidetracked online,
- 62% don't know the difference between sponsored and unsponsored results,
- 40% of searches fail,
- 33% of users believe too many results are returned,
- 31% say too many ads are included in search results,
- 25% of the workforce are "Internet dropouts": they've given up completely on search engines because the Internet is not worth the effort in their experience,
- 18% of users leave a search engine without finding the information they wanted,
Information volume is exploding. The web already has more than half a billion websites and one trillion distinct URLs. Every 24 hours:
- 183 billion email messages are sent (about two million a second),
- 10 billion text messages are transmitted,
- 3 billion web pages are added to the Internet,
- 30 million new photos are added to Facebook,
- 8.1 million new listings are added to eBay,
- 1 million new blog postings are indexed on Technorati,
- 19,000 hours of new video are uploaded to YouTube.
Your business, career and very life depends on it. In our hyper-connected world, the web has become our new eyes and ears and brain. Every day, decision-makers of all stripes turn to the Internet for guidance on critical professional and life decisions -- from investments to careers to health. This means your business, career and very life may depend on how well you search. The seminar shows you how to become a more serious Internet searcher. You'll learn how to get the most current, complete and correct online information for practically any accounting, business or life decision.
As an accountant, you have new Internet search responsibilities and risks. New e-discovery and “understanding the entity” regulations mean accountants and other professionals must search the web – thoroughly and continually. This is essential to meet new accounting standards and compliance mandates. You also face increased exposure to penalties and even litigation for failing to monitor relevant online data on a client. The seminar shows you how to meet the more rigorous demands of this new reporting era with the highest possible level of accuracy, speed, and competency.
The Internet skills race is heating up and you must "reboot" to keep pace. Now is time for a major overhaul and reboot of your Internet skills. In this new information eco-system, using only a Google.com “hope for the best” search strategy is not just unsustainable, it's unprofessional and risky. It's like peeking at the sky through a straw: you catch only fleeting glimpses of a tiny portion of the online universe. This puts you at a serious disadvantage because you're not seeing the big picture -- literally and figuratively. The seminar shows you how to continuously scan the entire web, not just microscopic fragments of it. You'll learn how to quickly and easily transform your skills at online information gathering -- skills that may now be modest or even a glaring weakness -- into perhaps your greatest strength.
The key to succeeding online is learning one simple yet powerful search secret: the best searchers don’t search, they get the information to come to them. Chasing information only leads to frustration and failure. The seminar shows you how to set up web alerts and feeds that flow the information to you. This puts you in complete control and allows you to tame information overload.
Sharing online information is just as important as finding online information. The seminar will not only improve how you find information online, but also how you share information on the web. Whether your accounting colleague or client is across the hall or around the world, the seminar will show you to collaborate and communicate real-time using shared spreadsheets, documents, presentations, notebooks, web alerts and other means. This will make it easier to share the most up-to-date information, turbo-charge your teamwork, and improve the accuracy and competency of your entire organization.
Improving your search skills is a stimulus package for your professional and personal life. How much time do you spend on the Internet every week at work and home? If you're like most information professionals, you're online dozens of hours at least. If you use a Blackberry or other portable web-connected device, you may be online literally every waking minute of the day. By improving your online research, you’ll learn how to make the most of this online time (which is a huge block of your week and maybe your life). The seminar will amplify and accelerate not only your accounting skills, but ALL your professional knowledge and personal interests. Learning how to search better is like hooking up to a new brain that will help you think, work and live better. No matter where you are on the Internet learning curve, the course will seriously raise your online comfort, confidence and “game.”
Topics
Seminar topics include:
- Why Internet searching is underrated in its importance, not as easy as it appears, and getting even tougher with exploding information volume and multiplying web devices.
- What Google doesn’t want you to know.
- The best Google search tools you’ve never heard of.
- Google is not enough: other search tools from vertical search engines to Q&A forums to information moshpits.
- Search commands that dramatically improve the relevancy of search results.
- Search tagging techniques that cut through the cyber-clutter.
- How to search in your sleep (no joke!).
- How to tame information overload with one simple search tool.
- Improve their online productivity.
- Work smarter and faster online.
- Gather a greater volume of more relevant information in less time and with minimal effort.
- Better understand the strengths, limitations and costs of Google (which is not as unbiased, accurate or free as many believe).
- Transform their desktop or mobile device into a global surveillance system that automatically tracks any imaginable topic.
- Boost search performance with special browsers, keyword brainstorming tools and free offline magazine subscriptions.
- Open a Google Account using multiple e-mail addresses.
- Tap 100% of Google’s search power (most users barely scratch its surface).
- Set up an online intelligence “dashboard” that automatically delivers the latest and best news alerts and information feeds on any topic(s) they choose.
- Organize their online research and notes more efficiently.
- Deploy a variety of e-tools from online spreadsheets to calendars that allow them to collaborate more effectively online.
- Search the web on their cell phones and other portable devices using a variety of mobile search applications.
- Search the “invisible web” — the 99% of the Internet that Google can’t “see.”
- Improve the relevancy of their search results using phrase, file type, domain, link, cache, view and mashup searching techniques.
- Search for specific file types such as PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, Powerpoint presentations and Word documents.
- Boost the accuracy of their search results using geography, time and intention tagging strategies.
- Use “keyboard karate” techniques – such as word order, doubling up, singular and plural, UK and North American spellings, and deliberate misspellings – to uncover online information.
- Research and communicate online in 30+ languages.
- Forecast and spot trends online using search behaviour data.
- Look at the Internet with a fresh perspective and renewed enthusiasm.
- Use the web as “productivity stimulus” in their professional and personal life.
- All participants receive a free 150+ page Advanced Internet Research Techniques manual (a $200 value) that highlights all the search strategies and tools discussed in the seminar.
Who will Benefit
CAs, CPAs, CGAs, CMAs, CFAs, CMCs, CFOs, Controllers, CEOs, CIOs, other senior managers, accounting practitioners and business professionals who use Google and the Internet in their work and home life (and who doesn’t?).
Prerequisite
You should know how to conduct a basic Google search. That's it. The seminar is non-technical and jargon-free and has been especially designed for experienced accounting professionals (ages 35 years and up).
Feedback from Past Participants
"Wow! The course will change how I do everything at work."
“One of the best professional development courses I’ve taken.”
“One of the best workshops I’ve ever attended.”
“Pointed out many things about Google I was not aware of.”
"I had no idea Google can help me so much as an accountant."
In course evaluations, the presentation consistently receives ratings of 4+ out of 5 from professional accountants.
... more testimonials | 9 pages, 316 KB, PDF
Accreditations
The following organizations have accredited the course as part of their professional development programs:
- Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia
- Institute of Chartered Accountants of Alberta
- Institute of Chartered Accountants of Manitoba
- Certified General Accountants of British Columbia
- Certified General Accountants of Alberta
- CPE Link
- Arizona Society of Certified Public Accountants
- Florida Institute of CPAs
- Indiana CPA Society
- Public Accountants Association of Kansas
- Utah Association of Certified Public Accountants
- Accountants Society of Virginia
- Wisconsin Institute of Certified Public Accountants
Bonus Section: CPA Film Festival
As a session warm-up, the presentation includes THE CPA FILM FESTIVAL -- a brief showcase of YouTube videos from around the world that spotlight accountants. The videos include student recruitment ads, brand awareness commercials, accountant profiles, comedy sketches, music videos and even cartoons. From a pistol-packing CPA in California to a CPA rap group in Hong Kong to a cartoon CPA in Ireland, the videos range from hilarious to heart-warming. A guaranteed ice-breaker at any accounting event, the CPA Film Festival proves professional accountants are not just precision number-crunchers, they're also highly creative producers and artists.
How to Order
Call 778.898.9059 or e-mail me today to order the seminar for your organization.
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