Helpful tech tools, and battling mediocrity

Each week, we’ll delve into the reading lists of finance professionals around the world. This week, we hear from Tom Hood, CPA/CITP, CGMA, the CEO of the Maryland Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute. Hood is passionate in particular about leadership, learning, technology, and collaboration. Here are several recent articles that touch on those topics and resonated with him:

• “10 Tech Gadgets That’ll Make Your Everyday Life Easier”: A portable phone battery and smart light bulbs are among the items on the list by Business Insider. Hood said he had about half of these gadgets.


• “Google Is Funding a New Software Project That Will Automate Writing Local News”: Hood noted this Recode article as one that offers more evidence of hard trends related to technology and the automation of routine tasks previously carried out by people.


• “Assessing the Global State of the Profession”: In this Journal of Accountancy interview, Olivia Kirtley, CPA, CGMA, shares impressions from her stint as the first female president of the International Federation of Accountants. Hood liked Kirtley’s vision of the ideal accounting professional.


• “Rage Against the ‘Meh’: Our Fight Against So-So, OK and ‘That’s Fine’”: Among several takeaways from this article, Hood said, is that there is real danger not in failure but in mediocrity.