We attended our first day at CPA Congress in Darling Harbour, Sydney. It was a lot of sessions! We attended seminars on risk management, activity based costing, heard about the state of Australia’s economy and met Andrew Gaze!
We will do a write up of each of the three days we are attending, including a separate write up of some of the key sessions we were allowed access to. By way of disclosure, we were guest bloggers with media access and given permission to cover certain sessions at the conference.
Our overrall impression was that the conference was really well run. The sessions generally ran on time and they even had a gong lady (i.e. a lady with a huge cymbal) that would signal that some of the sessions were starting! There were tea breaks inbetween and you could congregate in a common tea area for coffee, water, muffins and biscuits. In that area there were also exhibits where you could check out vendor services.
Sessions
There was a variety of different sessions to select from. Participants had to preselect which sessions they were attending, as some of them such as the roundtables had limited capacity. It was the first CPA Congress we have attended, and we actually thought it would have more accounting focus on the sessions but it was more of general business nature.
This year’s theme is “The Way Forward”, which focuses on how business will address the upcoming challenges of the global financial crisis and forge their way ahead. It is a conversation that has dominated business in the past 12 months in the workplace, with clients, suppliers, and within the accounting profession. Overrall, most of the presenters were optimistic about the next 12 months, as the Australian economy did not go into as deep a recession as other economies, and we are recovering a lot faster.
We attended a monster lineup of sessions! Check it out:
- Keynote 1: Challenges and opportunities: The economy in 2009/10
- Business Roundtable: The economy, financial markets and your business – Part A
- Using accounting information to drive strategy
- Business Lunch: Sports Panel – Strategy, leadership, and teamwork
- China/Asian business overview
- Achieve more for less – building a company, building a brand and building a life
- Case Study: NASA – managing risks in complex environments
- Complementary session: Beyond the downturn – getting ahead in small business
As you can see it was quite a lot! We will post a write up of a few of the sessions we attended.
Each session had a moderator and a presenter, and was generally full. The first keynote had approximately 1,000 attendees, possibly more to hear Craig James, Chief Equities Economist of Comsec speak about the state of the economy. Throughout the day the numbers fluctuated and you couldn’t tell how many people were at the conference as people funneled off to their respective sessions. However, by lunch time, everyone gathered for the business lunch, and the place was packed! Nearly every seat was taken. There had to be easily 700 people at that lunch.
We have a lot of great photos from the lunch including one with retired basketball star Andrew Gaze, and new CPA President Alex Malley. We also took plenty of photos throughout the conference which we will post onto Flickr at a later date, and also within some of the posts.
Roundtables
We accidentally walked into one of the Roundtable sessions. There was a bit of a mix up, but we’re pleased to say that we did attend. The Roundtables are closed sessions, where there are three big roundtables with an expert on each table. Participants get to ask questions of the expert on their table. As the questions were more of a personal nature for the participants, the media cannot report on the content of those sessions. What we can blog about is the format. We liked the sessions as they were that it was more of an intimate affair, as people get to ask questions relevant to their business or situation.
It is a striking contrast to the lecture style presentation in the large auditorium where the presenter is talking to a large crowd. Having small groups facilitates greater group discussion. However, to get the most of the session, we encourage particapants to come with pre-prepared questions to kick off the discussion. You will find that one discussion will lead to others jumping in with their points and questions flowing from that. So come prepared!
The venue
We’ve have been to Darling Harbour convention centre several times in the past for conferences. But they have usually been in one place (i.e one auditorium or just the main hall). This was the first time we’d been to a full day session with a lot of different locations. For someone that spent the whole day there, we were quite confused as to where to go. Eventually we realised we needed the timetable booklet. It had a map inside, but it was too small.
So it was just easier to ask the CPA staff and Sydney convention staff around the place. There were certaintly a lot of them around, so we quickly found out where to go. Perhaps next time they could print a bigger map on an single A4 page. By the end of the day, we knew the whereabouts of the rooms so Day 2 should be a lot smoother for us.
The Taxabull team is attending the CPA Congress as a guest of CPA Australia.
You can follow us on twitter: twitter.com/austax
Cheers,
Taxabull team.
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- Heading to CPA Congress!
- Day 4, part 1 – The future of management accountants, and how to talk to the opposite sex!
- Day 3 Review, Part 1 – Tax and the pommel horse!
