Over the last two weeks, I have had the pleasure of attending two of the accounting industry's more notable conferences, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants' (AICPAs) Tech 2006 in Austin, Texas and the Institute of Management Accountants' (IMAs) Annual Conference, in Las Vegas, Nevada. I say pleasure because it was a great pleasure to meet so many members of the accounting profession and see, firsthand, how diverse and fascinating group it is.

Both conferences had very different content, though they had similar purposes. The goals of both conferences, in general terms, were to educate association members while providing opportunities for them to network and share information. At Tech 2006, the information being exchanged was primarily technical in nature. More general information was exchanged at the IMA's Annual Conference, although it too, included technical sessions on XBRL and Excel.

Interestingly, both conferences attracted different vendors, possibly because they were offered by different associations. The vendors at Tech 2006 included Microsoft, Sage, SAP, Dell, and Chase Paymentech, among others. Vendors at the IMA conference included Robert Half Finance & Accounting, Smartpros and Deltek, among others.

The differences may lead someone to think that choosing between the conferences would be easy. If you are a member of only one of the associations, but not the other, it may be. If you are lucky enough to be a member of both, the choice is much harder. Even as a non-accountant, I found both conferences to be very educational and worthwhile. I could not recommend one over the other. In fact, I would highly recommend both if you have the opportunity.

Written by Jay Hammond, Managing Editor, AccountingWEB, Inc. editor@accountingweb.com

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