The "Recommender Generation"

Author: Doug Sleeter  Created: Tue Sep 6 16:40:45 2005
I recently ran across an interesting article on the Frog Design web site (http://www.frogdesign.com/mind/mindarchive.html) that theorizes that the "Information Age" is now quite mature, and that we are new entering the "Recommendation Age." According to the article's thesis:

"We are leaving the Information Age and entering the Recommendation Age. In the past it was difficult to gather sufficient information to make decisions, and we relied on recommendations to guide us through this lack based on others' prior experience. Today we have too much information, which ironically has made recommendations even more valuable. Now we don't have enough time to sort through all the information, or we need higher levels of understanding to make sense of the information. So recommendations act as shortcuts through the information mass, getting us to the right, or "right enough," answer."

In my view, Frog Design's thesis is right on, and it confirms that accountants and consultants are just as important in the future as we ever were, but it also indicates that the role of the consultant will now be much more about sorting through and filtering the flood of information available to us. We need to understand more about the products, technologies, and solutions that are available, and we need to apply a filter for our clients as to which solutions are best for their needs.

Our goal at The Sleeter Group is to provide this type of "sorting and filtering" to consultants by using our combined resources in the network of experts to find, evaluate, and report on solutions in the market.

All of our members are invited to participate in this effort by submitting your solid, well-researched and tested information to the rest of our group. The best way to participate today is to submit articles for publication in our Desktop Accountant Newsletter, but we are working several new technologies to help everyone use and share our information. More details on this will come in the near future.

Note, if you're not currently a member of The Sleeter Group network, we would love to have you participate in these efforts, and benefit from our combined efforts. Please contact us to join the group.