So, I’m excited to report that I FINALLY had an “aha” moment with accounting! As a marketer, I am generally averse to all things accounting, as I find it boring and completely useless for my day-to-day tasks. I know, all the numbers people out there are shocked, and I’ve probably lost all credibility, but this post is about a redeeming moment for accounting! Last night, while studying for my mid-term, I was looking at allocating costs to different departments, one of which is marketing. I was thinking about how I’m always making sure that tradeshows costs are billed to the proper accounts, and how we could do all of that much more efficiently if we utilized the CRM. Then I started thinking about all the features I could implement on the CRM to track, forecast, budget and book all of our tradeshows for the next year. Then I got really excited, and sent myself an email 🙂 I know this stuff isn’t rocket science, and I’ve had some fleeting thoughts about additional ways to utilize our CRM tool, but this was the first time I could actually trace some of the features back to an accounting class. Good ‘ole cost accounting helped me hone in on some improvements to an existing tool to provide more value to different branches of the organization. See, us marketers CAN play nice with others…. even with accountants!

On another note, it’s these kinds of moments that prompted, in part, my return to school. Going “back to the basics” in academics has already helped me open up my mind to consider some of the possibilities that usually get blocked by the day-to-day “noise” in the office. The academic environment usually presents concepts purely, or “in a perfect world”, so it allows you to go through all the options that you wouldn’t normally consider because of budget, time, or talent constraints. I’ve had several marketing ideas that I’ve been able to bring into the office and modify to work around the constraints. It’s only my first semester, but I am already seeing the value of going back to school. Especially for a degree like the MBA, which emphasizes well-rounded business knowledge, you can really take the classroom experiences into the workplace.