Bill's Blog
Revised Dec 2007

For 10 years, I created and maintained a variety of web pages for the California Society of CPAs. After all those years, a brief "thank-you" letter would be in order.

But I don't expect I'll be seeing one any time soon.

I got way ahead of the curve with web page development for a staid group like CalCPA.

Back in May 1995, I created the first web page for any segment of CalCPA. That was for the Computer Users Groups, now known as the Westside Technology Users Group. That shook things up for the Society. Next development was a request from the LA Chapter President to create web pages for the Chapter. That shook things up even more. Starting in the fall of 1995, and continuing for eight years, I created and maintained the LA Chapter web pages.

When digital cameras came along the Society staff said they didn't have money in the budget for one of those, so I had to go elsewhere to get started with digital photos. And, pictures became a nice addition to the Chapter web pages, starting with WTUG pages.

There were a few other volunteer members doing web page work in the early years. At the time, there was an understanding that committees and chapters could arrange for their own web pages in whatever way they wished. The staff tried to make it harder for the volunteers in May 1998 when they locked us out of the calcpa.org server and said we had to submit updates to the staff via email. Of course, that can't work. That's when we got together and created another domain for use by the volunteers, calcpaweb.org. The domain was always owned by the Society, and it was made available for volunteer members to use for their work on chapter and committee pages. The name was intentionally similar to calcpa.org, and there were links back and forth to help users get around the two web domains.

Starting in 1998, I started focusing more on estate planning, and created web pages for the Los Angeles Chapter Estate Planning Committee and the State Estate Planning Committee. One very useful development was creation of the estate planning forum. Once again, way ahead of the crowd. Compared with the rest of the CPA Society's web presence, these two committees had a much greater presence than other committees.

The San Fernando Valley Discussion Group is the most active group in CalCPA, providing more person-hours of education than any other group. They meet weekly for breakfast and one hour of professional education featuring top-notch area speakers. I created a separate page for that committee, including pictures of attendees, and some useful links. That page could have served as an example for other discussion groups all over the state.

I suppose it all had to end sometime. In May 2005, staff arranged to get a resolution through the Board that prohibits volunteers from working on web pages for CalCPA. So, after a transition period, as of January 2006, all committee pages were moved to calcpa.org, and the second domain, calcpaweb.org, was reduced to referral pages. Only staff members are allowed to do web page work for CalCPA.

Currently, all Society pages look alike, and the substantial web presence of the two Estate Planning Committees has been reduced to the minimal pages provided for all Society committees. No longer will any committee stand out from the crowd. All pages have the same template, the same small, gray font, no pictures, or tiny pictures if we insist, and empty space reserved for advertising. The San Fernando Valley Discussion Group members feel like forgotten step-children; their web page is deeply hidden in calcpa.org. Often it doesn't get updated, and there are no pictures.

Of course members have requested improvements to their web pages. But so far, no one in authority has cared enough.