My ThinkTWENTY20 Editor in Chief Gerald Trites and I were discussing blockchain projects recently. ThinkTWENTY20 is, of course, a visible innovative magazine for financial professionals who want a deep dive into contemporary issues and their application to our profession and its practitioners. That means those with innovative solutions will reach out with press releases and editorial content ready to go.

Back in May, I had a Blog entry on Python, and whether financial professionals should know how to code in Python. See https://thinktwenty20.com/index.php/blog/478-should-financial-professionals-know-how-to-program-or-data-analytics-accountants-should-understand-them-and-have-toolsets-to-perform-them for a refresher. I mentioned the use of Jupyter Notebook as a means of storing and conveying the code and documentation and facilitating writing, testing and executing the code.

So far, in this series, we have discussed Robotic Process Automation as a tool to take dull, repetitive, static tasks and give them to computers instead of people, for greater satisfaction, speed and accuracy. Let’s talk a bit about who can teach their computers to do these things.

In my last blog entry, I referenced a dear bookkeeper with whom I worked many ages ago, whose challenges interpreting a changing payroll report from the external provider; her challenge with getting the appropriate journal entries into the accounting system was a catalyst to my wanting to develop XBRL GL. So, I would like to discuss how RPA is like that bookkeeper, the good news and the bad news.

In my last entry, I discussed the Web-based discussion resource known as Reddit. I relatively recently added Reddit to my list of places I regularly go to track discussions on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, as well as a number of other topics of personal interest. (Because of the many topics of personal interest, and my laziness, I do not have a separate business and personal identity, and attempt to stay as anonymous as possible. Those who know me would easily piece together my identity.)

Online discussion areas have been part of the technology world before the Internet and the traditional online services (America Online, Compuserve, Prodigy, etc.). Usenet, for example, had a place of prominence from 1980 to 2010. Of Usenet, they said, “The entire realm of human knowledge is shared on Usenet every four days.” They also said, “The average person uses less than 10% of their brain, and Usenet proves it is probably lower than that.”