On the road again

The Brisbane Xero Roadshow was held at the Convention Centre this week. The Roadshow is usually an annual corporate chat fest but has been missing from the calendar since 2020. It is designed to rev up and inform Xero partners and advisors about what is new in Xero-land. This week’s show was the first professional event I have attended since the start of the pandemic. I was extremely excited to add bodies to the heads I have seen talking at me from my screen for the past two years, but it has been so long that being in that huge room felt like an out of body experience. I cannot count the number of industry education webinars I have completed since Feb 2020 (but I do have them all written down). Then, suddenly, many of those people who have been informing me and carrying me through all the assorted major disruptions and government unknowns, were there right in front of me. It is so nerdy, but it kind of felt like meeting some of my favourite movie stars. Well, they have digitally been speaking to me in my home as often as Ryan Reynolds has in recent times, so I guess it’s not surprising that I was star struck. It was ridiculously hard not to fan girl. However, I feel it would be a new level of nerdiness, even for me, to ask my favourite accountant for a selfie, so I resisted.

The content of the Xero presentations was unsurprisingly about looking to the future. Xero encouraged advisors to search out new opportunities within high growth industries and to continue to embrace powerful digital tools to make us more efficient and informed so we can better serve our clients. There was also a lot of talk about providing expanded advisory services and the difference that makes to small business. App partners were also on hand for us to road test their products and to give us a “appy-tite” for what’s new in the zoo. All good stuff and I am pumped to put it all into practice.

After 2 years of living in my office, it was great to be out. But man, am I tired now? I guess providing so many hours in a row of the famous ‘Appy sparkle takes a lot of electricity. I am off to power up and come back stronger.