Entrepreneur and technology expert Scott Klososky exhorted attendees to find new ways to use technology to make data more useful at the second day of AGA’s 56th Annual Professional Development Conference & Exposition in Nashville.

Klososky said that we all have the same workplace tools: servers, routers, firewalls and laptops. "Some people do magic things with these tools, and some people don’t have a clue."

The people who do have a clue are those who are now entering the work force. They have lived with the Internet since they were about 6 years old and have used cell phones since they were teenagers.

This sets up a "big clash" in the workplace between the younger generation and the older executives who fear technological change and "don’t know what goes on in the IT department."

He urged the attendees to listen to their younger workers because they are so savvy about technology that they have good ideas on how to use it to improve efficiency.

Klososky said many businesses today do not gather the correct data, nor do they use the data that they have very well. Banks and hospitals, which often require their customers to fill out multiple forms with the same information, are likely using separate computer systems for various services that do not connect with one another. One way to apply data in a more useful way is through mashups, he said.

He said information from Google Earth, which allows users to zoom in on a map and see an aerial view of the area, has been overlayed with apartment rental information from Craigslist. This kind of mashup lets users see which apartments are for rent in one part of San Francisco, for example. He said 50,000 applications have been built on top of Google Earth. Think about your own organizations, he said. It would be fairly easy to set up real-time dashboards of statistics that can be used to run the organization.

Customized toolbars for Internet Explorer can be created for free through Conduit.com. A search engine called ChaCha.com uses real people, communicating by instant message, who are paid on their ability to conduct searches for you quickly.

Klososky ended his talk with a number of statistics that illustrate how rapidly technology is evolving and he urged attendees to think about new ways to use technology to transform raw data into useful information to effectively communicate financial information to the public.

"Geek is the new chic," he said. Other innovative websites:

- Zamzar.com – Converts files for you and quickly e-mails you with a link to your converted file.
- Newsatseven.com – Allows you to configure a news feed to your own specifications, delivering the news through an animated spokesperson.
- Innocentive.com – Asks users to solve research and development problems for large organizations and pays large "bounties" for solutions.
- Visitorville.com – Turns statistics that track web traffic and converts it into a real-time graphical representation of city buildings (your web pages) and people traveling between the popular buildings, or pages.

The second day of the PDC ended with federal, state and local government executives discussing massive, long-term fiscal challenges with no easy answers. Susan J. Irving, Ph.D., CGFM, Director for Federal Budget Analysis with the U.S. Government Accountability Office, said the federal government is, in effect, running a credit card with the bill going to the nation’s children.

The debt is growing, the Social Security program is unsustainable in its current form, Medicaid and Medicare costs are growing faster than the economy and the personal saving rate is negative. Even though a stronger economy will help, it won’t solve the problem.

North Carolina State Controller Robert Powell (pictured on the left) outlined challenges his state is facing, primarily a population surge of 3.2 million people since 1980. The state constitution calls for free college education for state residents; 2 million more cars traveled state roads in 2006 than in 1997; the state has contracted out operation of its prisons to save money; and natural disasters of the 1980s and 1990s have wiped out the state’s rainy day fund.

Natwar M. Gandhi, Ph.D., CGFM, Chief Financial Officer of the District of Columbia, said the district has lost population and therefore the tax base has shrunk. The people who are left in the city are poor, with 19 percent of adults and 34 percent of children living in poverty. The average age of school buildings in the district is 56 years old. The needs are profound, he said. Nevertheless, the city went from a $500 million deficit in the mid-1990s to a $1.43 billion surplus today. Irving urged the audience to think about solutions to these tough problems. "What this means is we have to stop hiding our heads in the sand."