Archive for the ‘Writing for Others’ Category

If I Had More Time, It Would Have Been Shorter…

By Francine • Jul 4th, 2010

My new essay is up at Sundayed.com, the side project I’m contributing to with a few friends including Jason Moriber from Wise Elephant who helps me run this site.
This weekend I’m talking about the “Summer Fiction: 20 Under 40″ issue of The New Yorker.   The fiction I read is varied, but I’m not much [...]

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Please Check Out Sundayed.com

By Francine • Jun 5th, 2010

I’ve joined with a few friends to produce some completely different kinds of writing at Sundayed.com. I will be contributing once or twice a month as my schedule permits.
Jason Moriber, the Editor, describes it as such:
Sundayed.com is a short menu of provocative weekend reading.  It’s a platform for our contributors to discuss/illustrate/define/opine on topics that [...]

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@Going Concern “Will Hustling The Big 4 On Salary Hurt Your Chances?”

By Francine • Jun 2nd, 2010

My new column is up @Going Concern.
I get calls. I get letters. And now I even get lots of requests to meet. Talking to readers is one of my favorite things to do. It makes my opinions and ideas real.
I also, of course, learn much from you about what’s really going on. I appreciate the [...]

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@Going Concern “Piling Onto The Scrum: Big 4 Auditors Want A Piece of the Credit Ratings Action”

By Francine • May 19th, 2010

My new column is up @Going Concern:
They lead a charmed life.
• A government sanctioned franchise to provide their services to the largest global companies.
• Oligopolistic pricing and an annuity-style constant pipeline of business because of significant barriers to entry resulting in a license to print money.
• Historic immunity from scrutiny and litigation based on proprietary methods [...]

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Good News. Bad News. AIG’s Cassano Snitches On PwC

By Francine • Apr 7th, 2010

The US Federal government has been propping up AIG with hundreds of billions of dollars and AIG has been, in turn, protecting its auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers.

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@Going Concern “Accountants In The Modern World”

By Francine • Mar 10th, 2010

My new column is up @Going Concern.com
“…I don’t envy today’s professors trying to teach the old-fashioned accounting skills in the electronic environment – closing checklists, regular balance sheet reconciliations, journal entry sign-offs, backup documentation requirements, managerial review of financial statements, and proper reviews and approvals of estimates and analytics. These are the Sarbanes-Oxley and the [...]

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@Going Concern: “You’re Hired. You’re Fired. Beware The Big 4 Boomerang”

By Francine • Feb 24th, 2010

My new column is posted @Going Concern.
There’s no profession more conflicted about employee retention versus alumni relations than the auditors. On the one hand, the largest audit firms have well-oiled recruiting machines.
Their uncanny ability to identify and sway candidates early is rivaled only by professional baseball’s success at finding talented Dominicans still swinging stalks of [...]

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@Going Concern “It’s Hard Out There For An Auditor”

By Francine • Feb 17th, 2010

My latest column is posted @Going Concern:
It’s tough to be the “good guy,” however you define “goodness” within your moral framework. It’s even tougher if you were never taught your duty to the public as a licensed CPA and if the firm or company punishes you, de-incentivizes you to do the right thing. Retired Trinity [...]

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Big 4 CEOs Get Their Close-Ups At Davos

By Francine • Feb 4th, 2010

It’s sort of sweet to see the CEOs of the Big 4 audit firms being treated like big deals at Davos. In the US, the media typically pays no attention to these guys unless there’s either a catastrophic accounting related failure – and the recent crisis is not being viewed as such by the media [...]

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@Going Concern “The Big 4 and Shameless Self-Promotion”

By Francine • Jan 27th, 2010

My new post is up @Going Concern.
“I chafe at the cheekiness of some of the announcements. The firms’ communications teams are blithely unaware of how such shameless self-promotion looks to those who are watching closely. For example, all of the Big 4 firms were named to the Fortune 100 Best Places To Work list, even [...]

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