Grant opportunities for accounting professionals and small businesses

Recognizing that times are tough, I wanted to make people aware of a grant opportunity for accounting professionals. Intuit is offering ten $10,000 Stimulus Grants to accounting pros who want to either start a business or grow an existing one. The grants are part of Intuit’s Power to Get More Done campaign, an initiative created to help accounting professionals succeed in this economic environment. You can find out more about the application process and apply (by April 30) for a grant at http://proadvisor.intuit.com/product/getmoredone/stimulusgrant.jsp.

For small businesses, Intuit is also offering over $300,000 in small business grants and free software. See http://smallbusinessunited.com/ for more info on that program.

Intuit Academy Virtual Conference

Intuit Academy has its first Virtual Conference on Wed and Thursday (1/21 and 1/22/09). I logged in for a few minutes a couple of times on Wednesday. It was really cool! It is just like a real conference with an exhibit hall and conference hall (for live webinars and online courses available for CPE credit!).

In the Exhibit Hall, there are booths where you can talk to Intuit Employees and/or other ProAdvisors or peers and The Sleeter Group has a booth too with Doug & Sherrill Sleeter along with other Sleeter employees. It is great to be able to ask questions and talk to people in the booths. You can also pick up documents and save them into your briefcase to download later!'

You talk via chat and messaging. You can join in the booth chat for everyone or have private chats with people. You can also go into the Networking Lounge for Schedule Chats on various topics. I'm moderating a scheduled chat on Marketing ideas for Accounting Professionals today. I'm really looking forward to it and spending more time at the Virtual Conference today!

It seems similar to Second Life and I think it is a great way to utilize technology! Especially when the economy is bad, you can attend a conference without the travel expenses. Plus, my feet won't hurt at the end of the day!!!