Ep. 77: Ron Guymon - The Evolution of Accounting Education

Contact Ron Guymon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronald-guymon-369b1710/
Ron Guymon at U of Illinois: https://giesbusiness.illinois.edu/profile/ronald-guymon

IMA Data Analytics & Visualization Fundamentals Certificate®: https://bit.ly/38Iy90l

U of Illinois and IMA - Beyond the Basics: Data Analytics and Visualization for Accounting Professionals: https://giesbusiness-ima.thinkific.com/courses/btb-davap

Ron's Articles Published:

• The Effect of Task Interdependence and Type of Incentive Contract on Group Performance: https://meridian.allenpress.com/jmar/issue/20/s1
• Controls and the Asymmetric Stickiness of Norms: https://meridian.allenpress.com/accounting-horizons/article-abstract/33/4/119/427557/Controls-and-the-Asymmetric-Stickiness-of-Norms

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Adam: (00:00)
Welcome back for episode 77 of Count Me In. IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your host, Adam Larson and today's conversation revolves around the future of accounting education. For this episode, Mitch sat with Ron Guymon, Senior Lecturer at University of Illinois. There, he teaches data analytics to online master of accountancy students. Ron also has experience helping small to midsize companies assemble, analyze, and visualize data to find actionable insights. In his conversation with Mitch, Ron discusses, what he has already seen in accounting education as universities seek to prepare the future of our profession and share what he believes to be the most valuable skills for students going forward. So without further ado, let's get over to their conversation now.

Mitch: (00:58)
What has your role been in accounting education and how have you seen the curriculum or the required components change along your journey? 

Ron: (01:07)
  I had been in academics for a while and there had been a growing awareness in  academics, at least since about 2010 of the need to teach students more data analytics skills. Most of it was in Excel at the time. Because my academic background, I had some data analytics skills with SAS that I learned for academic research purposes, but those skills and some relationships led to an opportunity for me to leave academics and join a small, but growing business intelligence company called New Metric. And it was a risky decision at the time, but I knew the analytics were important. And I thought that if anything, this would give me some good experience that I could eventually use in class. I was also motivated by some family reasons. So, anyway, there was that side of things, but it turned out to be a great learning experience. And, you know, some things I learned have benefited me in the classroom as I had hoped, I guess. I learned how to use some proprietary data visualization software, and I also learned how to use R. So I had used SAS a lot for academics, but I learned about some other  skill or, analysis technique. And when I looked at, when I researched about it, I found a lot of references to R and so, that's what got me into R. So my academic training was really helpful and it gave me a leg up on the statistical concepts, however, I think I can relate to many business professionals who have primarily relied on Excel and they're worried about the learning curve associated with learning a data analytic language. So, anyway, so I've come back into academics with, some experience using data analytics software that has been very helpful. 

Mitch: (03:03)
So you touched on it just now and you said, it may be difficult for some business professionals to run either, maybe want to pursue learning this new language as you put it, or the fear of being able to. So what is your perspective or what have you seen as far as particularly accounting and finance professionals really interested in this sophisticated data analytic competencies and, you know, even going back to students. Are they aware of this growing need and the fact that it will benefit them in the future? 

Ron: (03:40)
I think the professionals are aware of it, and I think that's because data is seeping into every part of an organization. And so I think they're becoming aware of it, or at least the need to be able to process more data and a desire to do that. They may not know that a data analytic language is, a tremendous way to help process more data. I know there are other tools available like Tableau for visualizing data, and some other tools for automating processes. But, I've definitely seen a need for, pretty much everyone in an organization, at least in my opinion, could benefit from learning a data analytic language. Cause you can just automate things. Students, I think are less aware of that at least undergraduate studentsk and, and so it's a little bit harder for them, but MBA students and masters students, I think they're, they're more aware of it cause they're a lot of them are working professionals as well, and so they've realized the limitations that come with point and click software, the benefits as well as the limitations, and so I think they're aware of the need to learn about it. But, yeah, the way, you know, it's kinda tough to transition from Excel or a Google sheets to a data analytical language. So that's the part that I think a lot of people are trying to navigate right now and it's not easy cause it takes time and people are working, they have families, and, and how do you learn something that's a pretty dense topic and, it takes a while to really be proficient at, but, anyway, so I think, I hope that's what I'm helping people do now as a professor at the University of Illinois, so anyway. 

Mitch: (05:33)
No, that's great, and you know, I'm sure you have your own preferences, but for our listeners here, if you could just offer up some kind of recommendation for those who are interested in pursuing more of this deep dive education, whether they are in the classroom, looking for some outside resources, professionals looking for some continuing education, where do you start and how do you really get feet into learning this new language? 

Ron: (06:00)
Yeah, that's a great question. There are so many resources out there. You could probably find a bunch on Yo...