CPA or CPA?

Obvious from the title, I am a CPA. That's Certified Public Accountant. CPA's tend to be very business oriented, which we should be, and we tend to be pretty focused on bottom line profits. Not just profits for our clients, but for our own accounting business also. I had a moment recently where no matter how much I think I keep up with new terms and new technology, I suddenly feel like an idiot, because I think we are talking about one thing and in fact we are discussing something totally different.

I have been working on some online ad and promotion recently and I received an email from a connection. Not someone I know personally, but someone who knows someone who knows someone I know. He had all this great information and "white papers" on CPA's and CPA marketing. I thought this sounded like great information and was right on target for what I was doing. My first clue should have been that this was a lot of information about CPA marketing which would be a pretty narrow focus. Especially given that we CPA's also tend to be pretty much penny pinchers and I doubt anyone is going to make a lot of money with marketing programs specifically focused on public accountants.

I actually read through 2 of the papers and was starting the third, when I realized we must have been talking about something different. Turns out CPA can be an acronym for Cost Per Action. It's an online marketing concept where you pay for ads when they work or Pay Per Click. Here is the Wiki explanation. In my defense I did understand the Pay Per Click concept, I just had never heard it referred to as CPA.

Supposedly the true sign that you are "over the hill" is when you realize there is so much knowlege in the world you don't know, that you no longer care to try and learn anything new.

"Do or do not, there is no try" Yoda