Tag: accounting

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I am Stephanie Barnes and I am … magic


(I am like a Tardis—I look ordinary, but contain powers beyond your imagination)

I don’t fit in a box
I work in the white space between the boxes

I don’t conform
I am a leader and a follower
I am analytical and creative
I am process-driven and flexible
I do digital transformation and culture change
I am a program and project manager and a performer of tasks
I get things done and I leave them until it is time to do them
I balance people, process, and technology
I balance business and technology
I am a bridge builder and an island
I like data and I think it’s pointless
I like theories and practicality
I create strategies, I implement them, and I go with the flow
I like the simplicity of black and white, while loving the energy, chaos, and emotions of layers of colours
I am patient and impatient
I rush ahead and I wait and see
I accept the things people tell me as true, and I ask lots of questions
I love silence, jazz concerts, and the symphony
I love the stillness of nature and the buzz of city life
I like order while finding it boring
I like chaos while finding it overwhelming and requiring order
I am a twin and an individual

I am organised chaos

Why do I do these things?

Because I am an expert and a novice
Because I am experienced and skilled, collaborative and curious
Because I am searching and challenging boundaries
Because I wonder what happens if…

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Why is creativity important to me?

I have two degrees, an undergraduate degree in Accounting, and an MBA in Information Technology. Nice degrees, years and years of studying, useful, but ultimately very analytical, logical, process oriented, and rational. I spent most of the first 30 +/- years of my life being very process driven, analytical, rational, and results-driven.

When I finished I didn’t know what to do with myself.

I started to ask questions, try things out: going to the symphony, drawing, photography, painting…

I started to have fun.

I was more relaxed, less stressed, more curious, more confident, more resilient.

My personal and professional lives were more interesting, and satisfying. 

I wanted to share my experience with others, and help them have these same benefits, and hopefully, reduce their learning curve, or at least move them along it, so now I am!

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My path to creativity

In my introduction, last week, when I spoke at the Future Females: Berlin creativity event.  I made a joke about being an accountant and a IT professional and that I was going to talk to them about creativity. I said, “I know what you’re thinking, what is and accountant and IT person going to tell us about creativity?” and really, how does someone who studied accounting and IT come to be doing creativity?!? I mean, really???!!!

You’re going to have to trust me that it is all connected, I don’t want to bore you to death with all the details, but the short answer is, that after having the creativity, figuratively, if not literally, beaten out of me of during years of education, I came to realise how important it is.

I was exhausted and burnt out and a bit bored because I had finished my MBA and didn’t have any hobbies, after-all who has time for hobbies when there is school work to be done. So, I started trying things out: drawing (oooh, this is math, I can do math), photography (oooh, nice to be outside, what happens when I do this with the shutter speed?), rock climbing (hated it, never again), going to the symphony (loved it), painting (ooooooh this is amazing, this one REALLY stuck). As I tried out all these things some of them stuck, and some of them didn’t, but I slowly started to figure out who I was, other than a student. Who I was, when I wasn’t trying to do a “should” or a “supposed to” and it was fantastic. Having these creative outlets helped me be more balanced, to be better at my career, because I thought more critically, and I was more resilient.

I decided a week ago to leave the knowledge management consulting that I had been doing for 15 years behind, and to step fully into the creativity and innovation work that I had been developing over the last 6 years and it feels like, this is it, this is what I am here for, this is what this long, circuitous journey has been about: getting me ready to use all the skills and knowledge I have accumulated along the way to help organisations and people to be more balanced, to use both sides of their brains, to look at things differently if they want different outcomes; to apply artistic practices and principles to all kinds of problems to arrive at better, more balanced, more useful solutions.

I am so excited to be here!

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Just watch me!

This is the evolution of me. I’m taking all of my experience and history and creating a new layer.

My undergrad in accounting, my time working in finance and accounting, my MBA in information technology, my time working in technology and then as an independent knowledge management consultant, and my development as an artist, have all led to this moment, this realisation of potential: entelechy.

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Knowledge Management and Finance/Accounting

Some of you, who know me, will know that I started out my career in accounting; I have an undergraduate degree in accounting and was going to be a Chartered Accountant.

This is also how I got my start in KM, although it wasn’t called KM then, it was just how you worked—checklists and reusing last year’s files, talking to the staff who had worked on the audit/tax last year. If you had worked on the engagement the year before you were expected to be quicker in the subsequent year(s) because you were familiar with the client and the file.

15+ years into my knowledge management career, I still run into organizations that think that in order to help them better manage their knowledge that I have to be a specialist in whatever their content is, e.g. if it’s a law firm, I have to be a lawyer, if it’s a manufacturer I have to be an engineer, if it’s a hospital I have to be a doctor or a nurse or some other medical professional.

This isn’t always true, there are lots of organizations that understand that KM is a series of processes and activities, largely independent of the content. Organizations that understand having a depth of experience in how to get people to participate in knowledge sharing activities is more important than knowing the knowledge that they are actually supposed to be sharing.

Accounting is accounting is accounting. Yes, there might be some differences from industry to industry or sector, but in the end you are still trying to keep track of the financial resources of the organization, using generally accepted accounting principles.

Knowledge Management is no different. You are just trying to help facilitate the knowledge lifecycle from creation to sharing and management to disposal using a set of generally accepted knowledge management processes.

In both cases it’s important to understand the processes and principles, not the content.