Collaboration can result in great accomplishments in adviser technology

Refreshing reminder on the industry's collaborative power at the Fuse conference

A long time ago, I was a tax accountant. During tax season, at accounting firm Arthur Young, you could walk into the office on a Saturday to a room full of people. Wearing jeans with heads down, few were holding conversations — mainly when a couple of people would break to have a snack in the kitchen. It was about as exciting as watching your grandmother needlepoint.

So, when I was asked to accompany my IT team to Fuse, the conference for financial technology developers in Park City, Utah, I had some trepidation. Would I be confronted with the boring experience of watching programmers program? The answer turned out to be yes — with interludes of amazement.

This Fuse conference was the second annual “hackathon” sponsored by Orion. The mission of promoting collaboration between industry tech firms to create innovative integrations benefitting advisers and their clients — in one weekend — seemed overly optimistic. Turned out, it wasn’t. And that is what was amazing.

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The “Fuse House” was filled with programmers. Laptops were everywhere. Participants were excited to show off their skills, work with peers and, heck, finally get to attend a real conference! In the end, about 20 teams from the top financial tech companies competed.

The judges were a “who’s who” of the financial services world: Billy Oliverio (United Planners), Joel Bruckenstein (T3), Michael Kitces (Kitces.com), Bill Winterberg (FPPad.com), Steven Sanduski (Belay Advisor), J.D. Bruce (Abacus Wealth) and Ryan Beach (CLS Investments).

Some of the notable projects included:

• An integrated household dashboard (WealthAccess)
• An integrated instant message archiving and compliance tool
• An integrated compliance calendar and workflow system (RIA In A Box)
• An Orion-integrated capital gain distribution minimizer tool (TRX)
• Sharefile integration with Orion (Citrix)
• Advisory World integration with MoneyGuidePro and Intuit
• eMoney’s integration with Riskalyze

Although there were two winners of “Best in Show” (RIA In A Box and TRX), all of the teams came away with recognition. In an often competitive industry, Fuse was a refreshing reminder that when people work together, great accomplishments can result.

Sheryl Rowling is chief executive of Total Rebalance Expert and principal at Rowling & Associates. She considers herself a non-techie user of technology.