Tech events held by T3, FPA Business Solutions redundant

Despite different owners and status — T3 is a for-profit event owned by Joel Bruckenstein and David Drucker (who publish T3: The Newsletter); Business Solutions is operated on a nonprofit basis under the auspices of the Financial Planning Association — the conferences share similar educational missions, formats and many of the same exhibitors. In the quest to attract financial advisers, T3 has surpassed the FPA meeting in some significant ways, most notably vendor participation and the richness of its technology content. FPA Business Solutions last week had 24 exhibitor/sponsors at the meeting in San Francisco, compared with the 72 at T3 last month in Dallas. Eleven were present at both. That brings to light one of several bones I have to pick with the FPA and its often rigid bureaucracy. For the past three years, other members of the task force and I have asked the FPA staff to expand the space available for exhibitors at the next year's venue — to little effect. Various reasons have been provided. Sometimes it was that the ideal location seemed to lack enough space or that the number of attendees was too uncertain. But the fact is that each venue over the past three years was selected by the FPA before that year's task force was convened. Then there is the fact that T3 and Business Solutions usually are held within two to three weeks of each other, something that the FPA insists can't be helped because the rest of its conference schedule is too crowded and that Business Solutions competes with too many outside events. Another criticism of Business Solutions is the lack of adviser participation on the task force itself. I feel strongly that this all- volunteer group always should include advisers. This year's 10-member task force had not a single adviser, and I have never heard a good explanation for that or seen the methodology used to choose members published anywhere. Despite my gripes, I want to commend Eric Clarke, chairman of this year's Business Solutions task force, for a masterful job of championing advisers' best interests throughout the conference-planning process. He is president of Orion Advisor Services LLC, a provider of back-office and performance reporting. That said, I would propose that in the future, the task force be lead by representatives both of the business side and advisers. Similarly, I would suggest that task force members be split evenly between exhibitor/sponsors and advisers.

PRACTICE MANAGEMENT

One plus for Business Solutions, however, is that it is increasingly focused on practice management. That is important, as technology and practice management are inextricably linked. Business Solutions always offers, in addition to its technology track, plenty of marketing, prospecting and business efficiency sessions and speakers. So if you can attend only one of the two conferences, which should you choose? I receive phone calls and e-mails from advisers and vendors each year, asking me to help them pick, and I usually suggest that they arrive at a decision in the following way: • Advisers most interested in making a buying decision about a particular piece of technology (or better yet, several) should attend T3. • If you are more interested in quality discussions and being able to network with and share the misery, triumphs or wise counsel of fellow advisers, then Business Solutions might be a slightly better bet. In terms of vendors, it is a tough call. Each conference tends to attract between 200 and 250 advisers. T3 has more exhibitor attendees, and the history of many product integrations among third-party tech vendors can be traced to informal discussions begun at the conference. But if vendors want to go to Business Solutions, they had better book early; those who don't may get shut out. In truth, the problem is bigger than T3 versus Business Solutions. There are just too many conferences vying for adviser attendance. I can easily name a dozen hosted by the various adviser and planner membership organizations, compliance organizations, custodians, data providers and trade publications, and that list doesn't even include the myriad events put on by investment product companies. Whatever your opinion of T3 versus Business Solutions, there remains a need for at least one solid conference focused on technology and practice management. This was brought home by the recent Viewpoint column “Practice management should be continuing-education requirement” (InvestmentNews, Feb. 27) by Timothy D. Welsh, president and founder of Nexus Strategy LLC, and a perennial Business Solutions task force member. That article was repeatedly cited, discussed and, on at least one occasion, applauded by advisers during the Business Solutions conference.