Emily Coltman is an ACA who qualified in 2003. Today she has two businesses. The first makes educational videos for other professional firms and accounting software companies. Here's a link to one she did for BFCA that explains a decision making spreadsheet. Most recently she started a specialist sole practitioner firm for home based businesses.

Emily is a Twitter user - that's how I found out about her new venture. She has two blogs, one for each business specialty. But here was the really big surprise. If Emily can't help potential clients for one reason or another she has a page where she recommends other professionals with links through to their web sites. This is the first time I've seen this. It's especially pleasing to me because I have long believed that knowledge, which is what practitioners sell, is something that should be shared wherever possible.

When I was in practice I had relationships with certain other firms for specialist work and it always paid off. At the time, we didn't have a real way of letting clients know. Modern technology allows these relationships to be much more transparent.

Do you think that's a good thing? Does it make sense or are you concerned that in publicly sharing you might be putting your client portfolio at risk? Do you think that Emily is dmonstrating some of the attributes of the future profession? Can her way of doing things scale - or should it for that matter?