Michael H. Samuels

Financial advisors need better tools to run better businesses. It’s really as simple as that … if only it were that simple. During a technology roundtable discussion at the Wealth Management Industry Awards last week, a group of technology providers and RIAs discussed how best to provide advisors with those tools. From onboarding to cybersecurity to plain-old computer printouts, the needs of advisors—and their clients—vary from advisor to advisor.

Michael H. Samuels The news came, as it is wont to do these days, via a tweet. In what otherwise would have been a forgettable Valentine’s Day Wednesday, my wife sent me a link with details of an active shooter at my alma mater. I graduated from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School 20 years ago. I last visited the school with my two sisters, who also graduated from the school, nearly four years ago when we all made a pilgrimage to Coral Springs to say goodbye to our childhood home.

Despite attempts to steer the conversation at the Long Island Digital Summit in different directions, it seemed like all anyone at the Crest Hollow Country Club on Tuesday morning wanted to talk about was one thing: social media. The first-ever confab held on Long Island covering the Internet and digital marketing tackled topics such as mobile websites, apps, search campaigns, data, analytics and more, but the overriding theme was that right now, social media is king.