This October, Joel M. Roberts of J.P. Marvel attended the Financial Planning Association’s annual conference, held this year in Nashville, Tennessee. The FPA Annual Conference, a three-day event, is one of the world’s largest financial planning conferences, attracting CFP® professionals and financial planning experts from dozens of countries. The gathering of nearly 2,000 attendees is designed to facilitate the sharing of practical strategies, tactics, and knowledge using a combination of keynote speakers, roundtable conversations, academic presentations, panel discussions, vendor exhibitions, and networking opportunities. This year’s conference covered a wide breadth of topics important to financial planners and their clients including the expansion of planner fiduciary responsibility, the advent of “robo” technology, the changing competitive landscape of financial planning and advice, retirement longevity challenges, and the effects of demographic shifts on the financial planning industry.