Gregory Maciag

Empathy

The ACORD community can demonstrate a type of behavior that's becoming, sadly, less common: a group of passionate people, with divergent opinions and interests to advance and defend, arguing reasonably with each other and coming to an agreement.

How come participants in standards can manage this and politicians can't – or won't?  It's not because the politicians are playing for higher stakes. They may think they're important, but their real power seemingly lies in the ability to delay events. The business and technical (and business/technical) people who get involved in standards are working to safeguard and expand the industry they jointly comprise. This is real existential stuff.

In his book about how moral psychology, The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt notes that the ending of practical bi-partisanship in Washington coincided with politicians deciding not to move their families to D.C.  In former times, people from opposing sides of a debate would mix with each other and their families. They lived in the same town and went to the same parties. It's hard to hate someone when your kids play together. It doesn't stop you opposing their views, but it helps you realise they're not aliens.

ACORD's achievements over the years rest partly on the smarts of the people involved, advances in technology and results on the ground. But a large part of the success is also due to people working together – in the same rooms, on the same threads, on the same calls.

Face time can look like lost time, if you only think about it in balance sheet terms. In reality, the time we spend together is a shrewd investment. As industry, commerce and government become ever more distributed, collaboration is key to delivery. No matter how smart our technology, people are the drivers.

ACORD Weekly Newsletter Booklet

I trust that you find our weekly newsletter informative.  I have taken the liberty of creating a booklet that divides all the news this year into Life & Annuity, Property & Casualty, Reinsurance and Framework. It will give you a quick at-a-glance update on happenings across industry sectors at ACORD fort the year. I hope you find it useful.

Download 2010 ACORD Newsletters

Corporate America Moving to Video

A Wall Street Journal column today by Bobby White titled "Firms Take Cue from You Tube" speaks about a long list of firms that are beginning to use video for communications.  We're just begining our move into using video at ACORD. The end-game is that we want to deliver valuable (useful) content.  I realize that the definiton of useful will differ by content consumer.  And ACORD covers a wide spectrum of technical and business participants from diverse segments of our business spanning the globe.  So we need to capture content, organize it, publish guides, package content for various communities and give you the ability to download MPEG files for your PowerPoint presentations.  So we are planning to spend time this year getting feedback from you.  What kinds of content do you need in your shop? Training? Education? Expert Advice? Case Studies?  Let us know!

Wall Street Journal on Video

Twenty Years Serving ACORD

Rick Gilman celebrated his 10th service anniversary on staff at ACORD although he has been working with us for almost 20 years.  He was with the Insurance Information Institute when they provided services to ACORD. He is Vice President of Communications & Industry Affairs. Among other things, he is leading us into the new media world.   

Why Video-on-Demand?

Membership is growing worldwide and our first obligation is to serve our members, no matter where they are located. We launched video-on-demand in May 2006 in Las Vegas and plan to add more valuable content.  Getting people up to speed on ACORD standards (training and education) and the standards-setting process is our primary goal.  We are able to record a class and make it available to your team on your schedule in your time zone.  And if you do need to talk to a real person, we can spend more time with you on your specific questions and problems. Turn-over in our business is a fact of life and our staff tends to repeat those basic classes over and over again. So we believe that video will become an increasing value-add over the years as we expand our library of helpful videos.

The ACORD-LOMA conference is a huge undertaking and we rely on our sponsors and exhibitors to offset the cost of the event.  So we must constantly add value to their participation.  We are planning to launch a virtual exhibit hall and will bundle video into the mix as well. These add-on's increase the ROI for our sponsors and exhibitors and provides them with more visibility throughout the year.  In this competitive conference marketplace, ACORD needs to constantly improve the value proposition.

We also want senior executives involved in ACORD.  When someone wants to hear about the value of industry standards, it's great to get the view of a Chairman, CEO, or CIO.  So I like to feature senior executives on our website and work with our association members in doing so as well.  There are numerous other factors that go into a decision to do VOD and I just wanted to give you a glimpse of my perspective.

Finally, this is a new media channel for everyone and we are still tweaking the process and experimenting with programs.  As this channel matures, we will improve our ability to leverage the power that instant global video communication can provide.  For now, our challenge is to break down barriers and get people to think about the possibilities. Change takes time, but once again, ACORD is ahead of the curve. So visit the ACORD channel guide and let me know what you think. Suggestions are always welcome.

Visit ACORD Video Page