Heading a section of the Education Committee that designs sessions for the Insurance Accounting and Systems Association (IASA) Education Conference sometimes feels a bit like running a company: You must stay abreast of current issues and interests, lead a group of professionals, delegate work and ultimately answer for the outcome of the sessions.
No one knows this better than Dotti Augustine, director of fiduciary cash at Aon Benfield in Minneapolis, who has chaired the Insurance Accounting, Risk Management and Finance (ARF) committee for four years, overseeing selection and often creation of a broad range of sessions. Next year, the number of ARF sessions at the annual IASA event is scheduled to jump from 40 to 45.
This year, the committee accepted 30 of the 40 session proposals it received and lined up topics and speakers for the rest. Attendees rely on these sessions to keep abreast of regulatory changes and for continuing education credits, so the committee must assure a good balance of topics, she says. “We always have tax updates from the bigger CPA (certified public accountant) firms and we usually offer the statutory reporting and statutory accounting updates twice to assure everyone at the conference can attend.”
In forming sessions, committees consider hot topics, but also look at statistics, evaluations and suggestions from the previous year to determine what to offer and how to approach an issue. For example, regulatory issues may be discussed from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) perspective one year, and from the insurance company perspective the next.
As director of the committee that creates the Technology track, Anil Chacko, vice president of technology for First Rehab Life Insurance in Great Neck, N.Y., must weigh many of the same considerations. He and his 40-member committee allocated a day and a half in the fall to review, prioritize and whittle down 80 tech vendor submissions into 29 sessions across six tracks.
During the winter, each of the six track leaders kept in touch with the committee's session coordinators. Then everything was finalized during a one-hour conference call in March — quite an achievement for a meeting that usually takes most of a day.
In fact, notes Chacko, some on the committee were surprised when they tried to enter the call late only to find it was over.
Jeanne Sokolak, account manager for R.R. Donnelly in Philadelphia, is director of Career Skills Development (CSD), the newest and smallest of the committees, whose eight members are responsible for six sessions, each presented by one to three speakers, plus a 90-minute super session.
CSD reviews 25 to 30 submissions, some meriting consideration and others having little relevance to the CSD track.
The committee also creates its own sessions, such as the one it assembled two years ago on work-life balance “because we thought it was a pertinent issue,” explains Sokolak. That session proved very popular, she adds.
Interest in the CSD track has crown, which she attributes to a tight job market and a desire among members to hone their leadership and organizational skills. Or maybe the behind-the-scenes enthusiasm of CSD members is contagious, because as Sokolak notes, “We're a really fun committee.”
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