5/1/2018

Top ‘Don’t Misses’ at this Year’s Accelerate, Powered by NetVU

First-timers to Accelerate, powered by NetVU, are often overwhelmed by the level of activity and energy at this must-attend event for Vertafore users. No other conference packs as much education, networking and information about Vertafore products into a single venue.

Accelerate creates the perfect environment for learning and sharing. Yes, it’s big and there’s a lot going on, but everyone at Accelerate is friendly and will help you make the most of your conference experience.

Here are some top “don’t-miss” events at Accelerate that you should note:

Connect, inspire, grow! From the moment you arrive to the final minutes of the conference, you’ll have ample opportunity to network, share ideas and be inspired. Take the time to attend the receptions, forums, chapter meetings, product round tables and general sessions, where you can connect with fellow Vertafore users and share ideas. Better yet, download the NetVU Event app, and instantly engage with other attendees, speakers, and vendors. You can download the app through the Apple App store or the Google Play store.

Two are better than one. This year, Accelerate will have two general sessions featuring some amazing speakers. Amy Zupon, CEO of Vertafore, kicks off our breakfast session on Thursday morning with “What’s New at Vertafore?” Friday’s luncheon begins with a presentation by NetVU’s executive leaders —CEO Kitty Ambers, CPIA, CIC, CISR; Chairman Brent Rineck, CPCU, CLU, ChFC; and Chairman-Elect Michael J. Foy —followed by keynote speaker Jason Dorsey, president of The Center for Generational Kinetics.

Education everywhere! With over 200 breakout sessions this year, you’re sure to find something that fits your needs. Over 10 hours of education are available to attendees, allowing you to build your own schedule around the products you use in your agency. There’s also a new education track, “Go Grow U,” focused on technology, marketing, branding, and workplace issues. You’ll return home armed with new ideas and action items to increase productivity and enhance your profitability.

TechHub and exhibit hall. A who’s who of leading companies in the tech and services space awaits you at Accelerate. Use our online exhibit hall tool to look up vendors by category and create a list of those you’d like to visit. At the TechHub, you can meet Vertafore personnel, listen to presentations and watch product demos. See firsthand how a feature might increase the productivity in your firm. You’ll learn things you never knew, and you’ll get to know other Vertafore users.

Volunteer and boost your conference experience. You can be a registration greeter, provide directions to sessions or be a NetVU Neighborhood volunteer. Visit the volunteers page to sign up for a time slot. It’s fun, and it ensures a smoother conference experience for everyone, especially for first-time attendees. And if you’re arriving early, don’t miss the Day of Caring, our annual Wednesday afternoon event where we give back to the community. This year, we’ll be helping MUST Ministries, a local organization devoted to serving neighbors in need.

Plan some downtime in Atlanta. Take advantage of everything this beautiful city has to offer, including museums, restaurants, music and, of course, Southern hospitality. Atlanta has a thriving arts district and plenty of theater, concert and sports events. Downtown venues are within walking distance of our conference hotels and the Georgia World Congress Center. So plan ahead, and make the most of your downtime at Accelerate.

It’s not too late to register for Accelerate, powered by NetVU. Information about registration, hotel accommodations, events and education tracks can be found at Accelerate.


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NetVU Chapter Committee Sets Goal of Engaging 233 New Organizations in 2018

NetVU’s Chapter Committee has set a goal for 2018 of increasing organizational participation in NetVU chapters by 20%. The campaign is called “S’more Like You” and is aimed at increasing the number of organizations that attend meetings by 233.

Chapter Committee Chair Cathy Hall, CPRM, CIC, AAI, AIM, CPIA, says the goal is to get chapter leaders to reach out to agencies and bring in “s’more like you.” For example, if 20 agencies usually send someone to a chapter meeting, the goal is to grow the number to 24.

“The idea is to bring a friendly competitor with you to the next meeting,” Hall says. “Get another agency that uses Vertafore products involved.” Members of the Chapter Committee have been assigned to one of eight regions, where they act as chapter champions for their area. They are responsible for contacting chapters and encouraging participation.

Hall has posted information on NCOM and is asking chapter leaders to share ideas for increasing participation at meetings. One idea from the Georgia NetVU Users Group is to offer one price per agency for an unlimited number of attendees. “It’s a great way for new organizations to try NetVU and send a lot of people to a meeting for not a lot of money,” Hall explains.

The Chapter Committee will also offer prizes to those chapters bringing in the most new organizations. “Last year, a top prize for the Chapter Challenge was registration, airfare and hotel accommodations at the Volunteer Development Program,” Hall notes.

In addition, the committee will be working with NetVU to identify organizations that haven’t been active in NetVU. “We’ll be putting together an email template for chapters to contact those agencies that haven’t been engaged,” Hall says. “We’ll also be asking agency principals to provide testimonials on why they are involved and what they get out of chapter meetings.”

Hall is vice president and personal lines manager at Forest Agency Insurance, an independent property-casualty agency in Forest Park, Illinois. She heads up the personal lines department and also manages IT. “I’ve been involved in users groups since 2000, when we switched to AfW as a result of the Y2K scare,” she says. “I later helped rejuvenate the Windy City NetVU Chapter and now serve as chapter champion for NetVU’s virtual chapters.”

Hall likes that the insurance industry is “giving and friendly. It’s a close-knit community. We know most of our competitors, and generally we lend a hand whenever we can. The more users can help users, the better we all are at serving and educating our clients.”

Hall’s agency uses AMS360, Vertafore Agency Platform, PL Rating, TransactNOW, ReferenceConnect, Client Portal and Vertafore Single Sign-On. “I’ve been fortunate to work at an agency that values education and users groups,” she says. “I can’t imagine buying products that are designed to grow your

business and not investing in the training needed to use them. NetVU chapters do a great job of teaching users how to get the most out of their Vertafore products.”


	Join a Chapter

What Is Your Mood Worth?

Why all of the hype around Facebook privacy revelations? After all, the purpose of Facebook is to share your information (albeit, among your closest friends).

Perhaps one of the most alarming insights from the Cambridge Analytica findings is that with many Facebook apps or online surveys, when installed or taken by **anyone** in your Facebook network of "Friends," **your** detailed data is siphoned off and sent to the app/survey company — your connections, what you liked, disliked, clicked on, whereabouts when accessing, and much more. Again, this data was culled even if you did nothing other than “friend” someone who likes to take Facebook surveys.

Why should you care? After all, there are far more invasive systems out there that are compiling data on you without your control. You can somewhat control what you do on Facebook.

An example of the future of data analytics is in real-time facial recognition and mood analysis. What the heck is this?

If you have been to a sporting event lately, many stadiums have added FanCam or a similar product. These systems take ultra-high resolution photos continuously of the stadium audience (not the players or game) and let fans find themselves by zooming in out their seat location, and order photos of them at the game — action shots of them cheering after a goal or win! (To see a sample, you can browse fans doing their thing at various stadium events here.)

But wait; this seems like an expensive way to take and share selfies! There must be something more...

With ultra-high resolution photos of your face, these systems can identify who you are by comparing your face and location with other databases, and can read your expression at various points in time during the event. They can detect a thrill, joy, anger, satisfaction, boredom and disappointment. These can even detect your attentiveness when you are viewing a pre-game advertisement on the large screen. Detecting your reaction to a product placement advertisement can be quite useful and valuable for marketers.

Of course, this is all "opt-in" meaning, you opt-in by walking into the stadium (often there is a sign posted outside saying that you agree to have your image shared by entering...after you paid for tickets and parking).

This all seems fun and harmless. But where is this technology going? Alexa, Siri, they are listening to your mood whenever you have your phone or home device on. Or consider perhaps TV and video game cams watching your emotions when you see various advertisements or are in game play mode, to hone in on improving your experience?

Our Tech Essentials prediction is that in the near future, one will look back at Google's scanning of email to profile users and sell ads, or Facebook's breach of user data to app makers as nostalgic — old limited technology, sort of like thinking about those days when people sent letters by fax. Watch out for the future of facial recognition and always-on cameras.

In the meantime, you can still protect what privacy you have left by remembering to email your private information with RMail's simple-to-use email encryption.

To learn more visit www.rmail.com.


	Learn More About RMail's Email Encryption

Make Connections & Stay on Track with the NetVU Event App

The NetVU Event app can now be downloaded from the Google Play and Apple App stores, and it promises to be our most advanced app yet. Packed with information and interactivity, the app will power you through your conference experience — allowing you to create your own customized schedule, connect with other attendees and earn points on our leaderboard.

Our Event app has become extremely popular, with 90% of attendees downloading it onto their mobile devices. Each year, new features are added, and this year is no different. Here are some of the tools you’ll be able to use in Atlanta:

Start a conversation while in the agenda section. Like last year, you’ll be able to build your own schedule by marking the sessions you want to attend. They’ll automatically populate your customized agenda screen. You can also write notes and sign up for a channel feed. This year, you’ll also be able to start a conversation with others who are attending the same session. It’s an excellent way to follow up and ask questions after the session is over.

Schedule meetings with other attendees. Not only can you send messages to other attendees, now you can schedule meetings with them, too. Type in a meeting location and time, and the app will notify the person you’re inviting. Meet the people you’ve connected with on the app in person, or use this feature to schedule meetings and interviews.

Join the conversation. Check out the activity feed to see what others are posting about the conference. You can easily post comments or “follow” someone. Or join a conversation in the Topic Channels section of the app to post on a topic of interest (“My #1 Takeaway,” for example). You can also contribute to the photo feed or take a survey.

See conference speakers all in one place. Quickly scroll through a list of our many speakers to see their bios and the sessions they’re participating in. Bookmark speakers, so you can easily refer to the ones you’d like to see.

Make a list of exhibitors and partners. Check out who’s exhibiting before you even walk into the exhibit hall. See descriptions of their products and how others have rated them. Bookmark exhibitors to create your own list of must-see vendors.

Unlock “achievements” and move up on our leaderboard! Earn points by updating your status, taking pictures or writing reviews. Posting in the activity feed, rating a session, completing a survey and adding your profile picture are all examples of things you can do to earn points. Attendees are always super-competitive, and we’ll be giving away a prize to the person who finishes in the No. 1 spot.

The NetVU Event app is available now, so don’t wait until conference to catch up with your NetVU friends. Download it today. And special thanks to Imperial PFS for sponsoring this year’s app!

P.S.: It’s not too late to register for Accelerate, powered by NetVU. Information about registration, hotel accommodations, events and education tracks can be found at Accelerate.


	Download the NetVU Event App

Have you heard of the latest download innovation available to your business?

by Paul Warga, VP of Product Management, IVANS

IVANS recently released IVANS Exchange 2018, providing you more direct communication with your insurer partners on download requests and feedback to increase connectivity and automated servicing across the insurance life cycle. Used by 10,000 of your agency peers, IVANS Exchange is a complimentary online tool available to agencies, insurers and MGAs to access and review current and potential download connections.

Save more time with these latest enhancements:

Claims and eDocs download resend

Search for Claims or eDocs downloaded in the past 90 days and resend directly into the agency management system, eliminating time spent reaching out to insurer’s individually for each request.

Enhanced Connections Report configurations

Customize download Connections Report to indicate lines of business per insurer that are not appointed (and thus not downloadable) or for lines of business pre-configured for download so that insurers can turn download on for that line of business.

Insurer feedback management

View insurer feedback to your agency requests, including reported download quality issues and request for download, within the application and via a weekly email report with details on insurer’s response.

Don’t miss out on a demo of the latest innovation available to your business with this on-demand webinar.

IVANS is the insurance industry’s exchange connecting insurers, MGAs, agencies, and the insured. IVANS cloud-based software provides agencies greater access to markets and automates servicing throughout the insurance life cycle to drive retention and business growth. While a division of Applied, IVANS is committed to support the industry’s leading agency management system providers and connects to 30,000 independent insurance agencies and 380 MGA and insurer partners to enable millions of people to safeguard and protect what matters most in people’s lives.