The sharing of knowledge is vital for any educational conference, but IASA was pushing that exchange of information to even greater heights at the group's annual event in Boston last month. In addition to hearing keynote speakers including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, security expert Frank Abagnale, and author Tom Morris, insurance executives had the opportunity to learn firsthand what true business interruption is all about from Pan-American Life, which was headquartered in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina struck Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama last summer.

For IASA, though, the conference also was an opportunity to unveil its new Knowledge Exchange program, which will allow IASA members to send an e-mail to the IASA Web site with questions on the operation of their own businesses. Fellow members will be able to respond with advice and solutions that have worked for their companies. The program is being offered for both the financial and technology members of IASA.

In a CFO Roundtable session, Carlos Mickan, executive vice president and CFO of Pan-American, spoke on disaster survival and recovery. He told his audience the good news was mobile computing and communications technology allowed employees to connect to the company's servers from around the world. "We might not have survived without this technology," he said.

Mickan explained the bad news was most of the technology in New Orleans was knocked out by the storm. Contact lists were useless, since there was no way to contact people. It sometimes would take dozens of attempts to make one cell phone call before getting a connection, he said. The company's disaster plan included the use of satellite phones, he added, but the vendor was closed on weekends.

The lesson of the disaster for Mickan was companies could have the best disaster-recovery plan in the world, but any plan is useless if there is no one there to execute it. Getting back into business was secondary to finding Pan-American's employees and helping them get their lives straightened out.

All the keynote sessions drew packed crowds. Giuliani, rumored to be considering a run for the 2008 GOP Presidential nomination, spoke on his six principles of leadership but declined, when asked about the nomination, to declare his candidacy officially. Abagnale entertained the crowd for two hours with his insights on identity theft and fraud.

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Continuing Exchange of Knowledge Theme of IASA Conference

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