PICA Recap - The Details You Need to Join Us in Austin!

Hello, PICA People!

Instead of hunting through a dozen blog entries for workshop information, you'll find everything you need right here, in this entry. Just click the links in this entry and you'll have all the information you need to be PICA ready!

We're just about ten weeks away from our fantastic workshop in Austin, Texas. We're really looking forward to a great group of speakers, to taking in all that Austin has to offer, and to seeing all of you!

Have you registered yet? Made your hotel reservation? Now is the time! If you're still trying to get approval to join us, remember that:

• PICA costs less than most workshops, and packs a lot of speakers into a short period of time
• Our small group means individualized attention and more interaction with speakers
• Increasing your professional skills increases your value

Do you have questions about the workshop, program content, membership or anything PICA related? Contact kirsten_amspaugh@cinfin.com or pica.jan@att.net

Hope to see you in Austin!

Your Advisory Committee

The Agenda You've Been Waiting For...

Hello, PICA People!

While many parts of the country are still looking at piles of snow, we can send our thoughts to Austin, which should be nice and sunny during our April Workshop.

In case you'd like an official agenda to help you as you create your proposal so that you may attend, here is our schedule.

More to follow!

Professional Insurance Communicators of America Annual Workshop
April 26-29, 2009
Hilton Garden Inn
500 North IH 35
Austin, TX 78701

Sunday, April 26
6:00 p.m. Informal & Optional Happy Hour. Meet to catch up and enjoy some refreshments. Often, attendees group up to go out to dinner and explore the area after our happy hour...join in and get acquainted!

Monday, April 27
7:15—8:15 a.m. Breakfast
8:30—9:30 a.m. Industry Update with Glen Cryan, COO, and Beverly Messer, VP, the National Alliance for Insurance Education & Research.
9:45 a.m.—12:15 p.m. Branding with John Males, Fathom Corporate Training

12:15—1:30 p.m. Catered Lunch
2:00—4:00 p.m. Group Excursion: Duck Tour— explore Austin courtesy of PICA, Inc.

Tuesday, April 28
7:15—8:15 a.m. Breakfast
8:30—10:30 a.m. Writing for the Web & Design Trends with Dr. Homero Gil de Zuniga of the University of Texas.
10:45 a.m.—12:15 p.m. Photography Tips with Rick Patrick of Rick Patrick Photography.
12:15—1:45 p.m. Lunch. Venture out on your own in downtown Austin.
2:00—4:00 p.m. Event Planning & Marketing with Stacey Rodrigues of C3 Presents.

Wednesday, April 29
8:30—11:00 a.m. Open Forum & Departures. Topics include future leadership and suggestions for next year’s workshop.

Tune Up Your Skills in Austin!

Happy New Year, PICA People! A very BIG thank you to Patrick Faherty for designing this fantastic logo for our 2009 workshop! Watch for it to appear on our static site and other materials very soon...

PICA 2009 - You're In Good Company!

Happy Holidays, PICA People!

As promised, we've got more details about the fantastic speakers we'll have with us in Austin for the 2009 PICA Workshop, April 26-29.

I'm really excited about each and every speaker who will join us this year. There is major talent in Austin, and I'm not just talking about the musicians! Our stellar speaker list looks a little something like this -

• Our branding portion of the workshop will be presented by John Males, President of Fathom Corporate Training. John has more than 20 years of experience in management, sales, negotiations and branding. I was most impressed with the intelligent questions he asked about our group - he is an expert in understanding audiences! Visit JMBranding to see more of John's work.
• Get current industry information straight from the source - The National Alliance for Insurance Education and Research. We're so fortunate to have Glen Cryan, Chief Operating Officer and Beverly Messer, CIC, CRM, CISR and Vice President joining us to talk about current topics and trends in the insurance industry. Beverly and Glen have a wide range of insurance knowledge spanning their combined 58 years of experience.
• You'll write better for the Web after spending some time with Dr. Homero Gil de Zuniga, Assistant Professor for the School of Journalism at the University of Texas. In addition to Homero's impressive educational acheivements, his interest in the Internet and mass communications makes him an ideal candidate to work with us on improving our skills!
• If your corporate photography skills could use a little oomph, you'll benefit from a session with Rick Patrick, of Rick Patrick Photography. Rick has a wealth of experience in a variety of areas and will give us some tips and tools to make the photos we take at corporate events a little more professional. (How professional? Check out the photos on Rick's site...if I could take photos a tenth that good, I'd change careers!)
• To help us with event planning and marketing special events, we've got a speaker joining us from C3 Presents, the company who puts together Austin City Limits in addition to many other Austin and national events. I'll have more information about this speaker after the New Year.

We'll have more details soon, but I hope this preview gets you excited about our workshop! As you can see, only the best speakers grace the PICA Workshops. Click here for registration informaton. We hope to see you there!

Happy Holidays!

The Right Conference For You!

Hello, PICA People!

Your Administrative Committee has been buzzing around, brainstorming and creating, e-mailing and faxing, tracking people down and following up. The end result? Conference details! Fabulous plans! Glorious news!

In other words, we have the scoop for you...right here, right now! The 2009 PICA Workshop will take place in Austin, Texas - April 27-29.

There are a lot of reasons we chose Austin as our destination city, but one very important reason is that there are fabulous speakers there, brimming with valuable information, just waiting to work with our group.

So, come to Austin this year to fine tune your professional skills, rejuvenate your creative spirit and learn, learn, learn! Get saturated with quality training from area experts on:

• Branding
• Writing for the Web
• Event planning and marketing
• Photography tips and tools
• The latest industry information

This year, we'll stay at the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Austin. This hotel is perfect for our group...the location is ideal as we're close to all the action. Hotel registration is easier than ever, as the Hilton has generously arranged a Web site where you can reserve your room online.

• You do not need to sign in


• Simply click the box for Book A Room, then make your selections in the Room Type Preferences section. Click Continue.


• On the next page, click the circle next to the appropriate bed selection in the area beneath PICA Dates. Click Continue.


• On the next page, you'll see your pending reservation. Scroll down to enter your Guest Information and credit card details to hold.

So, have we captured your interest? Are you ready to get all of this into a proposal and beg your supervisor to let you come to this workshop? Are you so excited that you're going to contact some of your insurance communicator colleagues and insist that 2009 is the year that they simply HAVE to give PICA a try?

Good! Then let's get busy making plans to meet in Texas! We'll have additional information soon, but why not register today?

If you've got questions, you can post them here, or call one of your Advisory Committee members for more information. We'll be marketing the conference as develop materials, but we wanted to give you early notification so you can make firm plans to attend.

We're already looking forward to seeing you in April!

Until then, take care...

Your Advisory Committee

PICA Workshop 2009!

Your Advisory Committee has spectacular news - we have conference information for you!

The PICA Workshop for 2009 will be held in Austin, Texas, April 27-29. We're working on finalizing our negotiations with a great hotel that is providing us with excellent rates and amenities, and once we do that, we'll give you the details.

Your next question, of course, is, "How can you possibly top the spectacular speakers and presentations from PICA 2008?" After all these years, you know you can trust us to educate, enlighten, inspire and delight all of our attendees, don't you? We're certain you'll enjoy the upcoming conference at least as much as you enjoyed last year's.

And here you thought we'd been sitting by the pool, relaxing all summer long!

Looking forward to sharing more fantastic news as details develop...in the meantime, remember to spread the word about PICA with your insurance communications colleagues or maybe even with a past attendee you've lost track of.

The bottom line is that with a the best speakers, great location, reasonable pricing and fantastic interaction with some truly innovative insurance communicators, why would anyone want to miss another year?

More to come!

Press Release - Exciting!

Good afternoon! Today, our press release went out to our members, friends and industry associates. We hope you'll join us in welcoming our two newest board members - Carol Watson and Becky Marshall. Becky and Carol are enthusiastic and willing to help and we believe that they are going to do great things to help lead PICA, Inc. into the future. A big thank you to both of them for stepping up to the plate and for their willingness to volunteer their time (and their companies' time) to our organization.

Also, our press release asks for people to check out the new and improved PICA homepage as well as this page. Let's hope that our sites will get visitors curious about what we're up to! Remember our goal to increase membership and to expand conference attendance in 2009. The more professional insurance communicators we have, the better the learning. Learning from each other is one of the best benefits to membership!

Your advisory committee will confer next week to talk about the 2009 conference location and topics. More news to follow!

Upcoming News...

Soon, we'll have an update for you about the 2008-2009 advisory committee. We're very excited about our new members and know that their contributions will make PICA even better.

We'll also begin promoting this portion of the PICA site. As communicators who all crave a safe place to network, share ideas and gather outside of the annual Workshop, why not get involved with this interactive portion of our Web site? So, comment already! E-mail us with your ideas! Let us know you're there!

Press release to follow shortly...

PICA Keeps Rolling Along...

Since we last updated, lots of things have been happening behind the scenes at PICA. To bring you up to speed:

• A few people have stepped up to the plate and volunteered to serve on our administrative committee! We're very excited and will be making official announcements soon. Thanks to everyone who considered taking on this fun and meaningful responsibility. If you are still interested in getting involved, but just can't do it now, we understand! Keep us in mind because we'll certainly ask for more volunteers in the future.
• Our order is in to our Web designer to update, freshen and revitalize the main PICA Web site. If you'll recall, our members felt it would be a great idea to use that site as a "storefront" or more static, information only site for those who are not familiar with our organization. This site, however, will be our more interactive, frequently updated home for members to keep in touch and up to date on what is going on. But remember, it's only as interactive as you are...
• Speaking of being interactive, do you want to comment here but don't want to fool with logging in, remembering another password or any of that nonsense? Completely understandable! To avoid the hassle, you can log in as Anonymous. Just click the Comments link at the end of any post, and when the Comment screen appears, you can type your question or comment, insert the word verification and then select "Anonymous" from the identity choices. So we know who you are, you can just include your name in the comment part...unless you don't want us to know! Please note, all comments are reviewed before they're "live." This prevents the posting of rude or offensive comments on our site.
• We've had a vote to clarify our 501(c) filing, and we thank those of you who responded promptly to make sure we're filed correctly. Occasionally, since we're "more official" post-incorporation, we'll call on you to give your vote on various business matters. With a small organization, every vote counts. So, if we contact you and you're in the office, please make your voice heard and let us know if you approve or oppose. This guarantees that your opinion is included in the shaping of our organization.

That wraps things up for us for now...please know that the gears are already churning for PICA 2009 and that we'll have more updates for you soon! In the meantime, be well and keep your comments and input coming!

Odds & Ends

We're sure you're all back into the swing of things since returning back to work after the conference. Here are a few follow up items to help keep PICA on your mind:

• Just a reminder that if you're interested in serving on the Administrative Committee to help plan the 2009 conference, now is the time to volunteer! We've got some candidates in mind who have expressed interest, but we can always use more help. It could be something as simple as volunteering to find some potential speakers on one of our many possible topics for next year. If you're interested, let us know!


• If you want to comment here, but don't have a Google or Blogger account, never fear! You can still comment anonymously. Comments go into a cue and are reviewed by the Administrative Committee before posting. Hopefully that will keep spammers at bay.


• Lynn Gaertner-Johnston has been in touch (as have a few of our other speakers) and remember, you've got a great resource in reading her regularly updated blog and in the articles on her company's site. A link to her business, Syntax Training, appears in the Friends of PICA section. Make it a favorite and check it regularly!

Thanks for all the great feedback you provided in our survey...we're already beginning to think about how to make next year's workshop a slam dunk...keep the great ideas coming!