A few members of our team just spent the past few days at a Hospital Insurance Forum (HIF) C-Suite Conference in beautiful Key West, Florida. Attendees were executives representing many medical malpractice and workers’ compensation insurers across the country of which Inspirien’s CEO, Margaret Nekic, just wrapped up her term as chair. While there were good speakers and opportunities for networking like any other conference, this one had a unique action-oriented vibe about it.

If you’re like me you’ve attended many conferences. I know I usually leave feeling inspired with grandiose plans for things I plan to do with what I learned. Although we all have the best of intentions to share our knowledge or advance an idea, sadly it often becomes a distant memory within just a few short days or weeks due to the demands that face us when we return home.

This conference, on the other hand, rallied the group with a capstone session at the end with very specific actions to advance based on what we learned. To take it a bit further, a team was even assembled with clear accountability to further develop the ideas. This gives us something that we can rally around until we meet again and even build upon at the next conference.

There’s something special about affinity groups like HIF. We share a common purpose and often face similar obstacles. Rather than merely commiserate around the challenges, how do we leverage our strength in resources to affect change?  It’s creative problem-solving sessions at conferences like these that can help us further our impact. I, for one, can’t wait to see what happens with the ideas we selected to advance when we meet again.

Article contributed by Kathy Freyman, Chief Innovation Officer for Inspirien.