I am currently attending the 75th Annual Insurance & Financial Communications Association (IFCA) at the Fairmont Copley in Boston, MA. I have to say it has been a wonderful experience so far and has proven to be a wealth of information and networking opportunities.

There are also some very great sponsors that I would encourage anyone in the Communications field to consider adding to there arsenal of communicational tools.

Denise Waggoner from Getty images Inc. who also owns one of my favorite sources for stock imagery IStockPhoto was showcasing some of the most fantastic images to come out of the Beijing Olympics, as they had over 40 Photographers covering the Olympics.

Irwin Hipsman, from Brainshark was also another sponsor that stood out and I believe that Brainshark brings a very impressive communication tool to the table that should be a standard must have in any communications department, weather your a small company or large corporation. I have found that they provide very useful presentational tools that are seamlessly used with everyones beloved presentation software Powerpoint and the best part is it's all handled on their servers so you can say bye bye to your Firewall Paranoid IT guy who will do noting but bog down your communication efforts. Although, I am an avid fan of Mac products and use a Mac every day for my design and communication needs, I would like to see them support Keynote in the future, but they do however support the Mac version of Powerpoint so compatibility is not such an issue really.

I am also happy to announce that today I was approached by one of the IFCA volunteers about doing some volunteer design work on the IFCA website and to help provide Web Hosting Services for the organization in the future so I am very excited to report the outcome of that upcoming meeting as soon as I know more.

Overall I am enjoying the city of Boston and the chance to rub elbows with some of my design peers in the Insurance & Financial sector of design. I want to thank IFCA and all it's members and volunteers for making me feel so welcomed and part of the Organization. I encourage any designer or communications specialist who does do work for insurance or financial institutions to really consider becoming a member of IFCA.

Labels: Boston, Brainshark, Getty Images, IFCA, istockphoto.com