How long do you want to be a clerk?

I spoke about the APEX Initiative at MPI's Meet Different conference in Atlanta on February 9th with Terri Breining from Concepts Worldwide. During the Q&A period at the end, Alisen Herman stood up in the back of the room and explained how her organization, Acord, had helped the insurance industry through electronic data standards. These standards allow you to submit an insurance bid online and receive dozens of quotes within minutes. Such response is expected in the insurance and banking industries, but is not common within meetings and events.


I thought her final comment, to the audience, was especially relevant. She told the collection of meeting planners that they needed to insist that their suppliers and software providers adhere to the APEX standards, or else the industry would never move forward while everyone waits for "everyone else" to move first. She said, "How long do you want to be a clerk?", because that is what meeting planners often end up being when they spend the majority of their time copying information from one place to another and re-typing data over and over.


Welcome to APEX


Here are the slides we presented: