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Journal of Insurance Operations
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Kissing the Mirror

By Mark O'Brien On 11.13.2012
Mirror

I was recently interviewed for this article, published by ACORD. In setting forth its premise, the article says this, in part:

While brand recognition and awareness [are] the price[s] of entry for most organizations looking to [...]

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Nothing Up My Sleeve

By Mark O'Brien On 11.06.2012
bullwinkle

When our clients are converting us to the religions of their latest products or services, we invariably ask two questions: (1) Is there a market for it? (2) If we hand you a check right now, can we buy it? The latter is to prevent putting carts before horses. The former is to prevent the [...]

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The New Barbarism

By Mark O'Brien On 10.30.2012

Author's Note: As always, I remind readers of The Front Line that the views of this writer are mine and mine alone. They do not reflect the views of — nor are they solicited, condoned, or endorsed by — Perr & Knight and/or The Journal of Insurance Operations.

The fog comes
on little cat [...]

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Let it Be

By Mark O'Brien On 10.23.2012
purple

Two things have me re-thinking my stance on interpretation. The first is the set of responses I continue to get to Martin the Marlin, my first book for children, about which I wrote here. The second is the experience we recently had with a client while selecting an image for [...]

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The Dog Ate My Homework

By Mark O'Brien On 10.16.2012
snake-oil

Dearly Beloved,

We are gathered here on this solemn occasion to mark the untimely and unfortunate passing of something long held in the highest esteem by those who conducted it and by those who benefitted from it, be they in the hallowed halls of academia or in the cramped cubicles of commerce. But the world [...]

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True Crime

By Mark O'Brien On 10.09.2012
phillipbogart1

Chapter One: The Phone Call

It was a dark and stormy night. I was sitting in my office at the corner of Bleak and Bleaker when the phone rang. I’m no clairvoyant. But I knew something was wrong before I even answered. Maybe it was my female intuition.

“O’Brien?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s Millwood from The Insurance [...]

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Danny Gatton: By the Darkness of Talent

By Mark O'Brien On 10.02.2012
gatton3

Author's Note: This post has nothing at all to do with insurance operations. It is, however, related to branding and marketing, a cautionary tale about their darker sides and their unintended implications. Beyond that, it's simply a story that needs telling. It needs telling now because Thursday of this week marks an anniversary, albeit an [...]

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Say What?

By Mark O'Brien On 09.25.2012
caveman

The Front Line Center for the Study of Vapid Verbalization hasn't found any evidence to suggest Dow Jones has updated its list of the top 325 gobbledygook terms since 2008. But it doesn’t much matter. The world hasn’t changed all that much over the past few years. And the business lexicon has [...]

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How Do You Feel?

By Mark O'Brien On 09.18.2012
peace food

This past weekend, my wife and I were in Chicago for the wedding of a son. We stayed in a quaint old hotel overlooking Lincoln Park. In the lobby of the hotel is a chi chi little coffee shop, in which we had breakfast on Friday morning. While my wife was out mid-day attending to [...]

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Toil & Trouble

By Rob Berg On 09.12.2012
trash

"Creativity is the residue of time wasted." – A. Einstein

THE PAPER TOWEL DISPENSER and surrounds in the third floor men’s room of our office building is, by 11 am or so, in utter disarray. The towel-feeding slot is blocked by a crush of hurriedly- grabbed towel remains. Pieces shorn from the [...]

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