Tom Moran, RIP; Tech Trends to Follow

Sad news: Thomas J. Moran, a successful and caring insurance leader and philanthropist, passed away August 12th at the age of 65. Tom spent more than four decades with the Mutual of America Life Insurance Company, contributing significantly to its success. As Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, he led with a style, strength, and care. He led LICONY and many other industry efforts and was widely honored.  We came to know Tom through the industry, but also through his involvement with the College of Mount Saint Vincent, as an honoree at the 2010 Scholarship Tribute Dinner and as husband of Joan M. Squires ’73, alumna, trustee, and former Chair of the College’s Board- on which we have been privileged to serve. Tom received an honorary doctorate of law during the College’s 2006 Commencement Ceremony.  Tom was from Staten Island. He had a passion for all types of music, particularly New Orleans jazz and a love of Harley Davidson motorcycles of which he owned several. At age 14, he began his first job as a janitor in a high school. He followed this by working at Nathan’s Hot Dogs, as a short-order cook and a cemetery worker. While attending Manhattan College he drove a cab during the night shift. After earning his B.S. degree in mathematics in 1974, he began working at an entry-level position with Mutual of America. He had an extraordinary 43-year career and led the company to great success. He was instrumental in its growth into a Mutual Life Insurance Company with more than $20 billion in assets. He oversaw the purchase and renovation of Mutual of America’s headquarters at 320 Park Avenue. Tom played a critical role in the Irish Peace Process, transformed Concern Worldwide, the worldwide relief agency when he took over as Chairman, became Chancellor of Queens University in Belfast, was presented with the Irish Presidential Distinguished Service Award, and helped numerous charities anonymously. He has served on the not for profit boards of: The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation, Archdiocesan Finance Committee, Manhattan College, American Cancer Society Foundation, United Way of New York, Medical Information Bureau, University College Dublin Smurfit School of Business, Thirteen WNET, Irish Hunger Memorial New York City, National Committee on American Foreign Policy.  He also served on the Board of Directors for Aer Lingus and the Bank of Ireland.. He was awarded honorary doctorates from Manhattan College, The College of Mount Saint Vincent, Mount Mary College, National University of Ireland and Queens University Belfast. In addition, he received the following awards: Calvary Hospital Medal of Honor, New York City FDNY Humanitarian Award, NYCPD Commissioner’s Award, Ellis Island Medal of Honor. He was a proud member of The Columbus Club, New York City.  And that was all in one lifetime, sadly a short one at that. We will always remember him as a man among men for his good heart and great accomplishment. Condolences to Joan and the Moran family.… The new Tech Trend is the way that Virtusa has correlated data to identify the top themes and innovations that will impact digital transformation within enterprise. The results revealed that alongside areas such as blockchain and AI, the future will see ‘emotional quotients’, ‘engineered empathy’, and ‘transcendent realties’, among others. Senthil Ravindran, EVP & Global Head, xLabs at Virtusa says:  “Our focus at xLabs is wholly on innovation, so it is vital to stay on top of emerging technologies we can experiment with in the lab. However, we recognize it’s a huge struggle for businesses to stay on top of the mountain of information available. There are so many reports it’s almost impossible for businesses to find one single point of truth – this is what the Almanac addresses. It was evident when analyzing all the trend data that variations on the same themes and elements crop up time and again; taking a step back to consider all these reports as a collective helped us to understand which trends are most likely to shape our future view of the world.”

So….the 10 Trends are these according to Ravidran:

1.
‘Transcendent Realities’ relates to the blurring of the lines between reality and the digital realm, and the emergence of ‘mixed reality mash-ups’. It was discussed in almost all reports (11 out of 12); we are already seeing holograms in airports and banks, and in the future, it will become even more difficult to decipher virtual from reality.

2.
Truth Trumps Trust was touched upon by 9 out of 12 of the leading reports. This trend relates to blockchain, but specifically how blockchain will enable businesses to share ‘incontrovertible’ truths amongst one another; potentially negating the need for trust by providing true accountability and transparency.

3. 
The Revolution of the Workspace was a popular topic amongst the tech elite, featuring in 8 out of 12 reports analyzed. The trend relates to the evolving relationship between humans and robots; in a future where our co-workers will be robots, how will this impact HR?

4.
The Intelligence of Everything is the space where IoT and AI meet; a topic of interest for many of the high minds in tech, reported in 7 out of 12 reports. This trend will see IoT devices becoming truly autonomous, making ‘best in time’ decisions to improve their owner’s health, wealth, and happiness.

5.
Engineered Empathy crops up in 6 out of the top 12 reports. Here, the report philosophizes about the current state of IT’s emotional quotient (EQ) and questions how machines will start to not only understand human emotion, but how they can use this to analyze sentiment and detect fraud.

6.
Open Everything featured in half of the reports. This isn’t too surprising given Open Banking and PSD2 (Directive on Payment Services 2) have grabbed the headlines, sending a cold chill down the spine of traditional banks that fear their foothold might be loosening as disintermediation creeps in. But the ripple effect will extend much farther than the banking industry alone.

7.
Computers Have Eyes, Mouths, and Ears focuses on the fact computing is becoming increasingly sensory. 5 of the reports analyzed picked up on this trend, and we are already seeing voice, for example, become a dominant channel with the growth in popularity of Alexa and the like. As we move towards our digital destination of the future, sight, voice, and touch will become increasingly employed in the fight for the consumer.

8.
Digital Predestination is an interesting topic that predicts we could soon be trapped by our own preferences as we are increasingly presented with content that fits the mold of what machines ‘think’ we like. There has already been a lot of discussion about this in relation to politics and social media creating ‘echo chambers’, but this could extend to every area of digital life, an issue that 5 of the main reports analyzed also picked up on.

9.
Upgrading Humans relates to digital innovation in healthcare taking place across the globe. Emerging tech is creating an ‘Internet of Patients’, helping to bring relief to a range of conditions, while giving the potential for finding news cures to long-standing illnesses such as cancer. Surprisingly, this was only highlighted in 5 of the 12 reports analyzed in depth.

10.
No Strings Attached looks at the ‘post-loyalty’ world where consumers hold all the power. Instead of focusing solely on product, businesses will need to foster ongoing relationships that go beyond that – something that 5 out of the 12 reports featured here focus on too.

The 12 reports Virtusa looked at were from; McKinsey, Future Laboratory, Gartner, Forrester, Deloitte, PwC, EY, Foresight Factory, Frog, Fjord/Accenture, Fast Co and JWT Future 100

Congrats to Ron Papa, President and Chief Executive Officer of NFA National Fire Adjustment Company, Inc. has been elected by the Better Business Bureau of Upstate New York Board of Directors to a three-year as a member of the Board of Directors. NFA is a 55 plus year BBB Accredited Business. Papa, with NFA headquarters in Amherst, New York has been President of  the National Fire Adjustment Co., Inc. since 1994 and is known to have demonstrated  an ability to work creatively in the insurance adjusting industry. NFA, established in 1922 by Bernard Papa,  is a fourth generation public adjuster firm. SA