L24TechColACORD xx–Slug–go page xx, with –120 lines plus art (a still from Night of the Living Dead would be good, or the kid from Sixth Sense with the caption: "I see dead people.")
Banner: Tech Talk
Flag: ACORD LOMA
The conference trend was clearly toward property-casualty
Long before "The Sixth Sense" made the phrase "I see dead people" part of the popular lexicon, Hollywood has foisted a variety of deceased menaces–zombies, vampires, revivified cadavers (or parts thereof), ghosts, mummies, scary voices from the beyond–upon an apparently all-too-willing movie-going public.
Have you noticed, though, that in most cases when it comes to plain old dead people who have yet to step onto the celestial elevator, we in the audience can see and hear them, but those in the film who are alive usually can't? Remember how the dead Patrick Swayze couldn't really communicate with his still living love interest Demi Moore in "Ghost," at least until the Righteous Brothers started belting out "Unchained Melody" with such force that it must have shattered the barrier between here and the nether world? Now those boys could really sing!
Anyhow, I couldn't help thinking that I, too, was seeing dead people walking when I observed the trade show booths of some exhibitors at the recent ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum in Orlando. The exhibitors I'm talking about were those who were offering strictly life insurance or annuity-related technology products–some of the same companies who were once the staple of the now-deceased LOMA Insurance Systems Forum.
To be sure, there were individuals manning these booths. These people were well-dressed, articulate, engaging, and at least initially, enthusiastic. Yet as I watched them try to draw show traffic into their space, it seemed as if the show-goers took no notice whatever. The booth denizens smiled, waved, and hoped, but for all their effort, they might as well have been ghosts. For the most part, those in the aisles stayed in the aisles or flocked to p-c oriented booths.
