If you're a Baby Boomer like I am, you probably get at least one e-mail a week from someone who wants to remind you of how great it was in the "good old days" of 5-cent cokes, 29-cent gasoline and safe neighborhoods in which to frolic.
Ah yes, those were halcyon days, but like all good things, they have come to an end, even in the most stable of industries–insurance.
As technology has become increasingly critical to our business, our happy and sleepy industry has been unceremoniously booted out of the Land of Oz. With a splash of cold water to the face, insurance has awakened to find itself not in Auntie Em's cozy bedroom, but instead adrift on the often stormy seas of the technology industry.
Gone are the days when insurance was a technology fiefdom reserved exclusively for those few software vendors who chose to specialize in our mind-numbingly bland and often arcane business.
One has only to consider the increasing activity in the insurance space of high-profile software makers like Microsoft, Oracle and SAP to realize that mainstream software has entered our industry in a major way.
As a result, where we were once insulated from the vicissitudes of the often chaotic software market, we now find ourselves very much concerned with what the big players are doing.
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That brings me to a recent article in Computerworld that quotes a software industry group representative as saying that immigration reform will be required in order for the industry to continue its strong economic performance in the United States.
According to a spokesperson for the Software & Information Industry Association, not being able to add more workers from outside our borders as needed creates an incentive for the industry to establish facilities outside the U.S.
