Member News

Giving CAS Members a Voice: All Our Ideas and Idea Share

By DAVE CORE, CAS DIRECTOR OF PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION AND RESEARCH
Posted on Event Coverage Members

With more than 6,000 members, the CAS is full of actuaries with ideas. To capture these ideas, the CAS recently unveiled two new online tools, All Our Ideas and Idea Share, designed to solicit the input of members in helping to define the sessions for our upcoming Spring Meeting and areas for future research.

All Our Ideas

The All Our Ideas home page.

This year, the 2015 CAS Spring Meeting Planning Committee used input from the members of the CAS to supplement its Spring Meeting program with new sessions on hot topics in actuarial science.

The planning committee used a new platform called All Our Ideas (http://www.allourideas.org/) to collect ideas and to gauge the interest in topics submitted to the program. Those who participated were asked to vote on which topics they found invaluable and timely for the 2015 CAS Spring Meeting. Members were also able to submit their own ideas to the voting pool to help generate the best content for the meeting.

A sample question from the All Our Ideas platform.

In fact, the top six most popular topics were all ideas generated by CAS members, which the planning committee is now considering integrating into the CAS Spring Meeting program. This input from members is valuable in the content planning process. Using this and other methods, the CAS will endeavor to bring those ideas to fruition.

Idea Share

In conjunction with the CAS Research and IT staff, the CAS Kickstarter Task Force worked to develop the new Idea Share site on the CAS website.  The goal of Idea Share is to generate ideas from members on new research topics. Because the CAS allocates a percentage of annual dues for research funding, it is important that the CAS fund research in areas desired by members.

The Idea Share webpage categorizes research topics, shows active issues and tracks project progress. Users can drill down to vote on, add or sign up for projects.

Featuring nearly 20 different categories, the Idea Share is an easy way for members of the CAS community to share ideas and see the research topics recommended by other members. Participants also have the opportunity to vote on ideas and to “subscribe” to ideas they want to know more about. The next step is for the CAS Research Oversight Committee and other research committees to select topics for further consideration.

Members can access this new tool by clicking on the “Idea Share” link under the “Research” tab on the homepage of the CAS website.