About

Welcome to my blog.  My goal is to help me, and other fellow actuaries (UK principally, but hey, let’s not be too parochial here) use new technology and thinking to make the most of our new century.  Why have I started a blog, given that I run and have access to a variety of other websites?  For several reasons:

• to experience first hand this new form of website, and I hope to encourage other actuaries to either do the same, or at least interact with those actuaries who have blogs
• with the exception of online forums, the previous websites I have created have been one way only, namely where I and my colleagues post information for others to view only, with the occasional area where comments can be posted.  Blogs are exciting because they throw this safety net away (but see Comments policy below) and allow much more interaction by being a two way process.  The extra freedom afforded by any site visitor being able to add a comment can lead to much more exciting discussions and exchanges of ideas
• in particular blogs seem to accelerate the pace of change, which is important as we (and other professions) change from using 20th century processes and tools to meet new challenges.

Answers to some questions

Why are some posts written in the third person, e.g. “actuary21c thinks that …”?

This is because actuary21c is sometimes in character – he is trying to express what he thinks the modern viewpoint should be.  Sometimes actuary21c may have to make controversial statements or play devil’s advocate (or should that be devil’s consulting actuary?) in order to challenge some existing thinking.  If the challenge fails, then we have learnt something: the existing thinking was robust and we had good justification for believing in it.  If not, then actuary21c hopes that some fresh light will have emerged.

Comments policy

From time to time I may delete comments that are unsuitable, for example (but not limited to) if they meet the following criteria:

• they contain libellous content
• they are spam or way off topic
• they are too long/boring – if you want to post something like that, just start your own blog!
• they contain swearing (be creative, use euphemisms instead) or other offensive comment
• having said that, if something is genuinely funny, this is a redeeming feature which makes it is less likely to be deleted: humour is very valuable in life!

Contact

If you wish to comment, but don’t wish to do this publicly on the blog itself, you can contact me by email at (address disguised to reduce spam)  p dot j dot lee at btconnect.com