I had the opportunity to visit my friends north of the border recently. I presented on the topic of centers of excellence at a SAS breakfast meeting during the Insurance Canada technology summit. This was really my first opportunity to spend time with Canadian insurers and some of my SAS counterparts from Canada and the UK.

While the Canadian insurance markets are similar to the US markets, the terminology is different. Think of having to learn a whole new dialect of the Insurance language! (I know, many of you don't want to know any insurance language). Here's a great example - at my presentation, my first slide said "Center of Excellence," and I asked the audience for their interpretation of CoE. And wouldn't you know it - the first comment was "You spelled it wrong!" Well, let's just say there are different versions of what "wrong" means, too. But the point was that it should have been Centre of Excellence. The audience and I had a good laugh, but it's a good point to keep in mind: Forgetting small details like that can easily derail a conversation or discussion. The next day we had a meeting with an insurance company where the team was presenting SAS's Insurance Analytics Architecture. A member of our team from the UK was giving an overview of the solution. Since we were having a discussion with the insurer's analytic team, the topic of provisioning a dedicated environment for exploratory analysis was mentioned - and typically, these environments are called "playgrounds" or "sandboxes." except that it came out as an "analytic playpen." I don't think that the actuaries appreciated that. So as an alternative, I offered up the "sandbox" analogy, to which the UK person gave me a horrified look. In England, he said, a sandbox is the equivalent of a kitty litter box. Hmmmm....I'm no longer sure what the appropriate term for that would be in Canada. If anybody knows, please send me an e-mail.

Outside of all that hilarity, it was just fascinating that even though we all speak the same language, there are so many different ways to define and interpret what you think are common concepts. If I ever get a speaking engagement in England, I'll be sure to stay out of the sandbox. Also, look forward to my upcoming book from SAS Press: The Alt-Simmons ABC (American-British-Canadian) Translation Guide for Insurance Professionals.