Have you ever wondered how we will communicate with our pension plan members in the future? My teenage daughter had a few friends over one night, and they were watching Friends while also watching YouTube videos of unicorns pooping rainbows (I did not know that the Squatty Potty has been helping people for years). Although I was enjoying the silence of them not speaking to each other, I was troubled by the fact that these 3 girls, all of whom are not far away from hitting the workforce, were incommunicable with each other. So as any “cool” father would do, I asked them to put their phones away and talk to each other. Father of the year, I know. I also asked if they would be willing to share some of the text messages they had recently sent to each other to get an idea of their lingo. Here is an example of what I saw:

Person A: “WUP?”

Person B: “nothin, u?    

Person A: “cool stuff lol”

Person B: “PWOMS”

Person A: “kk TTYL”

If this is how kids communicate today, does this mean our communications will need to change? We already have trouble getting people to open our emails, read our newsletters or more importantly, care about their retirement. Imagine for a second, drafting up your annual report and rather than calling it “Pension Plan Annual Report 2020”, you call it “What’s up, Pension Stuff?”. Will that be enough to make them care? Time will tell, but as a leader in the pension industry, I’m worried for the future of pension communications. I’m also up for the challenge! 

Lesson for the day: “Take a risk, marry an actuary!”

Troy (cool dad and actuary)

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