acofp Equity Award Less than 50

Blogs, DEI Surveys and Actions, and Bias Training Propel ACOFP to IMPACT Award

It started on June 14, 2020, when ACOFP released the statement “Actions Speak Louder Than Words”—authored by then-President Robert C. DeLuca—committing to sustainable change within the organization. This included: assembly of the Task Force on DEI; an enhanced focus on DEI educational programming; and opportunities for members to engage in dialogue. More positive changes and an SIIA IMPACT Award followed.

“When looking at differences among patient populations and finding the best ways in which to customize treatment options, we as physicians need to take a step back to understand the varying racial, ethnic and cultural differences from which our patients come.”

That’s the first paragraph from a blog post in a series highlighting the American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians’ (ACOFP) 2023 Annual Convention speakers. Their DEI Blog Content Development Team has provided a forum to share personal stories and create meaningful content across their diverse communities. To date, there have been close to 50 member-generated blog posts on DEI topics.

This is just one of the actions that led to ACOFP becoming a beacon of shining light on the DEI horizon over the last three years—and being named an 2022 SIIA IMPACT Equity Team Award winner.

Over the last three years, ACOFP has seen: advancements on the legislative and regulatory front; a re-envisioned Annual Convention keynote experience to showcase diverse viewpoints; a Face of the Family Photo Campaign with more than 300 submissions; bylaws changes to increase leadership opportunities; mandatory implicit bias training for all staff and committee members; an association-wide DEI survey leading to 15 recommendations; DEI Awards with a stipend of $2,500; and a dedicated member profile update campaign.

Not bad for a staff team of less than 20. We conducted a Q&A with ACOFP to shine further light on their accomplishments (thanks to Paige Zelinsky, program and development manager, for coordinating this):

AMPLIFY: Has ACOFP seen more meaningful stories and content come to light through the Blog Team’s efforts?
ACOFP: Yes! This corner of our blog continues to show the breadth of our members’ experiences. Most recently, we shared a series of three blog posts that showcase our 2023 Annual Convention speakers:

Healthcare for the LGBTQIA+ Community
Analyzing Racial Cardiology Disparities in Healthcare
Cultural Differences in Healthcare

This year’s keynote topic was “Advancing Medicine through Diverse Leadership,” and we partnered with a company, InkFactory, to visually depict the conversation between our ACOFP President, David Park, and AAFP President, Tochi Iroku-Malize. These visuals live on the ACOFP blog and social media channels.

What results have the DEI surveys yielded?
While historically ACOFP has offered a number of DEI-related programs and education, our journey to embed DEI in all that we do really began in 2021. As part of this launch, we partnered with an external group to assess member perceptions of the organization regarding DEI to have a baseline understanding of where we were starting.

The overall DEI Index (average score on the survey) was 80.17%. Overall, this score indicates that, on average, most survey participants responded positively to the questions on the survey (agreed to some degree with the positively worded survey questions). The survey results and findings were presented to the Task Force on DEI, who then divided into their three subcommittee groups (Governance, Education, and Community Outreach) to further discuss the findings and recommendations, and to prioritize the results and next steps.

The Task Force then developed 15 DEI recommendations that were approved by the ACOFP Board of Governors in 2021. Now that we are a year and a half into those recommendations being approved, we have been able to recognize tangible results, with 9 of our 15 recommendations implemented into our standard book of business. These improvements and initiatives include illustrating our various pathways to leadership to reduce barriers that are real or perceived, developing a calendar of cultural celebrations and implementing a communications plan to raise awareness, and hosting a community storytelling workshop to share experiences of overcoming implicit bias.

ACOFP will conduct another DEI benchmarking survey in early 2024.

Has the implicit bias training continued?
Yes, in 2021, our Task Force on DEI recognized that one training session related to implicit bias is not sufficient. As ACOFP has aimed to embed DEI in all that we do as an organization, conducting regular training for our leadership is now part of our operating policy and required by our committee members. This year, we have over 300 committee members on 60+ committees taking a course titled, “Micro Aggressions in the Workplace.” 2023 will be the second year that we have required this training, and we are eager to see how this mechanism will positively impact our organizations inclusivity in the long-term.

Have more DEI Awards been given out internally?
Yes! We have an ACOFP Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award (DEI) which has been given out annually since 2021. This award recognizes osteopathic family physicians who make significant contributions toward enhancing DEI within the profession, honoring those who have demonstrated behaviors or led initiatives that foster these principles within diverse and underrepresented communities. Our most recent ACOFP DEI award was given in April of 2023 to Salvatore J. Biazzo, who is involved in a number of initiatives relating to LGBTQ+ health care at University of Nevada Las Vegas, including developing the UNLV multidisciplinary Transgender Care Team, which won a University Award for Outstanding Wellness Program in 2022.

 

 

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SIIA Opposition to Alabama HB 298

We are writing to express the Software and Information Industry Association’s (SIIA) opposition to HB 298.

We appreciate the intent of the sponsors to enact policies that protect children and teenagers in Alabama from inappropriate content online. We acknowledge and support the broad agreement by state and federal lawmakers about the need to protect children’s privacy and safety. We agree that establishing legal guardrails for businesses is important. However, we are concerned that the approach reflected in HB 298 is technologically unfeasible, will not solve the concerns that animated the legislation, and will create new problems that require further attention by the Alabama legislature and the courts.

Device manufacturers and software providers have developed a range of content filtering and blocking solutions that enable parents to protect their children from accessing inappropriate content and empower parents to set limitations on how their children use mobile devices and the internet. These tools provide parents (and other consumers) with ways to block children from accessing particular services, applications, and websites, to manage children’s online accounts, and to monitor children’s online usage.

These tools require some level of consumer (e.g., parental) involvement, because it is not technologically feasible to install a “switch” that automatically blocks certain groups of consumers (e.g., minors) from accessing content across the internet and any number of online applications that meet certain criteria. HB 298’s requirement that device manufacturers embed all new devices with a filtering mechanism that automatically detects and blocks a minor from accessing any harmful content calls for technology that does not exist and is not possible.

Even were the technological requirements of HB 298 possible, we would remain concerned about how HB 298 makes device manufacturers responsible for determining what constitutes content harmful to minors. This includes interpreting phrases subject to multiple meanings, such as “patently offensive” and “prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole.” We fear that applying the terms of HB 298 would inevitably generate public outcry from those concerned that a device manufacturer has inadvertently blocked lawful content or inadvertently failed to block inappropriate content. This creates significant legal risk that may ultimately cause device manufacturers to reconsider providing products and services to residents of Alabama.

An alternative approach, such as the one contained in HB 441 and in legislation that recently took effect in Louisiana, provides a workable solution that will help to achieve the goals of the HB 298 sponsors. This approach puts the onus on the publishers and distributors of material harmful to minors, rather than on the manufacturer of devices that may be used to access that content. In addition, we urge further education of parents and other consumers about the availability of already available tools, such as content filters, that empower parents to set parameters for their children’s use of the internet.

Thank you for considering our views.

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Privacy Enhancing Technologies Roundtable Discussion

Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) are changing the paradigm of how and where organizations can leverage data to unlock value. At its core, this category of technologies enables, enhances, and preserves the privacy of data throughout its lifecycle, securing the usage of data. Since data is the backbone of today’s digital economy, PETs have been gaining traction as a category for their business-enabling and privacy-preserving capabilities. They allow organizations to securely and privately collaborate and use data across organizational data silos, security boundaries, and jurisdictions.

To gain a better sense of the state of PETs, Paul Lekas, SVP for Global Public Policy and Government Affairs at SIIA, recently moderated a roundtable discussion with three leading experts in PETs: Dr. Ellison Anne Williams, CEO and Founder, Enveil; Vivienne Artz, Co-Chair for the International Regulatory Strategy Group (IRSG) Data Committee; and Prof. Jon Crowcroft, Fellow at The Royal Society (recent publisher of a seminal report on PETs).

Key takeaways:

  • PETs are here and now. The state of the technology has advanced considerably in recent years. PETs, such as homomorphic encryption, can perform complex, cross-jurisdictional analytics in seconds that previously would have taken weeks or months.
  • PETs are business and mission enabling. By protecting the confidentiality of data during analysis and dissemination, PETs allow both private and public organizations to expand data innovation in ways that advance societal interests – such as medical research and financial fraud detection.
  • Laws, regulations, and policy are driving the need for and adoption of PETs. Over 70% of countries globally have data protection regulations that limit the ability to share data and to conduct critical data analyses across borders. PETs can unlock the value of data while respecting the rules and regulations that govern data usage and sharing. PETs can also minimize the risk of breaching data protection rules.
  • Cloud computing and AI have also driven the need for PETs. As Big Data has expanded into cloud computing and AI, PETs are a necessary complement to enable utility without sacrificing privacy.
  • Regulations have not kept pace with technological development. PETs can protect personal information more effectively than traditional anonymization procedures, though privacy rules such as the GDPR do not account for these tech advances.
  • Governments around the world are focused on PETs. Among recent highlights, the White House issued the first ever U.S. national strategy, the U.S. and UK have advanced a PETs prize challenge, and the UN launched a PET Lab and issued guidance for unlocking value from government datasets.
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‘Meet Them Where They Are’: Industry Dive Newsroom Leaders Share Their Guide to Audience Engagement

Editor’s note: This article was written by Signature Magazine managing editor Kathryn Deen.

The countdown races on excitedly to AMPLIFY 2023, AM&P Network’s Content & Marketing Summit, June 27-28 at the National Housing Center in Washington, D.C. (Register here!) Attendees will experience an incredible agenda packed with valuable sessions, including the June 27 Main Stage presentation, The Fast-Evolving Guide to Audience Engagement.

Leading that presentation will be two leaders of Industry Dive, the B2B company with a humming newsroom of 140 journalists, many of them mid-career, putting out 30-plus business publications. (B2B giant Informa purchased Industry Dive last year for $530 million.)

Sondra Hadden, senior director of audience growth marketing and retention, and Davide Savenije, editor in chief, will deliver this takeaway-filled talk. Hadden has been with Industry Dive almost two years and primarily comes from associations, previously working at the American Chemical Society and the Biotechnology Industry Organization. She leads a team of five who manage paid media, organic growth campaigns, and retention efforts.

Savenije has been with Industry Dive for 11 years and worked his way up from an intern to helping develop the company’s editorial model and building its team. He’s been editor in chief for almost six years. The topic of audience engagement makes for the perfect intersection of content and marketing, working best together to strengthen organizations’ brands.

(Fun fact: Before working together, the duo first met on an AM&P Network webinar!)

Here are highlights from AM&P Network’s recent conversation with Hadden and Savenije about their AMPLIFY session.

AM&P: How did you come up with your session topic?

DS: Audience engagement is always incredibly important, so understanding your audience—having that strong relationship with them and the content you produce—is key. One of the reasons to do this session now is that there’s so much changing in the world and the business and media landscape at a rapid rate. So you really have to stay on top of change and how you evolve and meet people where they are in the communities you’re trying to reach.

SH: There was definitely a time where the idea that social platforms wouldn’t be around or become volatile was hard to imagine. But what Industry Dive has been good at is never putting all our eggs in one basket, especially for reaching people and growing our audience. But how you do that feels very different these days than it did 10 years ago.

AM&P: Can you speak more about the collaboration between content and marketing?

DS: The most effective way to reach your audience goals is to collaborate cross-functionally. One of the things I really like about Industry Dive is how we’ve set up the collaboration between audience and editorial to integrate the audience function into the newsroom workflow and vice versa, as opposed to being siloed, which is the case in a lot of B2B media companies. If you’re on your own, there’s a lot of missed opportunities in understanding your audience, where to meet them, and how to expose them to your brand and get them to convert, whatever your model may be.

SH: We work very closely with Davide, as well as design and product, so we’re a cross-departmental team. My team supports all the publications, so we have to drive growth and retention across the board. It’s perfect to have an asset like the newsroom that can tell you so much about each  audience they’re writing for. Then there’s the next step of how you get your readers to do something; that’s where the marketing expertise comes in. It’s the perfect relationship.

AM&P: What do you hope attendees will get out of your session?

DS: Whether you’re a two-person editorial department, small team, really big publisher or association—if you don’t have that incredibly close, trusting, loyal relationship with an audience, and you don’t understand who they are and what they value, you’re going to be less able to effectively accomplish your overall business goals. It is about how you position yourself, how you maintain that philosophy of understanding your audience, listening to your audience, meeting them where they are, bringing them into your ecosystem, and developing that relationship. We hope people can come out of this session with some helpful insights into defining your vision and strategy, and then fitting your tactics into that.

SH: It boils down to having the conversation between the teams: Who are you trying to reach? Has it changed? Why? How? It’s about getting all your stakeholders in the room and not thinking of these departments as separate. We’ll provide examples of what Industry Dive has done to accomplish this, but whether you’re a small association or a larger company, there will be pieces that you can pull into your own goals.

AMPLIFY 2023 takes place June 27-28 at the National Housing Center in Washington, D.C. This is one event not to be missed! Register here to take it all in!

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SIIA Encourages Congress to Examine AI with Holistic Lens

The following statement on the May 16th Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law on AI is attributed to Paul Lekas, Senior Vice President, Global Public Policy and Government Affairs, Software & Information Industry Association

“AI is already having a profound impact across society and enabling scientific and economic possibilities once unthinkable. We are optimistic and excited about the technology and its potential beyond generative AI. We do have concern that hype around generative AI will distract from critical issues that warrant government attention. As China and the EU move forward with alternative visions of AI, Congress should lead in advancing a pro-innovation democratic approach. This includes fully funding authorized federal R&D programs to advance AI development, giving agencies sufficient resources to implement oversight of high-risk AI systems, incentivizing the adoption of technologies that enhance privacy and security, and addressing national security risks associated with AI systems. Any guardrails should be developed with due consideration of existing laws and focused on the highest-risk applications of AI that have significant effects on individual rights, safety, or security. As Congress continues public hearings on AI, we urge members to build on the work that has been undertaken across the Executive Branch and extensively in public debate and focus on targeted solutions.”