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Archive for January, 2009

What happens between before and after?

Saturday, January 31st, 2009

I (and thousands of other commuters) have been mightily inconvenienced by the strike that has shut down Ottawa’s public transit system for nearly two months. The strike seems to be (finally) at an end, but it will be several weeks before all of the buses are back on the road.
These days, I find myself thinking [...]

Fond farewell

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

The Conference Publishers is the best place I’ve ever worked. That’s exactly why I’m moving on.
This office has stiff competition when it comes to treating its employees well. As a former employee of a company that won the Globe & Mail “Best Small & Medium Sized Employer in Canada” award, I’m fortunate to know what’s [...]

Friends in High Places

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

You know your arguments—in this case, your industry’s arguments—are beginning to take when they pop up in unexpected places.
So it was a nice antidote to some of the scarier news bites pervading the industry when two different colleagues pointed me to Don’t Cancel That Meeting, a blog post by leadership consultant John Baldoni that appeared [...]

Get your mojo working

Monday, January 19th, 2009

I have difficulty staying out of bookstores. Call it a weakness. So last summer, when Kathleen and I were on vacation, I found myself browsing the shelves of a Borders in Clifton Park, New York. And I stumbled across Small Giants, by Bo Burlingham.
I’d never heard of either the book or the author, but I [...]

Downturn? What Downturn?

Thursday, January 8th, 2009

As a meeting professional, how would you have felt if you’d received the following RFP?
Meeting dates: December 15-31
Scope: Nation-wide (United States only)
Estimated participants: 50,400
Room nights: None
Venues: 4,200
Average participants per venue: 12
Food and beverage: Provided
Audio-visual requirements: None
Air travel: None
Carbon footprint: Local ground transportation; public transit and carpools encouraged
Mythical client: US Department of Health and Human Services
As [...]