Archive for March, 2009
‘It Sounds Like Fun’: I Beg to Differ
Saturday, March 21st, 2009The reaction from friends and colleagues when I mentioned an upcoming trip to a conference in California speaks volumes about the gap between meeting professionals’ experience onsite and the way it’s perceived back home.
It isn’t too big a leap from this particular tale to the perception of meetings as elaborate parties that has helped to [...]
A Couple of Million Jobs at Stake
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009BREAKING NEWS:
On March 10, The Huffington Post published my blog item on the meetings industry crisis and the Kerry bill now before the U.S. Congress.
The central argument, drawing on data from MPI Foundation Canada’s study of the economic impact of meetings and events, was that the attack on meetings in the U.S. could touch a [...]
$8,500 Buys a School
Monday, March 9th, 2009Last Thursday night, we bought about one-thirtieth of a school.
That’s an astonishing statement for anyone who’s ever put in the hundreds of volunteer hours that it takes to get a new school built or an older one renovated—or to prevent a perfectly good school from being closed—in North America. The last time I checked, a [...]
An Audacity of Scope: A Million Tons of Trash
Thursday, March 5th, 2009Participants at the Green Meeting Industry Council (GMIC) conference in Pittsburgh last week adopted a big, audacious challenge.
The gathering of 150 or so meeting professionals called for a million tons of trash (or a million metric tonnes, outside the United States) to be diverted or recycled from the meetings and events that take place in [...]