After Copenhagen: How Meetings Can Kick the Carbon Habit
By the end of this week, the 192 countries represented at the Copenhagen Summit may or may not reach a global deal to control climate change and reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide. But whether or not humanity rises to the challenge, the science doesn’t lie. With or without an agreement, this is the moment for industrialized [...]
A Meeting Worth Holding
At a time when conferences are cancelling, participants are staying home in large numbers, and the flavour of the month is to replace live meetings with webcasts and virtual events, there are two sure criteria that still make it essential for groups to gather in person: • A clear, immediate purpose that is best served [...]
Sign the Stem Cell Charter NOW (and pass the word)
Several years ago we began covering conference sessions that showcased the incredible promise of stem cells to cure a large cluster of debilitating or deadly diseases. Ever since, I’ve kept an eye out for opportunities to learn more about a research area that has become needlessly controversial, and has yet to receive the critical mass [...]
Is a “Good Enough” Meeting Good Enough?
What would happen if meetings were scaled back to the barest of essentials, on the principle that the best event is the one that is just good enough? It isn’t an idle question. There’s an emerging trend that is reshaping everything from long distance telephone to video cameras, from the design of military aircraft to [...]
Fight Like Hell for the Living
SAN FRANCISCO – In the week since Terri Breining announced the closure of Concepts Worldwide, the San Diego County firm she built into a meetings industry icon, I’ve been thinking about the capriciousness of a market that rewards the most arbitrary successes, while devaluing or ignoring the most genuine achievements. When we celebrate flash over [...]
Pandemic II: Preparing for a Dangerous World
With this post, we’re pleased to welcome Nelson Fabian as a guest blogger. Nelson is the Executive Director of the National Environmental Health Association in Denver, Colorado. As counterintuitive as this may sound, I believe the swine origin H1N1 outbreak may soon prove to be one of the best things that could have happened to [...]
The Green Meetings Portal Goes Live
The Green Meetings Portal went live earlier this week. Earlier this year, we announced that The Conference Publishers was joining with the Green Meeting Industry Council (GMIC) to launch the world’s first conference content portal. I’m tremendously pleased and proud to announce that the promise is now, finally, a reality. The Portal begins life with [...]
A Couple of Million Jobs at Stake
BREAKING 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 [...]
$8,500 Buys a School
Last 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 Moment of Clarity
There was a quiet moment of realization that I took away from MPI’s MeetDifferent conference in Atlanta. One of the Monday morning breakouts was an Unconference session, where participants facilitated table conversations on the topics of their choice. As part of the coverage we were producing for MPI, I sat down at a table discussion [...]
