Virtual Meetings
« Previous Entries Next Entries »Revisions, Please
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009A few weeks back, a client emailed me a fairly long list of major revisions to a report I’d sent her. It took me by surprise—I’d reviewed that document myself, tinkered with it and polished it, and I thought the finished product was pretty darn good. What was she doing, sending it back?
Our company stands [...]
Control Your Content—or Someone Else Will
Wednesday, September 16th, 2009A friend of mine who is an experienced meeting planner told me of a recurring nightmare she’s been having lately. In her nightmare, she is standing in a 5,000+ auditorium, with a very expensive band playing under an elaborate light and laser show, but only about 100 other people are there, including her and the [...]
Is a “Good Enough” Meeting Good Enough?
Thursday, September 10th, 2009What 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 the [...]
A Hybrid in Your Future
Thursday, September 3rd, 2009By now, they’re a familiar sight: hybrid vehicles that combine two separate power sources to squeeze maximum energy out of every drop of gasoline they use. Once considered an environmentalist’s fantasy, hybrids have made it into the mainstream, and for good reason—they’re a great, practical way to make your gas dollar stretch further, at a [...]
Can a Value-Add be Free?
Saturday, July 11th, 2009Recently a lot fingers have been doing a lot of typing regarding the Virtual Access Pass as proposed by Meeting Professionals International (MPI) for the upcoming World Education Congress (WEC). The dedication and earnest concern of the various bloggers should be commended, for this debate about using the Internet to extend the reach of conferences [...]
The Tempest Over MPI’s Virtual Access Pass
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009There’s quite a tempest brewing over the Virtual Access Pass that our professional association, Meeting Professionals International (MPI), has introduced for its 2009 World Education Congress (WEC), which gets under way this weekend in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The conversation is an echo of a wider debate about when it’s legitimate—or whether it’s ever legitimate—to charge [...]
Why I Consider My Golf Club an Essential Business Tool
Friday, July 3rd, 2009Call it an age thing.
I realized the other day that I spend an inordinate amount of time playing golf, or attending golf tournaments, or talking about golf, or organizing my own golf tournament just so I can play golf. And I don’t even golf all that well!
But when I look around at a [...]
A Line Drawn in Time
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009CHICAGO – My, how the face of meetings and events has changed in the last five years.
Last spring, the Accepted Practices Exchange (APEX) set up a permanent council to review and periodically update the procedures and definitions that help our industry stay consistent, relevant, and professional. APEX is a project of the 34-member Convention Industry [...]
Pandemic II: Preparing for a Dangerous World
Thursday, May 7th, 2009With 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 us.
It [...]
Pandemic I
Friday, May 1st, 2009So this is what a Level 5 pandemic alert feels like.
I walked home along Ottawa’s scenic Rideau Canal Wednesday afternoon, just hours after the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the global pandemic threat level to five on a six-point scale. In WHO parlance, Level 5 means a global pandemic is imminent.
For practical purposes, the [...]