SAN DIEGO COUNTY—I spent much of the weekend in awe-inspiring company, attending the semi-annual meeting of the Concepts Worldwide Advisory Board (CAB).

And, as it happened, not a moment too soon.

Concepts is a company that formed 20 years ago, and has positioned itself as a world leader in the corner of our industry offering strategic meeting management services. Their founder and president, Terri Breining, is someone to whom thousands of us acknowledge a lifetime debt of gratitude for her achievements as international chair of our professional association, MPI.

For the last 2½ years, I’ve looked forward to the CAB as a place where I’ll be challenged by new issues and ideas, weeks or months before I hear them anywhere else.

This time, the benefit was more profound.

Truth to tell, I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching over the last couple of months, about our industry and the part of the industry our company occupies. I’m sold on the importance of face-to-face meetings—on all the facts and arguments you’ve seen on this blog—and on the idea that any meeting worth holding is worth documenting. I haven’t wavered on either of those commitments.

But I’ve fretted mightily about how saleable those commitments will be, and for how long, as the economy crashes and our reliance on air travel runs headlong into a perfect storm of climate concern and rising oil prices (coming back soon enough, I hear).

For the longer term, I’ve asked myself whether this is the industry where I can make my best contribution on the issues our grandchildren absolutely need us to tackle. And solve.

If our entire profession had the wisdom, the focus, and the sheer strategic smarts of the people who make up the CAB, I’d (mostly) stop worrying. At least for now.

We would be an industry that fearlessly assessed the value and impact of every meeting, and either renovated or ruthlessly eliminated any program that had no purpose.

We would embrace virtual meetings without treating them as a one-stop solution. We would use the technology where it makes sense, without trading away the transcendent power of face-to-face interaction.

And we would stand ready to argue the importance of live meetings, as MPI President and CEO Bruce MacMillan did a couple of weeks ago, in an open letter that was quoted at the CAB:

“The bringing together of individuals and organizations to share ideas, learn new skills, co-create solutions and craft new business initiatives [is] crucial…Even in these tough times, or maybe especially now, to remove meetings and events from the business strategy playbook is short-sighted and ignores the role meetings, events and incentives play in business and community success.

“So cancel the senior executive spa getaway and royal hunting retreat, but hold on to that sales event, educational conference, trade show and performance incentive program … the future of our businesses and communities around the world depends on it.”

To Terri, to the CAB, and to Bruce: Thanks, I needed that.