Travel Leaders Meet with Obama

Source Meetings Focus: Travel Leaders Discuss Value of Meetings with Obama (3/16/2009)

WASHINGTON, D.C. —Travel leaders met March 11 with President Obama to discuss the important role that meetings and events play in strengthening the American economy.
Participants discussed the need to maximize the benefits of business meetings and events, which generate more than $100 billion in spending and create more than 1 million jobs.

Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, and Bill Marriott, chairman and CEO of Marriott International, were among the industry leaders present.
The group also discussed the urgent need to pass the Travel Promotion Act, which would establish the first-ever U.S. promotion and communications campaign to attract millions of additional international visitors to the U.S.

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Time, Time, Time is on my side, Yes it is...

So you’re a speaker and you are personally experiencing the single most critical change to our industry since it’s inception – an ELE!

That’s Extinction Level Event! Actually, there are two ELE’s. First, the meeting industry has been hit by the economy and the ‘political’ perception of meetings. Second, technology has just put into question, the need to be ‘present’ for meetings, with all the social networking (SN) technology gaining acceptance.

(For those of you with political ties, what did you think would happen when the president elect said, regarding AIG meeting executives, ‘They should be prosecuted for holding that meeting after taking TARP money.’ Battle congress if you wish, in the meantime, what will you do with your ‘free’ time.)

The answer is to Re-Tool yourself by jumping into the new technologies and social networking (SN)!

SN has hit our industry head-on, and SN is a different beast all together, that is impacting how speakers get business and how they conduct programs.

To ask your attendees to shut off their cell phones in your presentation is to be disconnected from reality. They are Twittering (http://www.twitter.com) while you are speaking. And if you’ve seen some blogs, tweets, and wiki’s, you’ll know that at ASAE, twittering was a death knell for some of the speakers because facts and information presented were incorrect and / or out of date and that fact was being ‘tweeted’ to other attendees in the presentation. ‘The speaker was informed of this while in their presentation, and to say they looked like a deer caught in the headlights was an understatement.’

Twitter is the first truly ‘many-to-many’ communication tool and it is an app (application) happy environment. Twitter is where geek meets Gatsby (popular cultural icon, i.e. communicator, speaker). Twitter will take you 60 – 100 dedicated hours to develop an understanding. Once you have an understanding, then you can determine how (or if) you can utilize it in your programs.

All kinds of communication is growing (new apps are developed daily) on Twitter. There are groups just for the meeting industry. Groups are identified in tweets by hashmarks (#). One group that meets Monday at 9pm EST is #eventprofs.

Facebook has just gone through an overhaul, which may or may not improve the experience. Established first as a SN place for teenagers, with an equal amount of bad press as good, it transitioned to powerful tool for professionals and industry, where you could build relationships in ways not possible by phone and email.

Linkedin, Wiki’s, Wiffiti’s, Blogs are all technology SN tools that have a groundswell. There are dozens more. You have to jump in. You’ll find Linkedin the easiest match to linear thinking and full of speakers to get started and find someone to help you get started with Twitter.
If your speaking schedule is ‘light’, then use the time to pick up your tech skills to address the communication revolution. Like the Rolling Stones song, time is on your side… if you put it to good use.

The Face(book) of Meetings

The Face(book) of Meetings
A new Civil War for the United States of America (and the world)

The business of meeting has forever changed and it will affect each and every one of us from this day forward.

There are some that say that President Obama’s lambasting the AIG executives for their meeting without understanding the purpose or design of the meeting marked a new civil war.

In comparison, there are some historians that blame the Civil War on Abraham Lincoln’s amassing of troops. Other historians say his response was the only response possible to the events of the moment. All the speculation in the world will not change the events that occurred.

Action for all its planning and purpose is about an unknown future, and historical analysis is an exercise of ‘what if’.

This meeting civil war is obviously not about north vs. south or freedom versus slavery. It’s not even about the cost of meetings. This civil war is about our understanding of the purpose of meetings versus structure of meetings.

A host of meeting associations are fighting to demonstrate the value of meetings and have their voice heard in congress.

Congress cannot dictate the validity of meetings and even if they could it would be in conflict with our founding belief – the right to meet and speak in freedom. Congress cannot focus on cost without being hypocritical: Congress meets at a cost well over a million dollars each and everyday (combined salaries alone for the 435 voting members of congress approach $1 Million a day).

So what are the associations fighting for? If you asked them what is their next meeting like, would they know?

What is a meeting? I can’t tell you because I am just discovering the reality of twitter, wiffiti, facebook, blogs, wikipedia and the 20 other social networking and related technologies that are in the audience during meetings I’m speaking at and attending. It has changed the personality of the audience as a group and the individuals within that group. While some argue it offers distraction and others power, both would agree it is not the same meeting of yesterday.

Something as simple as the announcement to ‘turn your cell phone off or vibrate’ has become obsolete and quite funny in terms of its impotence. This is like asking them to shut off their minds and shackle their thumbs.

I offer only this. I know that the value of freedom, a value that is universal in importance – and a value I am proud is something America strives to understand and provide anew each day – and cherished by the citizens of the world, means that meetings will incorporate the freedoms of new technologies whether they are comfortable or not during this time of great transition.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow made Paul Revere famous – The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. Paul Revere rode 19 miles to warn of the British. Israel Bissell rode 345 miles to warn of the British. In today’s world, Israel Bissell is finally getting some of the recognition he deserved.
Think about it though, with Twitter, both of them could have stayed home… I doubt they would have.

Wind, Sun, Water and paint

Source Gizmag March 2, 2009: Magenn MARS helium-filled airship that spins in the wind to generate power at 200% the level of tower turbins at a fraction of the cost.

Sunseeker II is the only manned solar airplane flying in the world and logging hours upon hours.

New research from the Pacific Institute estimates that bottled water is up to 2000 times more energy-intensive than tap water.

In the 70's if you wore fur, you risked getting paint thrown on you.

In 2009, should you worry that drinking bottled water will get tap water thrown on you?