Checking In From Checkpoint Charlie

Near "Checkpoint Charlie" in Berlin

Convene is on the road again. I am on a pre-IMEX educational trip to Berlin, with planners from the U.S., Brazil, and China. Berlin is a beautiful city with a fascinating history, and is the fourth most-popular city globally for association meetings. I'll post pictures here, as well as on our newly activated PCMA Convene Facebook page.

My nearly first order of business in the city was to find a store where I could replace a computer cord I'd left behind. (It made me wonder if DMAI's Event Impact Calculator, which Corrie Dosh wrote about in our May cover story, calculates the purchases of all the things that meeting attendees forget and replace.)

But the store where I bought the cord was just a block or so away from "Checkpoint Charlie," the most famous former border crossing into East Berlin. There was a wonderful photographic timeline on the spot, telling the story of the Berlin Wall, which stood between East and West Germany from 1961 until 1989. Tourists waited nearby at a rebuilt guard station to get their photos taken with actors playing American guards.

I felt lucky that my errand gave me the opportunity to stand at that iconic spot — the likelihood of pleasure mixed with business is part of what makes for a great meeting destination.