Air Warriors

Okay, a flight from hell last night out of O'Hare combined with the antics of JetBlue's Steven Slater this week are probably why I appreciated this photo, forwarded to me in a mass e-mail today. Kulula is a low-cost South African airline that seems to have a sense of humor. Something that's sorely needed when you take to the skies.

Don't Monkey Around With Stress

Neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky spent a dozen years in Kenya studying the relationships within a troop of baboons and learned this: We primates really stress each other out. And, as a story about Sapolsky's work in the August issue of Wired relates, chronic stress contributes to a long list of health problems, including suppressed immune function, heart disease, depression, adult-onset diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, and many more.

The article suggest ways that individuals can help combat stress -- by getting enough sleep, for instance, meditating, and not getting into arguments. The article is less optimistic, however, about the possibility of zapping the external sources of chronic stress, particularly the stress of feeling out of control of your own experience.

In the meetings world, there's already a powerful movement afoot toward putting attendees' emotional and physical needs on the agenda, so that they can fully engage in learning and networking opportunities. Every meeting is in some ways its own universe, and organizers can make decisions along that way that reduce negative kinds of stress, leaving only the positive buzz of connecting with people and ideas.

One cure for stress are meetings themselves, and the relationship-building they make possible: Studies of monkeys show that the more socially isolated they are, the higher their levels of stress hormones and their mortality rate.

'One Good Leg Between Them'

Kirk Bauer, the executive director of Disabled Sports USA, who was the subject of a Leading by Example profile in our June issue, is at it again -- proving to the world that people with disabilities can lead as ruggedly physical a life as anyone else. On Saturday, he and two other members of Disabled Sports USA's Warfighter Sports program reached the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania. Kirk lost his left leg as an Army sergeant in Vietnam in 1969, and his fellow climbers were also wounded warriors: retired Army Sgt. Neil Duncan, a double leg amputee who was injured in Afghanistan, and retired Army Staff Sgt. Dan Nevins, a double below-knee amputee injured in Iraq. As Kirk said in a statement: "If three veterans from three wars and two generations with one good leg between them can climb the tallest mountain in Africa, then all with disabilities can choose to be active and healthy through sports."

Read Kirk's blog about the summit and see more great photos like the one above -- which shows Dan Nevins, Kirk, and Neil Duncan on top of the world -- at Warfighter Sports. And for some interesting thoughts on the similarities between meeting planning and mountain climbing, see the talented and glamorous Michelle Russell's One on One interview with Million Dollar Round Table's Ray Kopcinski, CMP.

Convene On Site: Top Chef DC

Last night, Destination DC partnered with Food & Wine and Travel + Leisure magazines to present a reception for Bravo's "Top Chef DC" at the Ritz-Carlton, Washington D.C. Hosted by "Top Chef" judges Gail Simmons and Eric Ripert, the event had everything you'd hope a party for a cooking show set in D.C. would: elegant, inventive food (prepared by Ripert's Westend Bistro restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton); a loose, fun vibe; and the stars themselves -- Simmons and Ripert (Gail and Eric, to those of us who have watched "Top Chef" for all seven seasons), who were nothing but gracious to the many wine-emboldened people who asked them to pose for photos. Speaking of which, Simmons and Ripert are at the center of the photo above, flanked by (from the left) Greg O'Dell, president and CEO of the Washington Convention and Sports Authority; Victoria Isley, senior vice president of Destination DC; Christine Grdovic, vice president/publisher of Food & Wine; Elizabeth Mullins, general manager of the Ritz-Carlton, Washington D.C.; Elliott Ferguson, president and CEO of Destination DC; and Jean-Paul Kyrillos, vice president/publisher of Travel + Leisure.

During the reception, I had two pretty interesting conversations about cooking for meetings and other events -- first with Eric Ripert, then with Sam Kass, assistant chef and food initiative coordinator for the White House, who was a guest judge on an episode of "Top Chef DC" that challenged contestants to take the banner of Michelle Obama's campaign against child obesity and create healthy, kid-friendly lunches at a D.C. middle school. Ripert said that the key to maintaining quality when you're preparing food on a large scale is organization -- you have to plan everything down to the minute, especially when you're cooking fish. Kass said it comes down to having a lot of people around -- to properly taste, plate, and serve the food.

So, they gave more or less the same answer. And meeting professionals should take note of the fact that these world-class chefs point to planning and management as paramount to delivering great food at big events. Because, planning and management -- that's what you do, right?

A New Conference Erupts

In a nice twist, the volcano that interfered with so many meetings and events is now getting a meeting of its own: the Atlantic Conference on Eyjafjallajokull and Aviation, to be held on Sept. 15-16 in Keflavik, Iceland. Organized by Keilir Aviation Academy, the conference will gather civil aviation authorities, engineers, meteorologists, and other professionals to address a variety of questions about the eruption that shut down European airspace for a week this past April, including "Why was Europe's airspace closed?" and "What steps are to be taken and by whom to minimize the threats that volcanic ash poses to aviation?"

This is the lifecycle of the modern crisis: Surprise. Response. Meeting. Improvement. In its own way, it's quite reassuring, no?

The Evidence-Based Case for Face-to-Face

There's new research to back up what most of us in the meetings industry already intuitively understand: Digital interactions can only get you so far. Sometimes you just need to meet face-to-face.

Gregory Northcraft, a professor of executive leadership at the University of Illinois, put three methods of communication to the test in a recent research project -- he compared the results of student groups who worked together by e-mail, Skpe and videoconferencing, or face-to-face. The group who worked face-to-face achieved more and trusted one another more than the other two groups. The videoconferencing group ranked second, followed by e-mail.

What's going on? "High-tech communication strips away the personal interaction needed to breed trust," concluded Northcraft, who holds a doctorate in social psychology and studies workplace collaboration, motivation, and decision-making. "Technology has made us much more efficient, but much less effective."

Northcraft isn't recommending that organizations stop using e-mail or videoconferencing. The key is recognizing the danger of relying exclusively on high-tech "lean" communications methods, he says. “If you don’t, the bottom line is that the job won’t get done as well.”

Northcraft's conclusions also offers compelling support for the case for attending annual meetings. It turns out that face-to-face is such a rich experience, it casts a glow over future digital communications -- at least for a while.

“Physical contact has a half life,” Northcraft said. “When people meet face to face, they can leverage that over a pretty lean communication medium for a while and the relationship will not degrade. But after a while, they need to get back together face to face to recharge the trust, the engagement and the loyalty in the relationship.”


Thanks to the PCMA LinkedIn group, and the University of Illinois News Bureau.

The Love Parade: A Cautionary Tale

Meeting planning doesn't seem like a dangerous job, but it's easy to forget that you never quite know what's going to happen when you bring together a large group of people. In Duisburg, Germany, investigators are still trying to figure out what went wrong at the 2010 Love Parade music and dance festival, where 21 people were killed and more than 500 people were injured in a human stampede two weeks ago.

There seems to be a lot of blame to go around. On Wednesday, Spiegel Online reports, a law firm commissioned to review the tragedy released a report that points the finger at the Love Parade's organizers for violating security guidelines and ignoring the fact that they were expecting up to twice as many attendees as the 250,000 allowed by the venue's city permit. It's a terrible story on every level, and for our industry, the fact that bad event management could have played a role in 21 people being crushed to death is chilling.

Hat tip to the MeCo group for the Spiegel Online article.

Your Very Own Google Perk

Life seems pretty sweet at the Googleplex in Mountain View, where -- as Google's website explains -- employees travel between meetings on scooters, and dogs, lava lamps, massage chairs, yoga classes, and ping pong tables abound. Maybe we can't all eat at the company cafeteria, but here's one perk that Google shares with everyone: possibly the greatest online book club on the planet.

Authors@Google features a collection of authors who are invited to Googleplex to read from their work, and discuss it with Google employees. The speakers are stunningly diverse -- from How to Survive a Robot Uprising by Daniel Wilson, to Getting the Pretty Back: Friendship, Family, and Finding the Perfect Lipstick by Molly Ringwald. (Yes, that Molly Ringwald.)

As someone fascinated by developmental molecular biologist Dr. John Medina's book Brain Rules, I was happy to see that Medina spoke at Google two years ago when his book was first published. His hour-long talk is captivating -- while declaring that "We don't really know squat about the brain," Medina nevertheless illuminates how a variety of factors, including stress, nutrition, and sleep, have immediate and measurable effects on cognition.

We talked with Medina's publishing partner, Mark Pearson, about Medina's research for the July cover story "More Than Feeling." If you'd like to know more about how your brain works -- or how to best insure our children make the most of their cognitive capabilities -- tune in here.

Eat, Cake, Love

Chelsea Clinton's Vera Wang wedding dress? Whatever. What I really want to know about her wedding last weekend is this: How was the gluten-free cake? Apparently, Chelsea and I have at least this in common: neither of us can eat gluten, a protein found in wheat. It's been a long time since I've been at a wedding where I could have a piece of cake.

Chelsea's gluten-free, vegan menu has sparked a media conversation about the rising incidence of requests for gluten-free food. Paula LaDuc, owner of Paula LeDuc Fine Catering, en event firm in San Francisco, told the Today show that requests for gluten-free catering have increased from once a month to once a week since last year. Coupled with the report that there was a staggering amount of gluten-free offerings at last week's Summer Fancy Food Show at the Javits Convention Center in NYC -- well, it's been a pretty heady week for the gluten-free fold.

Extra, Extra!: Convene Newsstand

You might say that what follows is all the news that wasn't fit to print, as these are the stories that — interesting though they may be — we just didn't have room for in the weekly ThisWeek@PCMA newsletter. But you, Dear Web-Savvy Reader, are in luck! Because where we're going, we don't need roads. Or something like that.

Attendees and exhibitors at Reed Exhibitions' GIBTM, The Gulf Incentive, Business Travel & Meetings Exhibition, next March may want to leave their BlackBerrys at home: The United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai and Abu Dhabi (where GIBTM is held) has banned BlackBerry users from e-mailing, instant-messaging, or browsing the Web while in the country. Why? Because BlackBerrys, unlike most other devices used to connect to the Web, transmits its data to offshore servers, and therefore cannot be monitored by the U.A.E. government.

Some good news for business travelers who are all for anything that will minimize their time in airports: Continental is testing "self-boarding" at one gate at its Houston hub airport. Passengers simply swipe their boarding pass, which opens a turnstile or door that leads to the jet-bridge.

Those who mourned the death of the Registered Traveled program, and its expedited airport security lanes — aka Clear lanes — last summer are also in luck, as Registered Traveler, in the form of a new program called iQueue, has risen from the ashes at the Indianapolis Airport.

An impressive new green hotel tower, the 36-story InterContinental, recently celebrated its "vine-cutting" in New York City's Times Square. The 607-room property, according to the New York Times' City Room blog, "uses compact fluorescent and L.E.D. lights, low-flow toilets, 'green' housekeeping products and off-site composting." NYC-loving or -native meeting planners will also appreciate the hotel's meeting rooms, which are named after parks in Manhattan.

Meeting planners who wish at add some Hollywood pizazz to general-session videos will be interested to know that, due to the Librarian of Congress (no kidding, there is a real "Librarian of Congress") issuing new rules concerning digital copyright law, individuals are now legally allowed to break digital rights management, or DRM, "for the purposes of 'short' use in both 'documentary filmmaking' and original 'noncommercial videos,'" according to Gizmodo:

The broadness of the latter is impressive ... as long as you aren't charging money for it or profiting off it, it's noncommercial. So go ahead, rip and remix a scene from Inception so that it actually makes sense.

Oh, and another thing? You are now free to "jailbreak" your iPhone from its AT&T stranglehold.

Last but not least: Memphis is clearly reading this blog.