I Prezi, You Prezi, We Prezi

Prezi, the fun slide-presentation application we spotlighted a few months ago, has taken things to the next level with Prezi Meeting, which allows up to 10 people to collaborate on a Prezi presentation in real time. (Click on the video above for a quick tutorial.) The operative advantage: "Text, images, and videos added to the prezi are visible to everyone, giving remote team members the sensation of being in the same creative space together." As part of a creative team whose members -- editors and designers -- all work in separate locations, I find that aspect of Prezi Meeting enormously appealing, because at some point in the creative process there's no substitute for sitting around a table with your team and collectively ripping something apart and putting it back together. That's not exactly what Prezi Meeting allows, but it's a welcome step in that direction.

Putting the Cart Before the Audience

In just five years, the Brooklyn Book Festival has become one of the biggest and most popular book festivals in the country. The 2010 festival, held last weekend, featured 200 authors of multiple genres -- from Salman Rushdie to Sarah Silverman -- and more than 175 exhibitors.

The booths, mostly tables under blue tents, were lined up on Cadman Plaza behind Brooklyn's Borough Hall. In such a densely packed setting, how can any one exhibitor set him or herself apart?

Children's book author Darren Farrell came up with a whimsical solution: His "Hot Doug" Cart, named after the wooly sheep who is the protagonist of Farrell's children's book, Doug-Dennis, and the Flyaway Fib. The Hot Doug Cart is the genuine article, a rolling hot dog cart, complete with umbrella. Farrell stashes books, crayons, and drawing paper in the food compartment. The sign on the front is simply a printed panel, which can be easily changed.

Sunday's book festival was the cart's inaugural appearance, and it attracted a lot of attention from children and their parents, beginning the moment Farrell popped open the umbrella. The cart fits inside Farrell's Mini Cooper, he said, and he plans to take it everywhere a car will go -- to libraries, bookstores, even setting up for impromptu reading on city streets and parks.

Farrell's book -- his first -- came out in March. Before its debut, the author sat at a table to display books. The cart is much more fun for everybody.

Extra, Extra!: Convene Newsstand

Welcome back to Extra, Extra!, after a one-week hiatus. We've got lots of interesting meetings-industry news that we didn't have room for in this week's edition of ThisWeek@PCMA, so let's get to it!

"Augmented reality" — no, it's not some sort of Star Trek-like "holodeck" (although it's getting there). Rather, it's a newish smart phone technology that uses a phone's built-in camera, GPS, and web access to scan whatever's in the camera's field of vision, and then display that image on the phone's screen with added information — such as, in the case of destinations or venues, food and beverage options, facts and figures, and other information that might be helpful to someone who is unfamiliar with a particular place (such as, say, meeting attendees). Currently this tech is most widely available on the iPhone, in the form of an app called mTrip (which we learned about from this Associated Press story). But who knows what the future may bring?

September 2010 Issue: Live!

The digital edition of our September issue is live, and, boy, is it a doozy. The cover story (and also this issue's CMP Series article), by Senior Editor Barbara Palmer, is about crowdsourcing -- and part of it was crowdsourced, with readers of the ThisWeek@PCMA e-newsletter voting on one of two possible cover illustrations. The winning illustration ended up on our cover (at left), while the second-place illustration opens the cover-story layout inside the magazine. Other highlights in this issue:

Update: Checking in with destinations along the Gulf Coast right after the oil leak had been plugged, we find that at least one CVB didn't have enough hotel and meeting rooms in the immediate aftermath of the spill -- and that all of them have been busy letting the world know they're still open for business.

"Off the Grid": Barbara Palmer scores big again with a feature article about meeting in remote, primitive, and/or dangerous locations.

One on One With: Maarten Vanneste, president and CEO of Abbit Meeting Support and founder of the Meeting Architecture movement, which wants to do for meeting content what the CMP has done for meeting logistics.

"Causes for Celebration": Talented and glamorous Editor in Chief Michelle Russell and equally talented if somewhat less glamorous Senior Editor Hunter Slaton team up to profile two giant international meetings held this past July -- the International AIDS Conference (in Vienna) and the International Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous (in San Antonio).

Industry Report: The results of Champion Exposition Services' new Exhibitor Trends Survey, which finds that more than half the exhibitors who participated in fewer trade shows because of the recession regret that.

International Meetings -- Asia Rising: Our seven-part department about venues and destinations throughout the world's most populous continent kicks off with a look at Seoul -- #11 on ICCA's city rankings for 2009 and host of the G-20 Summit this November.

Other Duties as Assigned: Our new column charting the lighter (and frequently stranger) side of meeting planning continues with BreAnne Clark's memorable account of running out of pigs' feet at a medical conference.

Look for the text-only version of the September issue on Convene's homepage within the next few days.

Three Days in Dublin

I had a whirlwind visit to Dublin last week to participate in the grand opening celebration of the Convention Centre Dublin. I had an absolutely wonderful time during my brief stay and enjoyed spending time with about two dozen international journalists.

My favorite comment came from a trade media colleague from Belgium. Our group was taking a tour of the spectacular, brand-new Aviva stadium, a futuristic swirl of glass and steel, which offers meeting space on five floors. One of our planned activities there was a short wine-tasting session, and as I peered over my wine glass, I noticed that my Belgian co-participant looked confused. I asked him what he was thinking. He told me he was trying to wrap his head around the fact that we were in a sports stadium where an Irish sommelier was explaining the difference between a Spanish red and Italian white wine.

That gave me a good laugh, but I was struck by two things. One is that, as the only American in the group, perhaps the scene didn't hold as many obvious contradictions for me. The other is that it somehow captures the Irish, who hold tight to their unique heritage (showcased for our group by the traditional Irish music and dance entertainment on both evenings of our trip), while embracing a more continental approach to food, wine, and events themselves. Plus, I just think it's part of the Irish people to hold a few surprises up their sleeve.

Like this statue of Irish writer Oscar Wilde that I snapped a photo of when we hopped off our bus at Dublin's Merrion Square for a quick look. This likeness of Wilde, as our wonderful guide Josephine pointed out, isn't as it seems. From the right, he is lighthearted and smiling. From the left profile, he is somber and serious. Two sides of the same person and both things at once.

My Favorite (Green) Blue Bottle

There was a discussion last week on the #eventprofs Twitter chat about green meetings, and how planners and suppliers can make initiatives both meaningful and embraceable. The discussion touched upon disposable plastic water bottles several times: Why do they keep popping up at meetings? And why haven't we all trained ourselves to carry our own bottles?

The conversation made me think my own trusty blue water bottle, pictured here on my stoop. It was a gift from the Long Beach CVB, and it looked prettier when they gave it to me many months ago. Unlike many other reusable bottles, given to me with the best of intentions, I actually carry it. It's now dinged and dented and scratched up -- because I use it all the time. I think it's a beautiful color, and it keeps water cold and doesn't make it taste funny. It is a high-quality bottle, clearly not a throwaway.

That word -- quality -- surfaced several times during the chat. Quality often is more expensive, but it holds up over the long run.

A Metro Runs Through It

I had an appointment in Tysons Corner, Va., yesterday afternoon, and driving out there from where I live in Arlington, I was struck by the progress that's been made on the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project, which is extending Washington, D.C.'s subway system out to Dulles International Airport. This is a drive I make fairly often, so I've been following the project more or less since work crews began clearing trees for it two years ago. But yesterday, things that had seemed fledgling and preliminary now felt substantial -- swooping overpasses, tracks, and whole Metro stations are taking shape. (The photo above is older, obviously, but it gives you a sense of what's happening on a 23-mile-long scale.) You hear the word "infrastructure" a lot in the meetings industry, and it can refer to many different things, but how often do you get to watch a true, physical, facilities-linking piece of infrastructure being built in a prime destination? It's something to see.

A Brooklyn Tale

No matter how brilliant our ideas for new ways of designing meetings or communicating with members and attendees may be, they won’t work if we don’t know our audience.

I’ve heard that a hundred times, but it was brought home to me this morning when I stopped at the drugstore in my Brooklyn neighborhood. The drugstore is part of a chain and recently removed a counter with two cash registers and replaced it with four automated checkout stands.

In theory, the automated registers provide faster, more efficient service. In practice, however, they are a big flop. From what I’ve observed, the store’s customers either ignore them, lining up to be waited on by two now very overworked cashiers, or make half-hearted attempts to use the automated registers while complaining loudly.

Convene Reads: The Passage

We already know, from a previous Convene Reads item, that meetings will be a part of our (fictional) dystopian future. Now we have evidence that meetings will be a part of our (fictional) post-apocalpytic future, thanks to The Passage, by Justin Cronin, a compulsively readable brick of a summer read that imagines the world after a military experiment has unleashed a plague of vampire-like creatures throughout North America (and possibly the rest of the world). Civilization crumbles, and a hundred years later, survivors are  clustered in small, precariously defended colonies. But we know mankind gets through it, because occasionally Cronin includes journal excerpts from various survivors that are set up this way:

From the Journal of Ida Jaxon ("The Book of Auntie")
Presented at the Third Global Conference on the North American Quarantine Period
Center for the Study of Human Cultures and Conflicts
University of New South Wales, Indo-Australian Republic
April 16-21, 1003 A.V.

"A.V." stands for "After Virus," and the outbreak happens in 2018 -- which means the "Third Global Conference on the North American Quarantine Period" is held in the year 3021. The implication for meeting planners is clear: Save your records, because you never know when future civilizations will need them to help pick up the pieces.

Do You Know Your Meeting's WalkScore?

There probably is research showing how much attendees love to meet in walkable cities, but all you really have to do is think back to a meeting you attended where the convention center and hotel was within easy range of shops, restaurants, and maybe even a little green space. Now think of a meeting where you felt more or less marooned without a shuttle bus. Most people -- all other things being equal -- would choose the first option.

If walking is important to your attendees, there is a tool called WalkScore that allows you to gauge the walkability of properties you are considering for a meeting. It's not perfect -- it doesn't factor in crime rates, for instance, or distinguish between the length of city blocks -- but it's a good starting point. (I plugged in the addresses of the last two hotels I stayed at, and WalkScore's assessment was spot on.)