Meetings as Structures

Sustainability in architecture is not a trend, it is now a given -- like inside plumbing, New Yorker architecture critic Paul Goldberger said last night at the Tenement Museum in New York's Lower East Side. Goldberger also shared his top two favorite places in New York -- which turned out to be not buildings at all, but Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge --- as well as his views on "starchitects," the function of memorials in American culture, and the transforming power of architecture.

The evening made me think. About the built environment of New York City, but also about the parallels between events and buildings, how meetings can be seen as structures for creating community. They can play a role -- if a much more temporary one -- similar to that of architecture in shaping our social environment and interactions with each other.

Goldberger appeared at the museum as part of the "Tenement Talks" series, which occur every week, and sometimes more often. The events are far from fancy -- participants sip inexpensive wine from plastic cups, and sit on folding chairs. The main thing, however, is talk -- the series brings in an fascinating array of authors, academics, artists, and performers to speak about everything from historic waterfront strikes to Jewish cooking to Civil War history.

I love the museum, but I became a member because of Tenement Talks -- even though admission to them is almost always free.   I want to support them, because they connect me to people who share my interests.

Don't Let Takeaways Get Away

In Convene's March issue, we talked with executive coaching firm Building Champions about a common problem: attendees whose personal and professional lives are moving so fast,  they have a hard time absorbing the new ideas they encounter meetings. Notes taken with great enthusiasm and the best of intentions end up tucked into files, and then ... nothing. 


There's even a name for it: The Law of Diminishing Intent -- the longer you wait to implement an idea, the less enthusiasm you will have for it. 

Building Champions CEO Daniel Harkavy has hit on a way to interrupt that pattern: last fall, a few weeks after the World Business Forum, Harkavy conducted a post-conference coaching call for attendees. In 45 minutes, he pared down two days of information to a succinct list of takeaways, with concrete suggestions on how to put ideas into action. 

PCMA's Christine Melendes

Over the last weeks, Christine Melendes, CAE, PCMA’s director of member relations, has  been guest blogging about her experience at the second annual Event Camp National Conference,  held in Chicago February 11-13. Today, Christine also is acting as "guest executive coach," stirring up the pot, and sharing her list of takeaways from the meeting. Here's her list of standout points:

Hybrid Events

* Nobody has all the answers.  Find a technology partner that you feel comfortable working with and put together a program that fits the needs of your organization. 

* Bring in more people to work on the virtual end than you think you’ll need – because you’ll need them.

* Adding a camera facing the audience will help the virtual audience get a better sense of what it feels like to be at the meeting, interacting with F2F attendees

* Adequately communicate the link needed to join online in advance. Make sure you help people get to the party.

* Build your event with a virtual audience in mind.

* Give the virtual audience tasks that keep them engaged

* Be authentic when interacting with virtual audience – don’t use a script

Night on Earth

This past Saturday, at 8:30pm local time, cities, landmarks, and buildings in 134 countries around the world — including many convention centers and hotels — turned off their lights to mark Earth Hour 2011.

The event was begun in 2007 in Sydney, Australia, where more than two million people and 2,000 businesses turned off their lights for an hour to bring attention to climate change, energy consumption, and sustainability.

As the pictures linked below will attest, Earth Hour this year was a startling and moving reminder of our relatively small place in the cosmos, and how special the wet, green ball where we all live is.

March 2011 Issue: Live!

With April looming at the end of the week, it's probably time to get around to our March issue -- the digital edition of which you'll find here. It's a fat, data-packed issue with a fat, data-packed cover story on the landmark Economic Significance of Meetings to the U.S. Economy study (unveiled just last month), whose big magic number is emblazoned on our cover. You'll also find pages of sharply designed tables and charts that track exactly how much the meetings industry contributes to the economy in terms of direct spend, taxes, room nights, full- and part-time employment, and more. Also in this issue:

Meetings Market Survey: Our 20th Annual Meetings Market Survey is a perfect complement to the Economic Significance study, with hard info about the state of the industry based on a comprehensive survey of meeting professionals. In a nutshell: They feel pretty good about things.

Convene On Site: IACC-Americas

One of my favorite things about meetings is that they involve so many different facets of human experience -- education, conversation, entertainment, food, aesthetics, travel, and on and on. Judging by the Thought Leader Summit that kicked off the IACC Americas Chapter 2011 Annual Conference on Wednesday, I'm not the only one who feels this way, because what was most notable about the lineup of panelists was their varied areas of expertise: Terri Breining, CMP, CMM, principal with the Breining Group and a practitioner of Meeting Architecture (read a Convene article about that here); Bob Dean, director of North American business for Profiling Online and a Certified Experience Economy Expert; Richard D. Flanagan, a trained psychologist, consultant, and author of The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning: How to Turn Training and Development Into Business Results; Andrea E. Sullivan, a speaker, trainer, and instructional designer; Amy Wickenheisser, CMP, hotel manager for the Hamilton Park Hotel & Conference Center in Florham Park, N.J.; and Jeff Vredevoogd, director of education solutions for Herman Miller.

Convene On Site: CGA Focus Forum

Greater Phoenix CVB's James Jessie

You might think that when it comes to creating sustainable events, there's nothing new under the sun. (Which, it should be noted, is a renewable energy source.) But yesterday's ASAE Convene Green Alliance Focus Forum at the Marriott Washington Wardman Park in Washington, D.C., suggested otherwise. Riffing on St. Patrick's Day, the theme was "Going Beyond Green: Legacy Projects and More," with panelists Jim Clapes, manager of Greenbuild conference and events for the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC); Sara Schoen, commercial market development associate for USGBC; and James Jessie, senior vice president of sales for the Greater Phoenix Convention & Visitors Bureau, which sponsored yesterday's program. Each speaker had a new or interesting twist on a topic that in the wrong hands can feel played out.

Thinking About Japan

Coming to the end of a long, terrible week for Japan, there's not much to do but try to help keep the focus on what seems sure to be an ongoing crisis. You can make a donation to the Red Cross via PCMA's homepage. And you can read the latest update from the Japan National Tourism Organization here; it begins on a simple, heartfelt note that makes you want to cry: "We are grateful for the warm support and thoughts from many people after the historic earthquake in Japan on March 11."

Let's do what we can to keep the warm support and thoughts coming in the weeks and months to come.

Event Camp National ... By the Tweets

Image courtesy Chethstudios.net

Christine Melendes, CAE, PCMA’s director of member relations, returns with the second installment  of a three-part series on the second annual Event Camp National Conference,  held in Chicago February 11-13.  (Her first post is here.)

One of the beautiful things about Twitter -- and having a great group of people to follow at an event -- is that they oftentimes capture key nuggets of information from a speaker before you can.  

So I have recapped some of the tweets from Event Camp (#ecnc) that still are resonating with me a month later. I’ve added my own two cents on the sessions at the end.

Here are Saturday's speakers, followed by key tweets -- ones that get right to the core of the speaker's message:

Speaker: Glenn Thayer

@carolyn_ray

The virtual attendee needs to step up and take responsibility for their experience . Tell us what you want! #ecnc

@mitchellbeer

Repurpose content to drive online traffic for the next year. - Thayer #ecnc #ectc

Speaker: Chris Brogan

@VelChain

Use headline tips from TMZ, Cosmo or Oprah to draw people into your community says @chrisbrogan #ecnc

Speaker: Hank Wasiak

@JessicaLevin

I love the positive examples that @hankwasiak is showing. Positivity is powerful. #Ecnc

@lizkingevents: Coach youself. Don't criticize. Think of how you can learn and be aspirational. #ecnc #lke

@JeffHurt

Look at others as an asset & change the way you see relationships says @hankwasiak #ecnc

@mjcarter

Use the 5:1 ratio: Focus on 5 good things for every 1 bad thing #ECNC #eventprofs

#sxswcares about Japan

As the images of the massive devastation in Japan continue to flow in, there comes the time when you just have to do something.

And that's what happened at SXSW Interactive, in Austin, where Rob Wu of the digital fund-raising platform CauseVox, and bloggers Leigh Durst from LivePath and Deb Ng launched a social media campaign to raise funds to aid in the disaster just hours after it occurred, using the hashtag #sxswcares and a quickly assembled website, sxsw4japan.org.

The campaign, which partnered with the Red Cross,  began with a goal of $10,000 -- which it quickly reached. It is halfway to its new goal of  $50,000.

There will be lots of talk about the influence of social media at SXSW this week. As Deb Ng wrote on her blog, "If we can't do some good, then all our talk about influence is just that: talk."

Unearthing a Natural Disaster

Disclaimer: This post is tied to the meetings industry with a very thin thread.

It was probably poor timing. But yesterday, with heartbreaking images of disaster-torn Japan still fresh in our minds, my family and I stepped back in time to experience another natural disaster: Mount Vesuvius' eruption some 2,000 years ago, at the Pompeii exhibit at Discovery Times Square museum in New York City.

I was fortunate to visit the Pompeii ruins several years ago with my husband, during his company's incentive trip to Italy. Being in the actual setting is mind-blowing. But to see such a large collection of artifacts so miraculously preserved — including an entire room of body casts of people consumed by heat and ash — from a faraway land and time in your own backyard, well, it packs its own kind of punch.

The exhibit gives visitors a glimpse of a far more advanced society than we might imagine — from medical instruments to indoor plumbing to food prep. Case in point: Pompeii was likely the first fast-food — and drive-thru — destination. People pulled up to food stalls in their chariots, where they could have a dish prepared on the spot for them in something of a clay "hibachi." (Hint, there's the F&B link to our industry.)

Less surprising, considering it's the world's oldest profession, are the brothel rooms uncovered by excavations in Pompeii. One such room is cleverly tucked away at the exhibit.

And I guess that qualifies as my hospitality connection.