Time to RISE up

I just got a note from MPI reminding me that there currently is an open call for nominations for the Recognizing Industry Success and Excellence (RISE) awards (you don’t have to be a MPI member to submit a nomination). There are six awards you can nominate an individual or a community for; nominees should have made “a significant contribution to the meetings and events industry through influence, innovation, and global reach.”

More particulars here.

Meeting managers feeling the pinch

And pinching the pennies harder than ever, according to this writeup of a PKF report: Meeting Planners Struggle To Control Costs. While I don’t often toot our horn here, MeetingsNet does have a great collection of cost-saving tips and budget advice in our Cost Savings/Budgets Special Report. Here are two of my favorites (both were written before the current economic slump, but the ideas are evergreen):

125 Ways to Save on Meetings

99 ways to improve your meeting’s bottom line

3 Reasons Why Every (almost) Organization Needs Social Media

1 - You can better manage the online conversations. People will talk about you and the issues you care about. They might as well do it on your site. 2- If you don't, your constituents will assume that you have...

Association Leadership: Oxymoron or Redundancy?

Years ago, military intelligence was the phrase I trotted out as my favorite oxymoron, but maybe it should be one much closer to home: association leadership. After all, associations document the minimum standard of practice and benchmark reasonable expectations of...

Here’s an airline fee I hadn’t heard of before

I’ve heard of — and sometimes paid — all kinds of airline fees, but paying $14 for the pleasure of buying a ticket over the phone or online? That’s a new one on me. And not a welcome one for someone who would have to make a two-hour round trip to buy one at the airport if I didn’t want to pay it. Which I’m almost ornery enough to do. Here’s hoping this is one idea that won’t catch on!

Why are we here?

Mission statements don’t have to be dumb. In fact, they can be very valuable, if they articulate real targets. Nancy Lublin describes How to Write a Mission Statement That Isn’t Dumb at Fast Company. The problem is that mission statements are often sentiments and not goals, they describe a state of being rather than a benchmark [...]

Continuing Education Webconference of Interest

There's a webconference coming up December 9, 2009 that sounds to be of great benefit to educators for the health professions. I'm going to try to participate so I'll share a recap after the event. Planning a Continuing Health Care Professional Education Institute: Recommendations from the Institute of Medicine A report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) on recommendations for the development of a national inter-professional institute devoted to the continuing education of healthcare professionals...

The conference is dead (long live the conference?)

Interesting post over at Social Entrepreneurship called “The Conference Is Dead (…Does Anyone Care?),” by Nathaniel Whittemore. It’s not that I haven’t heard before (and probably said a few times) how people just aren’t willing to put up with the old plenary/breakouts/talking heads type of conferences — or at least they won’t be in a few years as they experience unconferences and other (to me) more engaging ways to interact with experts, peers, and information. But Nathaniel makes the argument well, and the comments really take the conversation to new and interesting places from the perspectives of attendees, presenters, and conference organizers. I’m tempted to chime in, but I can’t think of anything that hasn’t already been said, and really well, by the current crop of commenters. I particularly liked this one:

“Bad organizers organize bad events. Good organizers organize good events. If the streudel is no good, don’t blame all the streudels in the world. Blame the baker.”

And this in response:

“To continue the streudel analogy…it’s ultimately about whether the consumer will eat the streudel, regardless of the recipe. If the customer doesn’t want streudel, then the Baker’s got a bigger problem.”

Prepare your association for 2010!

Join me on January 6, 2010!

Ah, Associations … We Are Ancient

Preparing for trip and skimming through “A Traveller’s History of Paris” I stumbled across this passage: “Two booksellers, Fust and Schoffer, brought printed books to Paris in 1463. Fearful of competition from this new art, the powerful scribes and booksellers guilds had the books confiscated.”