I was just up in Toronto for the past few days at a meeting, and found a hotel restaurant that was no typical hotel restaurant–Toula, on the 38th floor of the Westin Harbour Castle. (The hotel, which has its own conference center, also looks like a prime meeting hotel on the surface anyway–I didn’t do a site). Our waiter was just the right mix of friendly and efficient, the Italian food was fantastic, and the view of the lake and islands was spectacular as the sun set over the city.

Thank you Niesa Silzer, who’s with Tourism Toronto, for taking time out of your busy schedule to keep me company and show me the town. While I love the food at the Fairmont Royal York, where my meeting was held, I have to admit it was nice to get out and experience another chef’s wonders in some great company.

According to this article from Association Meetings, the American Library Association hooked up with talk TV maven Oprah Winfrey’s book club, and almost doubled its membership (read the article for more on how they did it).

Which makes me think that everyone must have some kind of “Oprah,” some outside resource they can partner with to achieve mutual goals. It might take some digging and thinking to figure out who and how, but what a payoff you’ll get for the work–just ask the ALA.

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That was the subject line of an e-mail I got this morning from a reader who said he had just “stumbled across (and was intrigued by) your article My Top 10 Reasons to Bolt.” He explained that Tufte is an expert on the display of information (his “Visual Display of Quantitative Information” is on the amazon.com “best 100 nonfiction books of the 20th century”).

For those who, like me, have some issues with PowerPoint-laden lectures, he suggests
The Cognitive Style of Power Point, a pamphlet in which Tufte demonstrates why PowerPoint presentations(especially when used with “wizards”) convey so little information.

Having just spent three days at a conference that exhibited PowerPoint use at its best and worst (mostly worst), I’m putting in my order today!

OK, this one is just kind of fun—a virtual walking tour of France. Just in case you don’t speak French, here’s how it works: Go to this site, click on a city, then on a street. When the virtual street comes up, take a stroll using the navigation bar.

Thanks to James Spellos, CMP, at meeting-u.com for pointing this one out in his e-newsletter a while back!

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