This weekend I flew from Boston to Austin, via Chicago, to get to the Healthcare Convention & Exhibitors Association annual convention. For the first time in what seems like forever, security lines were short, TSA employees were attentive, and the skies were relatively clear and turbulence-free. Even better, the pilot of the plane on the Chicago-Austin leg was a hoot! While we were waiting at the gate before pushback, he did some “howya doing, folks” kinds of comments, then pulled out a harmonica and played us a Texas-sounding tune—and this was on American, not Southwest! Even better, he played the harp beautifully. Of course, the couple sitting next to me, who were coming off a long trip from the U.K., wondered if his exuberance might have come from a bottle…naw, he was just a happy guy.

The wildest thing was a storm that we skirted mid-route, somewhere near St. Louis, I think. There we were at 31,000 feet, and the thunderheads towered at least a mile higher than we were, while below swirled some of the evilest looking black clouds I’ve ever seen. We could see a jet probably 15 miles closer to it that us bounce along the very edge of the storm—I was just glad it was them and not us, selfish beast that I am.

Then there’s the Austin airport, about the most welcoming airport I’ve seen yet. Full of light inside, beautifully landscaped with gardens and waterfalls outside, it was a pleasure to hang out and wait for the SuperShuttle to arrive (which, by the way, has instituted a $1 per-passenger energy surcharge…and so it begins).

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I came to the HCEA show two years ago, when it was held in Toronto, and found that while the education was great, the social scene was pretty hard to break into for a newbie. But the feel is different this year. While I got in too late to attend the reception on Saturday night, I did note that they were holding another pre-reception reception just for the first-timers in the group. All the staff and committee members also are wearing “Ask Me” buttons, signaling that first timers should feel free to ask them anything, anytime. One of the HCEA board members said in his presentation Sunday morning that each first timer also had a green stripe on their badge to make them easy to identify, and asked long-time attendees to go out of their way to make the newbies feel welcome.

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Always on the lookout for new and interesting ways to get people from the general session room to the exhibit hall, I think HCEA came up with a really good one. After the final housekeeping messages, a bunch of folks that looked like they were from housekeeping came on stage with trash cans, mops and brooms. But pretty soon, they started banging their mops and cans, and before we knew it we had a “Stomp”-like procession, led by HCEA staffers holding U.S. and State of Texas flags. The rest of us, clacking star-shaped noisemakers that were on the tables, proceeded along behind them. The only downside was that, once we got out of the ballroom and onto the escalators, the noise got a little overwhelming as it echoed around and bounced off the stories-tall windows. Still, it was a pretty cool way to start the day, at least for those who hadn’t been out partying on Austin’s famous 6th St. the night before.

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The Sunday night reception at HCEA was amazing, though a tad scarce of chow for us non-meat eaters. Held at Austin’s Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, we were allowed to wander the historical exhibits, though we couldn’t get into the air and space exhibit, which by peering past the ropes looked to include a space capsule and a very cool-looking old plane. The museum also has an IMAX theater, which I steered clear of after having gone to one on Egypt a few years back that made me a little nauseous with all the swooping and diving airplane views. But the gentleman I sat next to at breakfast this morning said it was a really good one on NASCAR, and didn’t once leave the ground. Oh well.

The best part, though, was the band. Seeing as Austin is pretty well-known for its music, the band seriously rocked, but the cool part was that the lead singers were all HCEA members! I’m not sure how it worked, but somehow the organizers had identified and invited those with vocal talents to take the mike and belt out their version of songs like Mustang Sally and, in the case of one woman who I swear was channeling Tina Turner, Proud Mary. They were all fantastic, and needless to say, the crowd went wild!

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OK, I’m mainly a vegetarian (a little chicken or fish every now and then, but not often), and being here in Texas, aka beef country, is getting to be a little tough. While everyone raved about the steaks at last night’s reception, I was left with some very nice roasted vegetables and some tomatoes with mozzarella. Which would have been fine, if you added a roll. But the only starch in view was very thin slices of what must be something very trendy, but tasted to me like really stale white bread. Having just had a salad for lunch (no rolls, just croissants by the time the bread basket came around to me), I was still starving when I left the reception. Fortunately, I found a convenience store with some potato chips, which helped to put out the fire.

This isn’t a slam on HCEA—I’ve noticed that most of the meetings I’ve gone to this year have been heavy on the meat (especially beef), and light on the carbs. But would it kill ya to keep us veggies in mind, too? Woman cannot live by asparagus and salad alone, no matter how well done. At least toss me some nuts, tofu, or some rice—anything with a little more substance to it.. At this rate, I might actually lose weight before I get home—and that’s the antithesis of what meetings are all about, right? (Said with tongue firmly in cheek, of course!)

And what’s with the salsa on everything, from yesterday’s luncheon salad to this morning’s scrambled eggs? I happen to love the hot stuff, but not everyone does…which for some reason reminds me of a conversation I had with a woman from Sweden at the CME Congress I went to a few weeks ago in Toronto, who has a theory that the colder the climate you come from, the blander you like your food. I’m from New England—a case in point, being the land of the boiled fish dinner–but I think I’m an anomaly. I noticed that folks from the northern climes at my table this morning were scraping the salsa off their eggs, while the southerners were scarfing it up. Hmm. I’ll continue my less-than-scientific research on this and get back to you by meeting’s end, since I’m sure there will be more salsa (and beef) on the menu as this conference goes on.

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I remember a few years ago at the annual Religious Conference Management conference, they had an artist drawing to music as part of the final night’s gala. He was spectacular, and it was amazing to watch the paintings unfold before our eyes. Well, HCEA took this a step further this morning with its keynoter Erik Wahl, who warmed us up by painting an abstract Statue of Liberty to the tune, “Proud to be an American.” But this guy did so much more than paint. His subject was how the creative process can improve business, but that sounds so dry…

One thing he did was ask us to take off our watches and put them on the other wrist. Try it—harder than it looks, isn’t it? Even as I type this, the watch on my right wrist is banging against the laptop in a way I’m not used to; I have to type differently, which makes me sit differently…there’s a whole chain reaction, just from something as small as that.

We obviously do get stuck in doing things the same old way, and doing often translates into seeing, which translates into how we envision the future. Another example he used was to ask us what half of the number 8 is. We all knew, of course, the answer was four. But, he pointed out, it also could be zero if you bisect the figure itself vertically, or 3 or E if you bisect it horizontally. One kid once told him that it could be a bird flying sideways.

What can we do to think like we did when we were kids, when nothing was impossible and everything was a question, before we began to tell ourselves that we are defined by our limitations instead of our possibilities? What can we do in our businesses, jobs, and personal lives to stop competing and playing the same old game, and take a step back and change the game completely? I’ll be meeting tonight with a few of my cyber friends from the MIMlist listserv, and I hope to get that discussion underway, since these are some seriously bright people I’ll be dining with. Here’s hoping we come up with something worth sharing with my virtual friends here in blogland.

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