I just got this press release, and would like to encourage anyone reading this to get your nominations in before next Thursday’s deadline. Just imagine the visibility a meetings/hospitality winner would get for this industry…

The Wall Street Journal accepting Nominations until July 15, 2004 for the Top 50 WOMEN TO WATCH Awards - nominate your WOMEN ON THEIR WAY® today!

What to Do: Send your WOMEN TO WATCH nomination(s) with a 500-word summary of the nominee’s business achievements or key accomplishments as well as a one-page resume, if available, to The Wall Street Journal at womentowatch@wsj.com by July 15, 2004*.

The competition will recognize 50 WOMEN TO WATCH in business, highlighting women’s achievements, focusing also on a woman’s potential for making a mark in the future, whether in her industry or business in general. And since this is a global competition, The Wall Street Journal welcomes nominations from any country and any industry. You can even nominate yourself if you believe you fit the description!

Don’t miss this opportunity to recognize a woman who has achieved noteworthy success in business in the past year, or who is likely to hold an important leadership position in the future.

Terms and conditions:
A group of Wall Street Journal editors and reporters will select the 50 women from the nominations received, and publish the winners in the Journal Report on November 8, 2004. For more information, contact John Leger, Wall Street Journal News Editor, at 609-520-5546 or e-mail: john.leger@wsj.com

In this week’s MeetingsNet Extra e-newsletter, I posed a question that may sound ridiculous: Why can’t we treat people like dogs? By this I meant we wouldn’t ask a terrier to race like a greyhound, so why do we ask excellent logicians to become strategic planners, instead of rewarding them only if they move “up” on the org. chart (for the full argument, read the item–I said it a lot more eloquently there!).

Anyway, I got an e-mail from a reader in response that made my day: In her organization, a few years ago some experienced people hit the top of the ladder for their position and the only promotion possible was into management. They were not so inclined, so the organization created a “senior senior” level, where candidates had to meet certain criteria and give a presentation to management to get the promotion without moving into management. What a great idea! As she wrote: “Who was it that said ‘people rise to their level of incompetence and stay there’ (or something like that)? This helps prevent that, hopefully!”

Any other success stories out there? I’d love to hear them!

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The latest evidence of the commoditization of the hotel industry: Groople.com, a new online retail marketplace designed for group travel, according to a press release dated today.

While it bills itself as “the online travel industry’s most advanced technology for leisure groups,” it’s just one more sign that hotel rooms are all about rates, not value.

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Holy toledo (not that that city has anything to do with this), but did you catch this article from BizBash? A quick taste:

An independent event planner who has just been given a very large budget to plan an event for a corporate client has a laundry list of decisions to make about the best venue, qualified vendors and miscellaneous expenses for the job. Of course, some planners find it easier to simply pick the subcontractors willing to give a little something back as a way of saying thank you, with the client none the wiser.

Is the practice unethical? Many would say yes. Illegal? Quite possibly. And picking favorites on the basis of financial incentive rather than ability can easily hurt the quality of an event. But these factors don’t prevent what many event planners and vendors describe as a commonly accepted practice.

When does a commission become a kickback? And, while no one I’ve ever spoken to admits that they’ve done it, many have said that they been the “donee.” So, how prevalent is the line-crossing, really, in this industry?

P.S. There’s more good stuff at BizBash now on how special event budgets are changing (click on The Money Store).

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Next time you’re traveling and want to know where you can go to get free Wi-Fi, check out wififreespot.com, which lets you search for the best open-to-the-public spots in all 50 U.S. states, plus a few other countries. It also has a hotel page, so you can see if your next meeting hotel offers Wi-Fi. Pretty cool, huh?

Thanks to Corbin Ball’sTechTalk e-newsletter for this nugget.

To receive a weekly blog update, e-mail Sue.