Last night, I begged off greeter duty a bit early at the 1st Annual Pharmaceutical Meeting Planners Forum, which Medical Meetings is cosponsoring with The Center for Business Intelligence, and snuck out to have dinner with some cyberbuddies from the MIMlist listserv. With the hotel restaurant being a bit pricey for our budget, we headed down the street to the local Chilis restaurant.

It was packed. Out the door packed, which is kind of bizarre for a Wednesday night. Maybe others in town for the conference had the same idea. Anyway, we asked if we had to wait if we just sat in the bar, having spied several empty tables. The hostess said OK, so we grabbed a booth in the bar area. Then the hostess came over and said that the booth actually wasn’t in the bar, even though it was, and we had to get back in line. OK then. But then one of those high-top tables with barstools opened up, so we grabbed it. But no, that also was not to be, and we got kicked out again–seems that in this establishment, unlike our local Chilis in Nashua, N.H., there are no tables in the bar, just the bar itself, which was full, too.

The planners I was with were getting a little testy by now, not to mention hungry. One went over to ask how many more were still in front of us, and the hostess refused to let her see the list, hugging it to her chest like a long-lost child. Then another one went over to ask. After a few of these visits, a table miraculously opened up–in the bar, no less. The most frustrating thing was that we could see the first booth we sat at, and the other table, were still open, and had been the whole time. But we finally got to eat–yay!

It was ridiculous, and emphasized the importance of something that kept coming up at the conference sessions today: The importance of good service. While there are all kinds of rules that keep pharmaceutical companies from being able to go wild with the amenities at their meetings, hotels can still get an edge with these guys by providing impeccable service.

Hmm, too bad there wasn’t anyone from that Chilis’ management at the conference. They could have learned something.

I’ve always suspected it, but now I know for sure–I’d never make it as a meeting planner! I’m here in Philadelphia for the 1st Annual Pharmaceutical Meeting Planners Forum, an event we’re co-producing with The Centers for Business Intelligence.

Today is set-up day, and we got up bright (?) and early to unclip the clips on the bags, unzip their interiors, and stuff their gullets with all kinds of goodies. Oy, what a job! I got calluses before we were an hour into it! But it actually was kind of fun, in a zen kind of way. I got to know my CBI colleagues better, and the mindless stuffing actually flew by.

Then it was on to getting the registration set up, the namecards stuck in the badges and alphabetized, and the detritus cleaned up before the exhibitors started wandering in to set up their booths around 1 p.m. It didn’t help that we had a little typo issue–the Forum was spelled "Fourm," which works phonetically, but made us editor types grind our teeth. So we had to re-run all the nametags and empty and restuff all the lanyards, but we got it done in record time and still ended up being ahead of the game somehow.

I spent the rest of the afternoon as a go-fer, from fetching easels to handing out badges and bags, to whatever else needed doing. I thought it was a nice touch that we opened as many boxes as we could for exhibitors before they arrived, to save them one extra step during setup. It all went fairly smoothly, but I was ready to crash by 4 p.m. But a nap was not on my agenda–it was time to stand in the lobby and greet all those nice folks coming in to attend the conference and send them off to registration.

More in a bit…

There’s an interesting item over at the Passionate Web site that has the intriguing title, “Most Classroom Learning Stinks” (ok, they use another word for stinks, but I’m keeping this G-rated). The author postulates that

The problem with most corporate/adult learning programs is that they’re just like school. And the problem with school is that it stinks. It works against the way the brain wants to learn.

The best learning occurs ina stimulating, active, challenging, interesting, engaging environment…The best learning occurs when you’re actively involved in co-constructing knowledge in your own head, not passively reading or listening.

The author then goes on to discuss a school her child attended, which sounds kind of Montessori. I know these programs have lots of fans, my grammar school was similarly structured (or unstructured), and it didn’t work for me. Then I stupidly went to Hampshire College, which at the time had a similar process to the one she describes, and that didn’t work for me, either. But now, as an adult learner, I crave exactly this type of system. I think kids need a little more structure and direction than we supposedly grown-up types do–or maybe they just didn’t have the knowledge to execute those educational concepts well back in my day.

But now we do. Let’s use it.

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Well, the folks over at TradeShowBlues sure have been busy compiling a report on all the reports about the dreaded Brookings Institute study, which basically says all those new convention centers will turn into big, dusty warehouses for lack of demand for all the convention space.

So far, I’ve managed to avoid talking about it–but if you want yet more, look for your next issue of Association Meetings, which has Heywood Sanders as its cover boy. This story has some serious legs to it.

I was getting ready to make a call to an area code I’m not familiar with, and I wanted to be sure that I wasn’t calling hideously early to California. Since my time zone/area code map is completely outdated, I went on the Internet and found this site, which lists all U.S. area codes by city and state. Woo hoo!

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From a press release:

This week our industry lost a great friend and professional colleague, Dianne Nelson Binger, President & CEO of the Salt Lake CVB. Dianne, a longtime leader in her local business community and the U.S. travel and tourism industry, passed away late Wednesday, 23 March, after a long struggle with cancer. She was 54 years old.

“Dianne was a pioneer in the convention and visitor bureau profession and a valiant leader for Salt Lake City and our industry,” IACVB Board Chair Melvin Tennant remarked. “Dianne will be remembered for her charm, her dedication and her generosity. She was a genuine friend and will be deeply missed,” he added.

Dianne started with the SLCVB in 1987, and had been the president since 2001. She served on the IACVB Board of Directors from 2000-2003 and was active on several committees including the MINT & Destinations Showcase committees. Before joining the Salt Lake bureau, she worked for the Sheraton Corporation and Alta’s Rustler Lodge.

Formal services are still being planned, but Salt Lake’s hospitality industry will hold a community memorial service at 11:00 a.m. on 30 March at the Salt Palace Convention Center. A fund is being established in Dianne’s memory.

I don’t know why this cracked me up so much, but it did–check out these clips of octupi sneaking up on their prey using a two-legged shuffle while decked out in sea coconuts and coral. As they say on Boing Boing, they look like Wile E. Coyote disguising himself in a shrub to snag the roadrunner.

Other good timewasters for Friday, via my Capsules co-blogger Anne Taylor-Vaisey:

Do you want to read both a snobby and a stupid condensed version of Orwell’s Animal Farm? Or an “ultra-condensed” version of The Great Gatsby? Well, Book-a-Minute Classics is hilarious and difficult to get away from once you start reading.

Here’s the link

There are also companion sites, Movie-a-Minute and Book-A-Minute SF/F. The company that makes these sites, Rinkworks, also produces Computer Stupidities, a large collection of stories and anecdotes about clueless computer users.

And for those who will be celebrating Easter this Sunday, here’s a little Hip hop bunny action (Thanks to Tom Asacker for the pointer!)

OK, now let’s get back to work!

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I recently ran across this book chapter (thanks, Patti D!), and it has lots of good info for those who design adult education:

Information is surprises. We all expect the world to work out in certain ways, but when it does, we’re bored. What makes something worth knowing is organized around the concept of expectation failure. Scripts are interesting not when they work but when they fail. When the waiter doesn’t come over with the food, you have to figure out why; when the food is bad or the food is extraordinarily good, you want to figure out why. You learn something when things don’t turn out the way you expected.

I think this concept, which just feels right to me, is really under-used, at least in the adult ed I’ve participated in. The best “teachable moments” happen when we get surprised in some way. Then, we have to make connections to what we already know to see what went off the tracks, and why. And it creates a need to figure it all out. Beautiful.

Except when it’s used for a less-than-good purpose. In her editorial for the March/April issue of Medical Meetings, Tamar Hosansky points out an example of cognitive dissonance being used nefariously by a continuing medical education provider to make docs unhappy with current treatments, so when the sponsor’s drug comes up, it’s the best thing since sliced bread. That’s just nasty.

Planners, use your powers for good, not evil!

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This is so awful–from an article on hotel-online.com:

An international spat involving a controversial politician in India and a convention of hotel owners in Florida is causing a major uproar in Silicon Valley, the heart of the nation’s Indo-American community.

Indians of all creeds are in a tizzy about the U.S. refusal to allow Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat, to come to Fort Lauderdale to speak at this week’s conference organized by the Asian American Hotel Owners Association, AAHOA,  many of them Indo-Americans from Gujarat. Modi is expected to speak instead by video on Saturday.

Just what we need, more gasoline on the fiery relationship between Hindus and Muslims:

Modi is faulted for doing little to rein in the predominantly Hindu mobs that killed estimates of 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, in Gujarat in 2002. The riots started after Muslims allegedly set fire to a train full of Hindu activists, killing 58.

Hindu activists here say the visa denial was a slap in the face, some branding the move "Hinduphobic." Indian Muslims, some of whom campaigned against Modi’s visit, applaud the denial, saying that allowing him to come here would be tacit approval of what they call "genocide" against the Muslim minority in India.

Show organizers need to be very careful about who they invite to speak, and if they are involved in controversy, especially religious controversy, be aware that their speaker, like Modi, might not be able to get into the U.S.

If you’re like me, being on the road means all the regular dietary rules are off–kind of a “calories eaten in Vegas, stay in Vegas” mentality. Unfortunately, my bathroom scale tells me otherwise! This article in the New York Times (free registration req’d) has some great tips for not gorging yourself like a wild gnu turned loose in a field of alfalfa. It’s all common sense stuff, but if I could just follow it, well, maybe those 15 pounds I’ve packed on in recent years would go back to whatever cookies they came from. And I love this quote from a meeting planner (and that a meeting planner is quoted in the NYT!):

If you think staying on the straight and narrow dietary path is difficult, pity Kate Lichter, vice president of Complete Conference Coordinators in Naperville, Ill. In planning meetings and conventions, she is constantly being called on to taste food and select menus. “It’s food, food, food, all the time,” said Ms. Lichter, who is 34. “Sometimes the chef is standing there, watching you eat. It’s hard, the food is so good.”

I hear you, Kate!

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