And now it’s time for a commercial break: We’re putting on a free webinar next week called “Managing Up, Down, and Sideways: Discover Meeting Management Tools the Pros Already Use.” On our looong drive back to Massachusetts from Stamford, Conn., yesterday (we were down there having a meeting with our Web guys), our editorial director Betsy Bair told me she was totally impressed with Webinar leaders Linette Kostel, travel Manager with Sepracor; and Lisa Palmeri, director of consulting services with OnVantage Inc. They really “get” it, she said, and she’s pretty excited about the whole thing. It’ll be live Wednesday, June 29, at 2-3 p.m. Eastern, then archived for a while so those who couldn’t make it the first time can check it out.

Anyway, it’s about how you can use technology to help demonstrate just how valuable meeting professionals are to sponsors, senior management, and procurement specialists, in addition to managing your own teams and workload.

According to our press release:
You will learn:
* How to use online tools to improve the attendee registration experience and still stay within budget
* How to control meeting costs
* How to gather metrics for demonstrating process improvements
* How to gain efficiencies in contract management
* How to get buy-in from financial, sales and marketing, and other departments involved in meeting management

Here are some articles with good background info on all this stuff:
Spend Control

National Business Travel Association White Paper: Building a Strategic Meetings Management Program

Five Steps to Consolidating Your Meeting Data, By John Chang

They just finished the run-through a few minutes ago, and I hear it went swimmingly. Hope you can come check it out (did I mention that it’s free? OnVantage is sponsoring it, so you don’t have to.) For more info or to sign up, click here.

OK, back to our regularly scheduled program.

Happy summer solstice to all–the lovely longest day of the year! My husband works for a Swedish company, and one of his colleagues sent us this pic of people celebrating Swedish style. I wish this were a bigger deal here in the U.S., because it sounds like a lot of fun. As Bob’s colleague explains, the traditions surrounding the Swedish Midsommar may date back to the days of the vikings:

We dance around a flower-covered pole wearing national costumes (different for different regions). We eat a lot of herring and flush it down the throat with large amounts of beer and aquavit. The best one is homemade and my favorite is made from a herb called Artemisia Absinthium in Latin. The English name is Wormwood, I believe, but the German name, Wermuth, describes its use better.

I’ll pass on the herring and aquavit, but wish I had a flowered-covered pole to dance around! Here’s wishing you all TREVLIG MIDSOMMAR!!!

I’m pushed for time today–trying desperately to get the cover story for the July/August issue of Medical Meetings wrapped up, so I’ll just list out a few of the more interesting hospitality industry items that have come across my desk from hotel-online recently:

Wi-Fi Going from an Added Value to an Expected Amenity; In 2002, 1,000 Hotels Were Equipped for Wireless Connection, Nearly 25,000 Hotels Expected to Offer Wi-Fi by 2007

Three French Waiters Suing New York’s “21″ Club Claiming Age and Accent Discrimination (accent discrimination? That’s a new one to me!)

Ohio State University Considers Renaming the 151 room Blackwell Hotel, Namesake, Roger D. Blackwell, Is a Convicted Felon

Hawaii, Illinois, and Pennsylvania Have Biggest Budgets for Travel and Tourism Promotion; TIA Ranks All the States Budgets for 2005

Resignation of Atlanta CVB Executive VP Carey Rountree Not Linked to Loss of the 100,000 Attendee National Association of Home Builders

InterContinental Boston Hotel and Residences Subject of Call for Boycott from Local Hotel Union; The 424 room Hotel at Mid-point of Construction