Five association consultants who I very much admire have joined together to write a book, via a blog, called We Have Always Done It That Way: 101 Things About Associations We Must Change by Five Independent Thinkers. Check out the post on staff meetings—and I expect they’ll be adding more about meetings as they go, since conferences are so important to most associations. Definitely it’s a site I plan to check in on regularly.

(Thanks to Kevin for the pointer.)

Many thanks to Kevin Holland, vice president with Air Conditioning Contractors of America and author of the Associations Inc. blog for including this humble site on the “Ten Cool Blogs By, And For, Associations (and Five Bonus Blogs You Should Also Be Reading) list for ASAE and The Center for Association Leadership (we’re in the bonus round). I found a few new and interesting blogs on the list that I’ll be adding to my RSS reader, too, which is always a plus. I like the way he describes f2f as finding ways to bring people together that are anything from sublime to ridiculous. Yeah!

I just wish I’d had this list to work from last spring when I was writing a story on associations and blogging.

Tradeshow marketing expert Rich Westerfield has a wrapup of the IAEM show that’s just finished up. Sounds like it was a bit of a mixed bag, but I still wish I could have gone. More of Rich’s IAEM posts:

IAEM: Full Frontal PR
IAEM: Blog Panel
One Way to P#@* Off Your Attendees

I just came across the first speakers bureau blog I’ve found yet. Written by Yvon Douran, president of Keynote Resource, Corporate Event Planning is off to a promising start. So far, she’s posted about determining a speaker’s worth, event planning basics, and what is expected for different types of speaker roles (keynotes, plenaries, etc.). And she has a colorful family history, which she blogs about on Speaking of Fletcher Christian, her ancester who incited the mutiny on the HMS Bounty in 1789.

If anyone knows of other industry-related blogs, please let me know. The only other supplier-side blogs I’ve found so far are Grass Shack Events and Media (a production company) and Something Extra from SNC Destinations—both of which are great reads. Still no bona fide planner blogs yet, though I’m still looking.

The answer is no, according to Bruce Schneier’s commentary in Wired. He says the CAPPS and its replacement Secure Flight, which “check travelers against the 30,000 to 40,000 names on the government’s No-Fly list, and another 30,000 to 40,000 on its Selectee list,” are basically worthless because the lists they check against are no good. As he says,

They’re bizarre lists: people — names and aliases — who are too dangerous to be allowed to fly under any circumstance, yet so innocent that they cannot be arrested, even under the draconian provisions of the Patriot Act. The Selectee list contains an equal number of travelers who must be searched extensively before they’re allowed to fly. Who are these people, anyway?

The truth is, nobody knows. The lists come from the Terrorist Screening Database, a hodgepodge compiled in haste from a variety of sources, with no clear rules about who should be on it or how to get off it. The government is trying to clean up the lists, but — garbage in, garbage out — it’s not having much success.

The program has been a complete failure, resulting in exactly zero terrorists caught. And even worse, thousands (or more) have been denied the ability to fly, even though they’ve done nothing wrong. These denials fall into two categories: the “Ted Kennedy” problem (people who aren’t on the list but share a name with someone who is) and the “Cat Stevens” problem (people on the list who shouldn’t be). Even now, four years after 9/11, both these problems remain.

He also lambasts the TSA’s Registered Traveler program and Verified Identity Pass’ Clear program, adding,

Exactly two things have made airline travel safer since 9/11: reinforcement of cockpit doors, and passengers who now know that they may have to fight back. Everything else — Secure Flight and Trusted Traveler included — is security theater. We would all be a lot safer if, instead, we implemented enhanced baggage security — both ensuring that a passenger’s bags don’t fly unless he does, and explosives screening for all baggage — as well as background checks and increased screening for airport employees.

I agree on all points. If we really want to get serious about airline security, let’s cut the theater and get to what really might make a difference.

P.S. My stepdaughter asked me at Boston’s Logan airport as we embarked on our Thanksgiving journey to see Nanna and Gramps in Myrtle Beach last week if it was OK to bring her car keys in her purse, or if they would be confiscated. I said that of course she could bring her keys. Then I remembered this story.

P.P.S. Here’s an idea a disgruntled smoker I was speaking with during my Thanksgiving sojourn to Myrtle Beach had: Why not just take all the lighters confiscated at the security checkpoint over to the exits from the secured areas, so disembarking smokers don’t have to scrounge around for a light after a long flight? After all, according to Sen. Ron Wyden back in 2003, TSA was spending $17 million to dispose of confiscated items—and that was before lighters were added to the list, if memory serves. Why not just recycle the non-hazardous items? There must be some reason, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out what it might be. Maybe the lighter industry is lobbying hard against it? (Click here for a PDF of all the prohibited/allowed items.)

While I don’t see anything yet on their respective Web sites (or on the Expo!Expo! blog), according to the Expophile, the International Association of Exhibition Management and the Center for Exhibition Industry Research just announced that they’re planning to merge. As the Expo-man rightly notes, this sounds like a good move for both, adding more breadth to CEIR and more depth to IAEM.

This announcement, following on the heels of the recent American Society of Association Executives/ASAE Foundation/Greater Washington Society of Association Executives/Center for Association Leadership merger, kind of makes me ponder if more mergers might be coming for this overcrowded industry. Wonder what might be next, a PCMA-MPI merger? Hey, anything’s possible.

Update: According to a colleague who’s at the show, the merger isn’t a done deal–the boards have to do some due diligence over the next 90 days (or shorter) and if it all works out, then it will be official.

I also hear that the vote to change the name from the International Association of Exhibition Management to the International Association of Exhibitions and Events didn’t go all that smoothly, and that it’s going to be discussed further before being implemented. I look forward to hearing more about all this when people get back from the show. Sounds like it was interesting, to say the least.