Congratulations to all the 432 people who passed the Certified Meeting Professional designation in January and who can now officially put those wonderful CMP letters after their names. The press release says a full list of new CMPs is at the Convention Industry Council site, but I can’t find it or I’d link to it here.

Update: Here’s the list.

When I read this story about the Unite Here labor union’s plans to boycott The Phoenician in Scotsdale, along with speculation that the union plans to put national attention on Hilton, Marriott and Starwood, parent of the Phoenician, the Westin Kierland, and Sheraton Wild Horse Pass resorts and the soon-to-be W Scottsdale, I thought about Ken Cammarata, business manager, American Society of Head and Neck Radiology.

I talked with Ken not too long ago for an article about meetings that were scheduled to be held in New Orleans in summer 2006 and beyond—a “should we stay or should we go?” type of thing. Ken’s organization decided to move its 300-attendee meeting from the Sheraton New Orleans to the Wild Horse Pass Resort and Spa in Phoenix. His meeting’s dates aren’t until fall, so hopefully if any union actions are taken, it’ll all be over by then (and the article does say that only The Phoenician is targeted at this point). But I’d hate to think, after having to move the meeting once already, that it would run into any more potential problems.

If you liked to play with a Spirograph when you were a kid, you’ll love to play with String Spin from zefrank.com (there are too many toys there to play with! Thanks, I think, to Grass Shack Events & Media for a great source of endless time-wasters!)

Here’s another one, this time with color to play with.

Another geeky math game:
Conway’s Game of Life (two thumbs up on this one, even though I don’t really understand why it does what it does. It’s just cool.)

And for us old fogies, a Roman numeral calculator.

Back to work now.

Forty-three Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau staff members have left over the past two years, according to this article. That’s more than half its entire staff, and it’s happening as group business is taking off in that town, the bureau has the new McCormick Place addition that’s opening next year to market in addition to its work for the convention center, and it’s facing more competition from New York’s Javits Center, among other cities’ expansions and new convention center construction. Of course, fingers are pointing all over the place when it comes to placing blame for the turnover. It seems to have really gotten rolling after chief executive Jim Reilly left two years ago, leaving the CTB under the leadership of Christopher Bowers. Tim Roby, whose background is in hotel sales and marketing, will have his work cut out for him in pulling it all together when he takes over the reins this spring.

The situation reminds me a little of what’s been happening at some of the meeting planning industry organizations lately, with all the leadership churn and the loss of some key staff people. We’ll probably never know for sure what all the reasons are behind the turnovers, which makes nosy people like me crazy. But PCMA seems to be settling in under Deborah Sexton (Chicago CTB’s ex-president), and hopefully Roby will have a similar effect on the CTB. Under temporary leadership for now and with a restructuring in its near future, more staffing shakeups seem likely for MPI, though.

First, there was the $1,000 frittata. Now you can treat your most discriminating meeting VIPs to the $1,000 “Grand Opulence” sundae, sold by New York’s Serendipity restaurant. What could possibly make a dessert so expensive?

Made with “5 scoops of the richest Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream infused with Madagascar vanilla and covered in 23K edible gold leaf, the sundae is drizzled with the world’s most expensive chocolate, Amedei Porceleana, and covered with chunks of rare Chuao chocolate, which is from cocoa beans harvested by the Caribbean Sea on Venezuela’s coast. The masterpiece is suffused with exotic candied fruits from Paris, gold dragets, truffles and Marzipan Cherries. It is topped with a tiny glass bowl of Grand Passion Caviar, an exclusive dessert caviar, made of salt-free American Golden caviar, known for its sparkling golden color. It’s sweetened and infused with fresh passion fruit, orange and Armagnac. The sundae is served in a baccarat Harcourt crystal goblet with an 18K gold spoon to partake in the indulgenceserved with a petite mother of pearl spoon and topped with a gilded sugar flower by Ron Ben-Israel.”

But if that’s not opulent enough, check out the $1.65 million Diamond Fruit Cake. Yup, including real diamonds. Care to cut a tooth on that baby, literally?

According to an item in Popular Science, a giant floating hotel, such as that rendered here by John MacNeill, may be soon looming over the skies. From the article:

This two-football-fields-long concept airship is the brainchild of Igor Pasternak, whose privately-funded California firm, Worldwide Aeros Corporation, is in the early stages of developing a prototype and expects to have one completed by 2010. Pasternak says several cruise ship companies have expressed interest in the project, and for good reason: The craft would have a range of several thousand miles and, with an estimated top speed of 174 mph, could traverse the continental U.S. in about 18 hours. During the flight, passengers would peer at national landmarks just 8,000 feet below or, if they weren’t captivated by the view, the cavernous interior would easily accommodate such amenities as luxury staterooms, restaurants, even a casino.

Now that would be a unique meeting space!

I’ve been told I look a little like Helen Hunt, but according to myheritage.com, a site that uses facial recognition technology, I most resemble Elizabeth Hurley (60 percent resemblance). Cool! I about half resemble Richard Pryor, too, so I’d take this with a grain of salt. Using another photo, though, put me as 73 percent similar to Jennifer Lopez. Anyway, it’s just fun to play with.

Though it could be a fun thing to do for a conference, now that I think about it. How about having a photographer roaming around taking random shots of people, which a staffer then could run through the site (it can handle doing multiples for group shots)? You could flash the results on a screen as people settle in for a general session. It would get people talking, that’s for sure. Or you could just tell people they could pick up a screen shot of their celebrity comparison at the registration booth. I bet people would love something like this.

There is a terrific, tongue-in-cheek post on Silicon Cloud called 12 Things to Irritate Your Visitors that every meeting/conference/convention planner should heed for their events’ Web pages. Among the 12 things are pop-ups and -unders, and the ever-popular obscure plug-ins. If your site is guilty of any of the 12 irritants, call your IT guys, stat! You’re losing potential attendees due to bad design, or at the least making it hard for them to work with you and setting a bad precident for the meeting itself.

(Thanks to my Capsules co-blogger, Anne Taylor-Vaisey, for the pointer!)