That’s what this USAToday story says, anyway. While I have had some great meals at hotel restaurants, and they do seem to be getting better all the time, there are still some bland, boring, and all-around awful hotel restaurants. The weird thing, as happened to me recently, was to find both an excellent and a seriously mediocre restaurant in the same hotel. Even when the food is terrific, I’d always rather dine out when I’m at a meeting, if for no other reason than to set foot out of the hotel for the first time all day. But if I’m by myself, hotel dining it is, so I’m glad to hear it’s getting better all the time.

Anyway, here’s Zagat’s top hotel restaurant picks. Bon apetite!

From this press release:

The Convention Industry Council (CIC) is pleased to select Management Options, Inc. (MOI) as the new management company to provide infrastructure and expertise in manage CIC’s future direction, effective May 1, 2006. This option related to CIC’s management was unanimusously approved by the CIC Board of Directors during the April Board Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana.

I hear this was announced at NEMICE last week, and that the company’s track record in managing another international certification association is thought to be a good omen for expanding the CMP internationally as well. According to a colleague who attended NEMICE, CIC CEO and president Mary Power said she and four of her employees are staying and moving to new offices in DC area May 1.

add to del.icio.us

That’s the message I got when reading this post on the TSMI Trade Show Marketing Report. Rich Westerfield mentions an example of the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s conference, and how the attendees are forcing change on what sounds like a pretty stodgy association. This is something I’ve never understood: Why associations don’t lead their members, instead of having members push and shove the association into the future. As Rich points out:

The number of voices and the numerous opinions shared by the more than 1,000 baristi, coffeehouse owners, suppliers and others who participate in these online forums and read these blogs are in and of themselves, an alternative to having to go to an association for education.

I would hazard a guess that the upcoming generation isn’t going to bother doing all that pushing and shoving to make an association and its meetings relevant; they’ll just head elsewhere for the information they need, the way they want to get it. Associations should be all over the new information delivery (for lack of a better term) trends, even if their members aren’t there yet. Because they will be, and soon.

P.S. I was so happy to see Rich Westerfield posting again—the conversation around tradeshow marketing hasn’t been the same since he redirected his energy toward Aldo Coffee.

That’s the claim made here on Presentation Zen:

By insisting that presenters submit their “PowerPoint slides” for inclusion in a future conference booklet or future download from the conference website, conference organizers force their speakers into a catch-22 situation. The presenter must say to herself: “Do I design visuals that clearly support my live talk or do I create slides that more resemble a document to be read later?” Most presenters compromise and shoot for the middle, resulting in poor supporting visuals for the live talk and a series of document-like slides filled with text and other data that do not read well (and are therefore often not read). These pseudo-documents do not read well because a series of small boxes with text and images on sheets of paper do not a document make. What results from trying to kill two birds with one stone is the “slideument.” The slideument isn’t effective and it isn’t efficient…and it isn’t pretty.

Garr Reynolds suggests that speakers get around the problem by making two sets of slides: One for the conference book, and one to use for the presentation. It’s a good idea, but I wonder how many speakers will make the effort to do it?