From the MiForum listserv:

A sales rep at a luxury hotel, an admin assistant and the general manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp. They rub it and a genie comes out.

The genie says, “I’ll give each of you just one wish.”

“Me first, me first,” says the admin assistant. “I want to be in the Bahamas driving a speedboat without a care in the world.” Puff, she’s gone

The sales manager says, “Me next, me next—I want to be in Hawaii on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of pina coladas, and the love of my life.” Puff, she’s gone.

“OK, you’re up,” the genie says to the GM. He says, “I want those two back in the office after lunch.”

Moral of the story: Always let your boss have the first say.

Thanks to Jim for making me laugh!

For any organization that’s considered doing a show blog in conjunction with their meeting, but hasn’t for fear of liability should some user say something libelous, fear not: Federal Court Reaffirms Immunity of Bloggers from Suits Brought Against Commenters. The key snip:

Examining the impact of Sec. 230 on this case, the court noted that “Congress intended that, within broad limits, message board operators would not be held responsible for the postings made by others on that board,” adding that allowing bloggers and message board operators to be sued for the statements of commenters on their sites would have an “obvious chilling effect” on speech.

Marketing guru Seth Godin is a big fan of name tags. As he notes:

I think doing name tags properly transforms a meeting. Here’s why:
a. people don’t really know everyone, even if they think they do.
b. if you don’t know someone’s name, you are hesitant to talk to them.
c. if you don’t talk to them, you never get to know them and you both lose.
d. if you are wearing a name tag, it’s an invitation to start a conversation.

The thing is, though, that you have to do them right. No teeny weeny print for names, make them double-sided, and stop using lanyards that hang to attendees’ belly buttons (where did that trend come from, anyway? It makes me crazy). Another suggestion he has that I thought was a good one:

[Include] a piece of information that is an ice breaker. Here’s my latest example. Every single sticker had a different picture. No real logic behind it. But what if there was? What if attendees picked their favorite movie star, metaphor, state capital, political gaffe, Saturday Night Live skit… anything worth talking about?

Here’s a guest blog by Betsy Bair, our editorial director:

It’s not enough to plan a “green meeting” nowadays. It has to be “carbon-neutral.”

Well, of course it doesn’t have to be, but that’s the latest initiative to take hold in the environmental meetings world, a movement that’s been limping along here in the U.S. until Al Gore and “An Inconvenient Truth” burst onto our movie screens in 2006 (and won best documentary at the Academy Awards on Sunday night—yippee!).

According to Marge Anderson, associate director, Energy Center of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis., in regard to the U.S.’s lack of a national carbon policy, “Big business is leading the cause in this country because the government isn’t. In Canada and Europe, there are much stricter regulations on how to extract fossil fuel.”

That’s an understatement if I ever heard one. The efforts put forth at the Professional Convention Management Association’s annual meeting in early January in Toronto, where the host facility—the Metro Toronto Convention Centre–produced a “zero-waste” event, were nothing short of amazing. But it wasn’t just the convention center that impressed me. Recyling bins were placed next to the trash cans in my hotel room and at the airport.

While most states in the U.S. mandate recycling for home trash and waste, it’s not the case in our public facilities. And that puts us to shame. We still see greening efforts as too costly, not taking the longer-term view that environmentally-sensitive initiatives will in fact sustain our businesses (not to mention our earth). Anderson opened my eyes at that session I attended at Meeting Professionals International Professional Education Conference North America in late January in New Orleans: She emphasized that we must look at green initiatives at our meetings as making good business sense, not as moral imperatives.

So while the issues that surround global warming and the sustainability movement beget more meetings, and we therefore increase our carbon footprint as people fly and drive to them, we can offset those carbon emissions by purchasing or investing in “carbon offset” projects around the world that invest in renewable energy and energy-efficient projects.

There’s no time to waste.

If you hold any meetings in ski resort areas, check out this article in Fast Company about 10 ski areas that are concentrating on keeping the white stuff green.

Among the U.S. resorts on the green list are Aspen, Colo. (this place was enviro-conscious even way back in the early ’80s when I lived there), Jackson Hole, Wy., Park City, Utah, Killington, Vt., and Squaw Valley and Sugar Bowl in Calif. Let’s hope this trend continues to spread.

I don’t know if these can be customized, but if they can, what a cool gift for meeting attendees! These beans are lasered to have “Welcome” on the side, so once they sprout, they show the message. How wild would it be to have your logo on something like this? (Click here for more. Via BoingBoing.)

Update: I spoke yesterday with someone from The Promo Shop, which just so happens to carry this item. He said it was really popular with religious groups, as you can have the bean say “faith,” or “hope,” or other inspirational one-word messages.

Being an e-mail addict myself, I cracked up at this rebuttal to this 12-step program to e-mail addiction developed by executive coach Marsha Egan: 12-step program for e-mail addiction stumbles. A snip:

2. Commit to keeping your inbox empty.

What am I missing? I’m already committed to keeping my inbox empty. I’m so committed to keeping my inbox empty that I’m checking my e-mail more often than hibernating animals breathe. I don’t need more commitment. I need to be committed.

I may be technologically addicted, but at least I’m not as bad as this poor guy, who almost had a breakdown after committing to go BlackBerry and cell-phone-less for a week:

A new line of advertisements that uses some risque language seems to be causing a kerfuffle, at least on the MeCo listserv. Sounds like Las Vegas isn’t the only city looking to cash in on naughtiness, but is Victoria really that hot a place? I’ve never been there, but something there better be sensual, or they’re going to have some disappointed visitors.

If nothing else, they’ve already managed to get people talking about the place, which is what an ad campaign is all about. Good to know that sex still sells.

According to this article, those ultra-chic boutique hotels may be becoming passe. From the article:

There’s a backlash brewing against boutique hotels. While brands like Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.’s W are still thriving, the now-23-year-old segment is finding that some customers — even once loyal ones — are getting tired of their tragically hip ways. Generation X consumers, the traditional target market, are aging and their priorities are changing. Once smitten with trendy furnishings and achingly cool bars — and unfazed by inferior amenities, tiny rooms and snooty hotel staff — boutique customers increasingly say they’re just as interested in good service and a good room as they are in style.

While I like a good coolness factor as much as any gen-Xer, give me a comfortable bed and great customer service, and I’m a happy guest, so I’m at one with this trend.

Let’s hope this wasn’t your sales manager: Woman Fired For Writing About Avoiding Work. From the article:

Emmalee Bauer, 25, of Elkhart, was employed by the Sheraton hotel company as a sales coordinator in Des Moines. While on the job, she kept a handwritten journal. A supervisor told her to stop writing on company time, but instead, Bauer wrote her journal, all 300 single-spaced pages, on her work computer.

In the journal, portions of which were introduced during a recent hearing regarding Bauer’s request for unemployment, Bauer describes her efforts to avoid work.

“This typing thing seems to be doing the trick,” she wrote. “It just looks like I am hard at work on something very important.”

I am speechless.