The bus driver who got us to the McCormick Center yesterday for ASAE and The Center’s annual meeting dropped this nugget when he saw a little pickup on the road: On Lakeshore drive, it’s illegal to drive a truck or van. Meant to deter commercial vehicles, your basic little Toyota pickup or non-SUV van also could earn you a hefty fine.

He told the story of one commercial truck driver who didn’t see the signs and drove on Lakeshore Dr. He got pulled over and, because he didn’t have the $1,500 in cash fine on him, his truck was impounded. It took three days and $50,000 to get his truck back. The load of meat it carried, since this was high summer, had of course gone bad.

This probably doesn’t just happen in Chicago, but I’d never heard of it before. So, when driving in a strange city, pay attention to the signs, and take them very, very literally!

ASAE and The Center took a bit of a risk with the opening general session yesterday. The event was kicked off with a musical, with songs geared toward the association world. This is kind of old hat, and if not done extremely well, could be pretty hackneyed. Fortunately, it was done really, really well, and I laughed myself sick at some of the songs, like “Committee” (to the tune of “I Feel Pretty”) and “There’s No Profit in Nonprofit” (to the tune of “There’s No Business Like Show Business”). It did seem to drag on a bit, though.

The players were excellent, and even when they incorporated ASAE and the Center’s John Graham and Pamela Hemann into the shtick, it went pretty well. There’s no way to make announcements of the Diversity Executive Leadership Program or the 2007 Key Award winner Gary LaBranche, CAE (president and CEO of the Association Forum of Chicagoland) fit into the musical format, but they did manage to work in ASAE and The Center’s four main strategic directions (diversity, social responsibility, international, and philanthropic) for 2008 pretty well. It’s funny: The play-association in the musical, facing a consolidating competitive market, decided to go global to keep going and growing. It reminded me of our June cover story.

But the show-stoppers were ABC news anchor Bob Woodruff and his wife Lee, authors of In an Instant: A Family’s Journey of Love and Healing, which chronicles their experiences since Bob was seriously injured in Iraq. Ann Compton, longtime ABC political reporter, asked interview questions, which the Woodruffs answered candidly, with grace and humor. At times, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house, and they well deserved the standing ovation they got. It had nothing to do with associations, but it did sort of fit with the meeting’s “Connecting” theme, I guess.

I hope to post some about the bloggercon, a session on creating customer evangelists, and another one on using teams effectively that I attended yesterday, but I think I may be out of time this morning. I meant to do some posting last night, but I seem to have come down with some horrible bug that knocked me completely out of action. The drugs seem to be kicking in this morning, so hopefully I’ll have more to say later on.

Update: Or not. Check out these excellent posts from others who have beat me to it:

Jason’s Sunday

Here’s a good roundup of takeaways from the bloggercon session. Here are a couple more.

Ben at the Certified Association Executive blog is doing a series of podcasts from the show.

Here’s one about the opening reception, which I neglected to mention. We, too, were wondering where the desserts were! Overall, I was not impressed with it—really, really loud, and I’m not sure what the music was supposed to be. Plus, go-go girls don’t really do much for me. And, as a non-red-meat eater, there wasn’t much beyond a mashed potato martini for me to chow on. We didn’t stay too long.

And this one’s just fun: Five things not overheard at ASAE 2007.

asae2007

I’ve been in some nice hotels before, but I’ve never felt out-hipped by one until I got to The James this morning, just off Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. This is more or less what my room looks like (I just pulled this shot from their Web site, so it’s a little different):

It’s beautiful, but it’s so white! And it took me a while to figure out that that big tube in the corner was a light, not a piece of sculpture; the jury’s also still out on the floating light bar above the bed—is it bright enough to read by? I’ll find out later, I suppose.

Like a lot of hotels are doing nowadays, they’ve gotten rid of the ubiquitous armoire and replaced it with a flat-screen tv that is just huge, which is a good thing, but there are only two small drawers now for clothes, unless there’s more storage space that is masquerading as a sink or something.

But enough quibbling—the room is gorgeous, the guy who checked me in was impeccable (big points for getting my room ready so early this morning so I had a place to rest my very weary head). Maybe it’s just a culture shock, going from Alaska’s Dall sheep to Chicago’s ultra chic, but this hotel’s just so much hipper than I am that it makes me feel like it might be humming that “I’m too sexy for my shirt” song, only I’m the shirt.

Hmm, could that be an excuse to go shopping?

It may not be on your top 10 list for a meetings or incentives destination, but I just fell in love with Alaska on my trip there this past week. Cruise West, the company that handled our group of 16 celebrants of my parents’ 50th anniversary, did a fantastic job and, not to sound to googly-eyed about the whole thing, our 49th state is one amazing place. Especially in the summer, when even now as fall starts its (way early) approach, the sun didn’t go down until almost midnight.

After the redeye flight this morning to Chicago, where I’ll be for the next several days attending the ASAE and the Center’s annual meeting, I don’t have it together enough to explain what it was like. Not that you can, really. So, here’s a taste of what it was like (ha! between digital photos and blogs, now everyone gets to see my vacation pics. I won’t be too obnoxious—I’ll just post a couple of them):

The Mountain, aka Mt. McKinley, highest peak in the land, and quite a handsome fella when he chose to show us his face as we chased down the highway to get to the airport on time last night.

Me in front of Surprise Glacier in Prince William Sound. It calved (dropped off house-sized chunks) twice while we were watching, sounding like a crack of thunder, then keening and groaning and, well, I can’t begin to do it justice. Amazing.

I took some great shots of some moose we saw at Denali, but unfortunately they were on someone else’s camera. Anyway, I was just enchanted with the place. One of our drivers said that there are a number of great little incentive getaways, like one near Denali that Mrs. Bush and some pals recently hung out at. Another driver said that the convention center in Anchorage is about to triple its size. He said that they currently have about 30 conventions booked annually, and have to turn down many, many more because they just didn’t have the capacity. But they will soon, it sounds like.

OK, I’ll stop gushing, except to say one thing: The people there, every single Alaska resident I met, were warm, inviting, and all-around just great folks. If it weren’t for that no-sun, 50-degree-below winter, I’d be seriously tempted to try living in a more northern latitude than Massachusetts. Even with the harshness of the winter, I’d like to go back in February or March when the Northern Lights are at their most active. I saw them once when I was a kid at camp in Maine, and it was pure magic.

Oh, Chicago’s nice, too, and it’s a hot and sunny change from the cool rain and mist of the Alaska mountain range, but I already miss the sense of space, of my place in nature, and the peaceful solitude (well, maybe not so much when all 16 of us were on a bus together, but you get my drift) that I felt in Alaska.

I’ll be back.

Our subconscious brain is an amazing thing. We may think we’re in charge, but subtle things in our environment can have a big impact. This New York Times article tells us how&8212;and, I think, provides some pretty good hints on how meeting planners can use psychology to set the scene for learning at their meetings. From the Times:

New studies have found that people tidy up more thoroughly when there’s a faint tang of cleaning liquid in the air; they become more competitive if there’s a briefcase in sight, or more cooperative if they glimpse words like “dependable” and “support” — all without being aware of the change, or what prompted it.

Psychologists say that “priming” people in this way is not some form of hypnotism, or even subliminal seduction; rather, it’s a demonstration of how everyday sights, smells and sounds can selectively activate goals or motives that people already have.

Retail has taken advantage of all this for eons, whether through piped music or how they arrange the products. Hotels are now starting to add environmental factors like (love it or hate it) scents that are supposed to evoke a mood or feeling. Probably some meetings are using this somehow, but I haven’t experienced it yet. At least, not that I know of…

Sometimes, the process of just asking questions can be almost as powerful as answers; hence the potential of processes like Q-Storming. Jamie Notter takes a different take on questions as training tools. Referencing this article from Associations Now (which is a great read, BTW), Jamie says about conflict resolution training he does:

I have people pair up, where one person has a problem, and the other is the “coach” who will help solve the problem. I encourage people to use actual problems—things they really aren’t sure how to solve or what to do next.

The coach has one important restriction: she or he can ONLY ask questions (interrogative-led questions are recommended). You can’t ask questions that are really suggestions (Have you tried talking directly with the boss?). They must be open ended (What have you tried?).

You may be surprised at how incredibly difficult it is to ONLY ask questions. We want to solve problems, and we want to provide answers. To help means to tell others what they should do. Suggesting to others what they should do is not evil—but it does not get us the same results we get when we merely ask questions and THEY figure out what to do on their own.

That’s it exactly. You learn by doing—in this case, by going through the thought process yourself to come up with the answers. I wish more learning opportunities used this approach. There would, I bet, be a whole lot more learning going on.

Hotels are going in some much-needed directions for summer and fall 2007, according to this article on HotelOnline. Of course, everyone’s talking green (and hopefully putting that talk into action—people are checking to see if hotels are living their hype when it comes to green measures and sustainability). But the article also notes trends toward celebrating silly holidays, like National Fudge Day (June 16th. Drats, I missed it), more personalized customer service (i.e., real humans instead of automated voice systems from, well, you know where), and more perks for business travelers like a free exercise bikes delivered to your room! I like the sound of that one.

Bruce Schneier continues his interview of TSA Administrator with part 3 , on ID checks and the No-Fly list ; and part 4, on Registered Traveler and behavioral profiling.

This is some good stuff.

Update: Here’s the final installment.