How do you know when you’re flying too much? For me, it’s when I start salivating at the thought of salt-free, low-fat pretzels, or when I start singing along to the airport Muzak, or when I bring my own stash of Zip-Lock Baggies to hand out to people in line who didn’t know about the goo rules and will back up the security line (who are these people, anyway? How can anyone not have heard about it by now?).

Or when I start saying the Southwest flight attendant’s funny routine along with him. Or when I find myself caring deeply about what movie is being shown, or, horror of horrors, when I look around for a last-minute read in the airport bookstore and found I have already read every single book they have for sale, save the gorky self-help tomes (this actually has happened to me). OK, I’ll stop now, but I could go on and on and on…

Thanks, I think, to Jeff De Cagna, who posted his list on ASAE’s Acronym blog.

Some people on the MeCo listserv are talking about having work-related dreams. While it was by no means my “dream job,” once upon a time, in just-barely-there computer days, I was in charge of putting together a huge buyers guide.

I had this dream one night while I was in the midst of sorting all the photos and press releases, calling companies for more info, etc., that I found a bunch of kittens at a roadside rest area. They were all sizes, shapes, and colors, some adorable, some on the ugly side, but I had to round them all up and get them in a box so they wouldn’t run out onto the highway. No sooner did I get two in the box when one would jump back out. It was making my dream-self crazy, but it had to be done.

It was so vivid—and so frustrating because I had no idea what it might mean—that I told my colleague about it. Her first response: “Oh, so you had a dream about doing the buyers guide!” It never would have occurred to me, but the second she said that, it was obvious that that was exactly what it was about. My dreams are almost never straightforward (say, a dream about getting the magazine out on deadline and having the computer fry and lose the whole thing the night before it shipped—oh wait, that wasn’t a dream, it actually happened!). Must be my English major mind that likes to hide meanings within meanings, at least while I’m unconscious.

Are your work dreams more literal, or do they like to go all metaphorical like mine do? Just curious.

I have nothing more to say, other than it has to be Monday! Here are some strange items that crawled across my monitor since Friday—read ‘em and weep:

Man Beheads Tame Hotel Duck. This is just sick.

For those of us who miss last summer’s smash hit, Snakes on a Plane, there’s this headline: Scorpion stings man during flight; incident is at least the third in 2007.

And then there’s this one: U.S. Airport Screeners Are Watching What You Read. Have to include a snip:

“I flatly reject the premise that we care at all about the latest Tom Clancy novel a traveler is reading,” Knocke said.

“But the fact does remain that CBP officials are going to be mindful of whether there is anything that suggests there could be possible violations of a law associated with a traveler or items in possession of a traveler as they make an admissibility decision about that traveler,” Knocke said.

Even though Marriott last year announced that it was going 100 percent smoke-free, the Marriott Marquis in New York will be hosting something called the Big Smoke, a gathering of cigar aficionados that will donate a portion of the proceeds to something called Prostate Cancer Research. According to the Cigar Aficionado Web site, the meeting will be “in compliance with NYS guidelines,” but I’m curious how Marriott will be handling it to be in accordance with its smoke-free mandate, since cigars are definitely on the menu.

I heard about this from John Banzhaf, Executive Director of Action on Smoking and Health, an anti-smoking group, who sends around e-mails about this sort of thing. The e-mail said:

“Once announced and unless withdrawn, companies must adhere to promises made to customers,” says Banzhaf, noting that McDonald’s was recently forced to pay $8 million when it reneged on its publicly-announced promise to remove trans fat from the foods it served. In addition to tarnishing its image, Marriott should be concerned about its legal liability if it subjects its employees and the majority of its guests to acrid cigar smoke in its supposedly “100 Percent Smoke-Free” hotel, he says.

I haven’t talked with either Cigar Aficionado or the Marriott Marquis, so I’m not sure what sort of arrangement they made, but I’d be curious to find out.

Update: I’ve spoken with both Banzhaf and a Marriott rep since posting this. The resulting article is here.

There’s a great conversation going on over at Acronym about word-of-mouth marketing and associations. Since what I know about association member recruitment and retention wouldn’t fill a thimble, I’ll leave that part up to the experts. But as I was reading, I couldn’t help but wonder if word of mouth marketing actually works for something that hasn’t happened yet; i.e., a conference. That’s a lot harder to sell directly than, say, an iPhone; forget about inspiring others to do the heavy lifting for you. Because, let’s face it, most conferences really aren’t all that remarkable, and even if they are, how do people know they are before they occur? Why would anyone be talking about them?

I can’t think of a single conference I’ve ever attended because of what I’d heard about it from others. But I can think of a bunch I would give my eyeteeth to go to, like the TED Conference and, back in the day, the Fast Company RealTime meeting. In the case of TED, while I don’t know anyone who’s actually gone, the videos of various presentations that flurry around afterward are enough to give me serious TED envy. And after my colleague went to RealTime and told me all about it, I was dying to give it a shot. In both cases, the financials just weren’t there, but boy, if I won the lottery, I’d go in a heartbeat. But these are both, or at least sound to be, truly off-the-charts experiences.

But then I think about a meeting of women entrepreneurs I went to last night. In the loosest possible sense of the word, I guess you could call it an association, seeing as we are a group of people all passionate about one thing (well, I was mainly just along for the ride, since my side business has been fallow for quite a while now—this day job just takes up all my time!). The setting was someone’s house, the food just mini-pizzas and salad, and the speakers were just us. But what really got me, and will get me to go to the next one, is not the pizza, or the free samples, or even learning about new businesses I might want to try. It was the energy in the air as people shared experiences and looked for synergies. Will I pass that along to other women entrepreneurs I know in the area? Oh yeah.

In his post, Scott says, “Of course, the next step is figuring out what sorts of things will make these people [evangelists/sneezers/mavens] feel special so that they want to continue to come back again and again.” I don’t think it’ll be the keynoter, or the decor, or even the food. It’ll be the passion and energy—however you make that happen—that’ll make the meeting worth talking about. Without that, stick to the glossy brochure and hope someone reads it. It’ll be your best shot.

P.S. We just upgraded our blog software, and will be working out some glitches for a while, it looks like (such as losing the past 10 days worth of posts—oh well, such is life.) If anything’s being glitchy for you, please let me know and we’ll try to get ‘er fixed.

From the Official Google Blog:

today we’re unveiling the new Google Docs presentations feature and invite you to try it at docs.google.com. Maybe more than any other type of document, presentations are created to be shared. But assembling slide decks by emailing them around is as frustrating as it is time-consuming. The new presentations feature of Google Docs helps you to easily organize, share, present, and collaborate on presentations, using only a web browser.

Starting today, presentations — whether imported from existing files or created using the new slide editor — are listed alongside documents and spreadsheets in the Google Docs document list. They can be edited, shared, and published using the familiar Google Docs interface, with several collaborators working on a slide deck simultaneously, in real time. When it’s time to present, participants can simply click a link to follow along as the presenter takes the audience through the slideshow. Participants are connected through Google Talk and can chat about the presentation as they’re watching. Not wanting anyone to feel left out, we’ve made the presentation feature available in 25 languages; Google Apps customers can also access it as part of Google Docs.

I haven’t tried it, but it sounds worth a check-out.

Cindy at CindyAE asks an interesting question: What would you do if you had a celebrity among your attendees? I personally would try to treat him or her like any other attendee, but what would you do if others started bugging him/her for autographs, or his/her presence caused problems just by virtue of being a celebrity amongst us mortals?

I’m not sure how I’d handle it, but I can see how it could get strange.

Guy Kawasaki asked people to add to his short “You know you’re getting old when…” list, and boy did they! I know this has nothing to do with meetings, but check out the comments for some hilarious suggestions. Just a few of my favorites:

I know I am getting old when people compliment my new alligator shoes and I am BAREFOOT.

You can neither sit down nor bend over without making some kind of noise.

You remember when people picked out television sets in part based on how the wooden cabinet would go with the other furniture in the living room.

Well today is MY 61st birthday and I know I’m old when I say that it doesn’t mean anything and I know that for the first time in my life I’m lying.

Your parents stop worrying about you, but you start worrying about your parents!

You stop making fun of ED commercials and start paying attention to them.

Just ran across this “meeting planner makeover” promotion from Charleston, and I have to admit, it’s pretty cute. I particularly liked the satisfied client comment about “no elevator surcharges.”

Thanks for the heads-up, Chris.

A lot of continental breakfasts served at meetings include those sad little containers of yogurt, which people like me—who are hoping a virtuous breakfast will make up for all those desserts later—tend to gravitate toward, even though we’d really rather have the omelet.

But life doesn’t have to be that way. Yogurt can be a life-transforming treat. OK, that’s maybe a bit of hyperbole, but if you’ve ever tasted Fage yogurt, you’ll know it’s not much of one. I recently got turned onto it, and, well, I am forever spoiled. It is amazing stuff.

I guarantee that if you serve Fage at your next breakfast, people will be talking, no, raving about it. It may cost a little more, but oh, the benefits will be worth it. Trust me on this one.