“We” being business-to-business magazines and meetings. For example, David Shaw points to the “10 deadly sins” of B2B media, as outlined by Hanley Wood’s CEO, Frank Anton, at the Folio: Publishing Summit: And they are:

“…underperformance, cowardice, technophobia, inferiority, complacency, coziness, stinginess, cluelessness, disorganization and dullness….”

Sound familiar? Let’s all work on these, shall we?

Off topic, but very cool, is this video of a prank in Grand Central Station:

Or maybe it’s not totally off-topic. I can see this on an expo floor as being pretty wild. Better yet, is there something different but equally cool you could do at your conference? I can’t think of any examples, but brighter minds than mine I’m sure could come up with something spectacular.

Normally I love to see events professionals quoted in the newspaper, but I cringed when I read this article in yesterday’s Boston Globe about people who buy something, use it, then return it–essentially, getting free rental on stuff. Particularly galling, to me, was quotes from an event coordinator named Jimmy Deignan, who likes to buy LCD projectors to use for meetings, then return them and get his money back, rather than actually rent the things. He actually doesn’t seem to see anything wrong with it (and was the only one who let the writer use his last name–at least the others seemed to feel some shame attached to the practice since they didn’t want to admit to it in public under their full names). From the article:

In November, rather than spending $600 to rent a LCD projector for a business presentation, the Holden resident purchased one at Staples, then returned it a few days later and got his money back.

The way Deignan sees it, he is just a smart shopper: He gets the things he needs, uses them for as long as he wants, and saves money. But to retailers, this is wardrobing, a practice they say is unethical, damaging to their bottom line, and increasingly common…

“There’s lots of times when I buy stuff that someone’s bought before. When I rent something, I’m taking good care of it,” said Deignan, who works as an event coordinator. “And, it made me look good when I saved my company $600 in rental fees for the projector.”

I know rental fees for AV equipment can be ridiculous, but this does not speak well for the profession, IMHO.

Remember that do not disturb sign contest Embassy Suites was putting on? Well, they have announced the winners. Here’s my favorite:

I just read this post on FC Experts about the disconnect between what organizations say and what they actually do when it comes to being customer-centric (for planners, think attendee-centric). From the post:

Take proposals, for example. I was just with a new client in Europe. This innovative and technically superior corporation had a challenge on their hands. They were driving a value strategy and customer centric messaging throughout their organization but not seeing bottom line results. When we were given sales and marketing collateral such as proposals, white papers, case studies, and a website to review, and conducted multiple interviews, the question we were asking ourselves was, “Where is their customer in this picture?” All this stuff was about the seller…their great achievements and super powerful products and services. We found that 90-plus percent of the content was about them and their solutions.

Sound like your organization? To find out, poster Jeff Thull suggests that you “compare your collateral, your proposals, your web sites with two of your best competitors. Shuffle them up and re-assign them. Is there a difference?” All too often, there really isn’t.

Check out Cindy’s five creative course-pricing methods, one of which is the auction idea I mentioned earlier. I’d love to know if anyone’s doing any of these!

Here is a great example of how not to handle negative customer feedback (from The Consumerist via Stuff from Patti Shock):

A woman in Brisbane, Australia saw an ad for 50% off the bill at Casa Flamenco, a local restaurant, so she and some friends went out for dinner. The experience wasn’t good—untrained waiter, mediocre food, small servings, long wait time, and despite the half-off coupon the meal was surprisingly expensive for the value. The woman—a restaurant marketer—wrote a polite email to the restaurant with some professional feedback and suggestions on how to improve service.

Here’s what the restaurant wrote back to the woman:

Dear Lorraine,



your are an idiot we dont need your feedback.

Here’s an interesting idea from Seth Godin: Run an auction for events with limited seating. Inspired by this new Google Documents feature, Godin says,

Say you want 200 people to come to a networking event, the sort of thing that’s no fun if only a dozen or two show up… Instead of charging $50 a ticket, why not charge $1 for the first five tickets, $2 for the next five, and on to $500 for the last ten? You’ll earn just as much (if not more) but reward the brave who sign up early. (The folks who like to wait until the last minute ‘to be sure’ end up paying for the privilege). It’s easy to imagine a simple interface to set up whatever graduated pricing model you’d like…

Why don’t airlines have tools in place to make it easy to integrate charter flights with conventions so flights run when (and where) people are going? Flights for passengers instead of passengers for flights…

He winds up by saying, “I guess my point is that this is just the beginning of using internet tools to change the world we interact with, as opposed to trying to make it easy to interact with the standard world using the Internet.” Which really struck me, having tried to put exactly this thought into words over at this post on Acronym about Web 2.0.

I am fascinated reading Jennifer Collins of Meet ‘N Dish’s preparations for holding a meeting in Africa. From her preparations for a site visit, to talking with locals in Ghana, to her most-recent post about relocating to another city, it’s a really interesting look into how it all works. I’m looking forward to reading more about this one!

It is common sense to learn the laws of the land when you plan a meeting outside of your home country, but if you need any further proof, check out this article from BBC News about what happens to people who violate the drug laws in the UAE. A snip:

Possession of painkillers like codeine and some cold and flu medication could result in a mandatory four-year prison sentence, Fair Trials International said.

In one of the most extreme cases, it reported a man being held after poppy seeds from a bread roll were found on his clothes.