Just read about Vivaty on the Scobleizer and thought, gee, this could be a cool new tool for meeting planners. Robert Scoble likens it to Second Life, in a way, only with more widespread appeal. Scoble explains:

My blog or Facebook page could have a 3D scene embedded on it, and you could “dive into” the scene and walk around. These scenes are very graphically rich. I could put videos, photos, and other details around, along with prebuilt furniture and other things.

I don’t see why this couldn’t extend to all kinds of meeting use, from speaker highlights and trade show previews to a pre-show networking forum. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with this one.

Update: Looks like Google just launched its own version called Lively. Wish I wasn’t so busy so I had time to play with these things!

This is so cool: Some artists created artwork made out of grass for the 2008 Wimbledon tennis championship. From CR Blog (click the link to see a picture of the Wimbledon artworks):

The artists essentially use grass as a form of photographic paper, projecting a black-and-white negative image onto a patch of grass as it grows in a dark room, and using the natural photosensitive properties of the grass to reproduce photographs.

I don’t see why you couldn’t use a similar process to make signage for your conference, particularly if your organization has something to do with horticulture (or has some kind of growth theme). It would get my attention, that’s for sure.

Ringo Starr says that all he wants for his birthday is more peace and love in the world. Toward that end, he’s asking for the world to say “peace and love” at noon on July 7 (today). It can’t hurt, right?

Thanks to Dan Parks at MeCo for the heads-up.

Johnnie Moore poses an interesting question: “Go into any pub and you’ll see how easy it is for us human beings to organise enlivening meetings. How come we make it seem so hard in our offices?”

If you have the answer, we’d all love to hear it. I think it has something to do with the difference between it being your choice or forced upon you, mixed with a bit of entertainment versus education (or whatever the business purpose of the meeting is). Doesn’t mean the twain can’t meet, though.

To my fellow Americans, have a great day today celebrating freedom! Just in case you can’t get to the fireworks, I’ll bring the fireworks to you.

If I owned an airline, I’d do my best to eliminate all those fees, but some people think differently. Take David Owen, whose My Airline piece in the latest New Yorker got me hooting. I particularly like the idea of charging $50 to the person who lowers their seat, payable to the person behind them.

He may be joking, but this news item isn’t: Spirit to charge for seat assignments.

I was so glad to hear that Richard Branson is planning to develop an eco-resort on Mosquito Island in the British Virgin Islands. Beside thinking that wind and solar power really should be a no-brainer in a place like the BVI, I’m just looking forward to seeing that place come back to life.

Photo courtesy of BareboatsBVI

We go sailing down there regularly, and just inside the reef by the former Drake’s Anchorage Resort was a favorite place to park for the night. It’s been really sad to see the place abandoned, the moorings deteriorating, the hiking trails empty. It’s been even sadder not to be able to eat at Drake’s restaurant, which was hands-down the finest dining we ever had down there.

So, while it might be useful mainly for super high-end meetings, similar to Branson’s other BVI retreat, Necker Island, for we sailors will welcome the renewal of the island with open arms. As long as Branson will, like the former owner did, allow our stinky sunburned feet to walk the trails and our ravenous appetites be satisfied on shore. Even if we can’t land our dingies there, I still am glad to hear plans are moving forward. I love that place!

I just found a great little tool called MapMyWalk, which allows you to set up a walking/jogging/biking/whatever route anywhere you go. It tracks miles, calories burned, what the route is like, all kinds of things, and you can share it with others.

People always end up asking someone at the hotel for a good jogging/walking route (I know I do); I’m thinking this would allow planners to set up routes of varying lengths and degrees of difficulty for their attendees who are outdoor-exercise-inclined. Or better yet, hotels could set them up for all their guests to use.

I’m using it just to map my dog walks around town, and so far it looks really accurate. Nice!

I saw this posted on the MeCo listserv this morning and well, my stomach still hurts from laughing. Joe Cocker’s performance at Woodstock, translated:

I’m going to see him, along with Steve Miller, in concert later this month, and I just know this is going to be running through my mind…

I get press releases all the time about how a conference had record attendance or went over the top in some other way. But I have never, ever, as a journalist or as an attendee, heard of something like this e-mail Cindy at AE on the Verge talks about.

What makes it so striking is that the conference organizers actually admit that some things didn’t go quite right, and they vow to learn from their mistakes and do better next time.

But this really shouldn’t be so unusual. I know it hurts to tell the truth, but just because it goes unacknowledged by the conference organizers, do you really think no one noticed that the shuttles were running way behind, or that the keynote bombed, or any other little glitch? Trust me, we notice. Huge kudos to any organizer who’s big enough to own up, learn, and commit to fixing what was broken.

If perchance anyone reading this has done this and wouldn’t mind sharing their experience, please drop me an e-mail. I would love to hold you up as an example of how to show that you are truly professionals at what you do, and that you respect your attendees and aren’t afraid to show it by treating us like the adults we are.