That appears to be the rallying cry for meeting planners these days. No big surprise there, with the rapid growth in both attendee and organizational downloads, uploads, and all-around Internet overloads. Here’s an interesting look from the New York Times at the state of the art in convention hotels and conference centers, and the challenges we continue to face as our e-appetite continues to grow.

If you ever get stumped for the meaning of some obscure travel industry jargon, check out TravelJargon.org, a neat little tool I ran across on Christian Frei’s blog.

While the Convention Industry Council’s APEX Industry Glossary will always be my main go-to resource for this sort of thing, Travel Jargon looks pretty easy to use, too.

I heard a lot of talk at IAEE’s Expo! Expo! about how trade shows are still a vital part of the marketing mix for most companies, how nothing has really changed—and how it really won’t change—when it comes to the necessity for trade shows. But is that true, or just wishful thinking on the part of those whose livelihoods depend on expos staying alive and well for decades to come?

I go back and forth on it. I’m definitely in the “live meetings still and probably always will fulfill a vital human need for connectedness.” I can’t imagine live meetings going away. But trade shows as a viable marketing media? I’m not quite so strong on that, though I regularly try to convince myself that they’ll continue in all their (I have to be honest here) 1950s glory, with aisles of salespeople handing out trinkets and trying to hustle up some interest in their wares from the passers-by. The booths and displays may have gotten glitzier, but the basic premise hasn’t changed much for at least the 30 or so years since I first set foot in an expo hall. Yes, people love to meet in person, and to get their hands on new gadgets, and develop relationships that endure. But is the trade show hall still the most expedient place to do all that? Just asking.

There was some talk on the industry listservs about Apple pulling out of Macworld, and whether or not that meant the beginning of the end for that show in particular, and trade shows in general. Like the good people at IAEE, consensus seemed to come down on the side of trade show survival, including Macworld’s. Again, reality or wishful thinking? You tell me.

And then I read this post from former Microsoft blogger and all-around tech guru Robert Scoble, about how social networks and bloggers are killing the big shows off. I’m not entirely sure I buy his argument as being relevant for the entire trade show industry (at least, not yet), but for at least some shows, he may well be right. I mean, I have no doubt that expos will continue for quite a while in their current form, just as print magazines will, for the older generations who can’t imagine giving them up. But they may well become loss-leaders for other, more profitable marketing avenues, not the major dollar-generator they historically have been for associations and for-profits. And once the younger generations are calling the shots? I’m not sure what the trade show of the future will look like, but I have a feeling it won’t be your father’s pipe-and-drape affair we all know and have loved for so long. Or even that it will still exist in a form recognizable to us older folks.

Anyone who organizes trade shows should at least be aware that change may well be coming, and thinking hard about how to adapt their business model to the new world of marketing. Do read the comments to Scoble’s post, as well as this interesting post on Confabb, for more.

I feel like this post is a little “the trade show is dead; long live the trade show,” but I really don’t have any answers. It just seems prudent to periodically ask the questions, especially as we usher in what in all likelihood will be a fairly tough year for all of us. I think the big winners will be those who stop trying to reinvent the trade show itself and find some other, as yet undiscovered “blue ocean” opportunity.

One thing I can’t imagine changing: There will always be money in bringing buyers and sellers together. We just have to figure out how best to do it. It may well still be the traditional trade show (or print magazine). Then again, it may not.

As the flakes pour down on this New England town, we grown-up human types are huddling by the fire. But not everyone wants to stay warm inside.

Happy winter!

These just struck my funnybone, and if you’re like me, we could all use a laugh. So…

$700 Billion Bailout Celebrated With Lavish $800 Billion Executive Party (The Onion)

Hotel is “proud to be dirty and carry a wide variety of bacteria”

Yet more outrageous hotel guest requests

According to our counts, these were the top posts on face2face in 2008:

AIG incentive is making people crazy
Industry trends and forecasts
Shoes you will not be wearing on the show floor
Talk about an ethics problem
TSA-unfriendly luggage

I hope to grab a little time later this week to put together a short list of my favorites, just in case you missed them the first time around.

Another interesting session I went to last week at IAEE’s Expo! Expo! was on social networking. Now, I’ve been going to these sessions for a few years at this point, and how much more is there to say? But it was packed, as were other related sessions held earlier in the week (or so I heard). Obviously, this is still something people want to know more about; even the basics on blogging still has an audience, much to my surprise.

Anyway, in addition to talking about things like how to use RSS feeds to broadcast show announcements and getting speakers to blog about their sessions, the presenters (Rick Calvert, CEM, CEO and co-founder of BlogWorld and New Media Expo; Jim Turner, chief managing partner of One By One Media; and Chris Brogan, president, New Marketing Labs) got into how trade show organizers can use photo-sharing application Flickr, “micro-blogging” tool Twitter, and social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., etc. They also went into BlogTalkRadio, which allows anyone with a phone to host their own radio show for free (yes, I’ve been meaning to play with this for quite awhile now. Anyone want to volunteer to be my first guest??).

Some tips:
To get people using YouTube for your event, they had this great idea: Offer a sponsor the opportunity to buy up a bunch of cheap flip phones to hand out from their booth or wherever, let people record the show and upload their home movies to YouTube. “Costs less than a lanyard sponsor would. Just saying…” said Chris Brogan.

(Aside: All three of the presenters were really, really good. They kept it very conversational and fun, and the vibe in the room was energized. Not bad for just before lunch!)

As for Twitter, they advised that you stick with it for a little while, because it will seem totally moronic at first (I’m still in that phase, myself, but can sort of see the benefit if you have a lot of time to devote to it). It’s mostly useful for building relationships and listening in on conversations your audience is having. Especially useful is search.twitter.com, which you can use to find out more about what people you care about are talking about.

Another tip was to use ping.fm to update all your various social media sites in one fell swoop, though they added that they’d use it sparingly, because each social media site and group should be addressed as the unique and special folks they are, not just broadcast to.

For those who are starting to get a lot of bloggers asking for press credentials to attend your show (especially those wanting free press passes), some ways to tell who’s legit and who’s not are to look them up on Technorati, do a Google blog search, or check them out on compete.com.

A long delay, late night flight home, then a wicked ice storm that knocked out our Internet until yesterday are my excuses for not getting around to posting more about the IAEE show in Miami last week. But now I’ve slept and the Interweb tubes once again are cleared through my computer, so here goes:

On Thursday I went to a session on the economy, airlines, and the trade show business called “The Perfect Economic Storm.” The presenters did a fantastic job of explaining just what is going on—Roger Martin-Fagg with Henley Management College is the first person who explained the banking system in a way that I could really understand, though understanding did not bring a sense of relief, since we’re in the dumps for a fairly long haul, according to Martin-Fagg. Could be up to five years before it all shakes out, he said, but it’s hard to tell exactly because “We haven’t seen events in this combination before.”

William Swelbar, a research engineer with MIT’s International Center for Air Transportation, summed up that industry with, “Airline companies need to change or die.” OK then. Just as banks are going to be contracting, “airlines are going to shrink to greatness,” he said. Oh, and expect to see a lot more unbundling and fees as airlines struggle to find ways to actually charge what a seat costs, he added. In fact, “The rise in the price of fuel to $187 per barrell was the best thing for this industry because it forced them to do what they’ve needed to do for the past 30 years,” Swelbar said. Look for more consolidation, even in regional and low-cost airlines here in the U.S., and internationally.

Saw this on the MiForum listserv this morning and got a good howl out of it: The fun, weird, funny things asked for in the Foo Fighters rider, brought to you by the Smoking Gun. Some rough language, but man is it funny!

Don’t you wish all businesses could have a sense of humor in their paperwork? Well, maybe not all, but…

I loved this session, which was kind of a speed-dating thing where you pick a topic table, discuss that topic for 20 minutes, then shift to a new topic table. The three I hit during the session were: Extreme makeover, trade show edition; social media and attendance marketing; and incorporating experiential content into your show. Way too much to go into here, but here are a few takeaways:

Extreme makeovers can be risky: some things may go over well, others may flop. Make sure everyone’s ok with that concept.

Social media and marketing are a natural, but your marketing department may be a little scared of it. A great solution probably almost no one can do is to hire a dedicated social media person to track and contribute to conversations your organizations should be involved with.

If you’re trying to market your meeting by starting up a Facebook or LinkedIn group, make sure there’s something in it for the attendees/exhibitors (give them free VIP passes for participating, or something). Getting people to participate is the hardest part for many who are just getting started.

Pay attention to your evaluations, and let people know what you learned, and what you’re changing as a result of their suggestions. No one wants to participate again once your comments have fallen into a black hole once already.

Do a staff post-mortem on everything about the show, where everyone on staff makes comments anonymously. One person said her organization does this and gets about half of its best ideas this way.

Also, talk to temps and get their feedback on the show. Recruit the best temps to be your spies and find out the answers to some key questions for you through casual conversaton with attendees. Attendees will tell them things they’ll never tell you, like what your competition does better.