I didn’t attend the press conference, but this is big news. From the release:

The Boards of the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA) and the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) announced plans to develop a progressive and innovative Strategic Alliance. This Alliance will uniquely leverage the strengths of both organizations to benefit their respective memberships while expanding their global brands and enhancing services.

My colleague who attended the press conference said that they stressed this wasn’t in reaction to talks about a potential merger between ACTE and NBTA, and will entail co-location of their conferences. But they do stay two separate entities.

The press release doesn’t say much, other than tossing around a lot of “synergies,” “economies of scale,” “leveraging strengths,” and “best practices,” but I do see how the two communities could work well together. Be curious how this is received by their respective members.

This article is for you: Struggling airlines launch more ‘a la carte’ fees at fliers. Of particular interest is this chart of common airline fees, like for particular seat assignments and booking over the phone.

How hard is it to sort through it all to figure out exactly what a flight will cost? As the writer points out: “It took a week for a USA TODAY reporter — who, unlike most consumers, was assisted by airline public relations staff — to compile 28 different types of fees charged by 14 major airlines.”

I was just reading a writeup of the recent Krisam Insurance Advisory Board meeting, and came across this:

A key problem is how to contract future meetings based on today’s lower attendee numbers while still allowing for a jump to higher attendance in the future. The solution: a two-part contract. The first part reflects a room block and function space based on current numbers. A second, a “first-option contract,” holds additional rooms and space based on past attendance. There are agreed-upon review dates and the planner has first right of refusal on the “soft” block if the hotel gets another offer for the space.

This is so brilliant! I’d be curious to know how amenable to this hotels are, and if planners outside the insurance and financial industry are having success with this type of contract. Sounds like the proverbial double-win to me.

When the Treasury Department released its new executive compensation rules, I’m sure corporate meeting professionals everywhere joined Krys Slovacek in breathing a small sigh of relief when they found out that, while it requires companies receiving Troubled Asset Relief Program funds to develop a company-wide policy for meetings, events, and other corporate travel expenses, it leaves it up to a company’s board of directors to decide what’s frivolous and what’s not (i.e., one would hope, meetings).

But is it too little, too late, as Krys worries? As she says, “The public has been led to believe (by the media and politicians alike) that meetings are frivolous, evil things. And those who attend meetings are frivolous, evil people, wasting TARP funds.” Which as we all know is not the case.

I know the folks at Meetings Mean Business have been fighting the good fight on this one, but I’m with Krys in my concern that the damage has already been done. Or maybe the pendulum, having hit the wall on the one side, will now start slowly swinging back towards meetings as being the vital business tool we all know them to be?

Here’s a handy on-flight entertainment chart for frequent fliers, brought to you by Jaunted. Thanks for doing the research for us (and thanks to Hotel Chatter for the pointer)!

If you’re an association exec interested in how to use social media well and wisely, check out this event: Buzz 2009 Social Media for Associations , coming to Washington, D.C., on Thursday, July 9. Check out the lineup of presenters, which includes word-of-mouth marketing genius Andy Sernovitz and all-around genius Guy Kawasaki, who I may have mentioned once or twice on this blog.

I wish I could make it. If you go, let me know if it ends up being as good as it sounds.

Thanks to Acronym for these great meetings-related posts:

The Future of Learning: Experience It, by Lisa Junker

The Future of Learning: Unlearning, by Lisa Junker (both of these are based on her interviews with Rhea Blanken of Results Technology, who Lisa calls “a passionate advocate for learning in general and new learning formats in particular”–my kind of person!)

Whether you’re hit with the layoff stick during this tough economy or just looking to strengthen your position with your organization, we’ve got a webinar coming this afternoon you might want to check out. Here’s some info:

What: “Demonstrating Leadership During Turbulent Times,” a lively discussion about how to advance one’s career during good times and bad.

Who: It’ll be led by meetings industry veterans Louisa Davis, CMP, CMM, MBA, senior project manager, Prime Strategies; Marlene Blas, MTA, associate director, meetings and events, California Western School of Law; Karen Kotowski, CMP, CAE, and COO, Convention Industry Council; and moderated by my colleague Barbara Scofidio, editor, Corporate Meetings & Incentives.

When: Today at 2 p.m. EDT

Cost: FREE!!!

Brought to you by: MeetingsNet and the Convention Industry Council, and sponsored by the German Convention Bureau.

Extra benefit: Earn one Certified Meeting Professional contact hour when attending for the full hour.

Register here.

If you can’t make the live webinar, it’ll be archived for later viewing, but it’s always better to check it out in real time. And did I mention that it’s free?

I just finally got around to looking at this clip of Ben Stein talking about meetings on CBS last week. He’s dead-on about the ripples of layoffs that go out from meeting cancellations and cutbacks.

In addition to changing my latitudes and attitudes from southern seas to Massachusetts grays (what is up with this cold and rainy weather?), I’m also moving back to some old stomping grounds career-wise. I am moving off my home with Association Meetings to become editor of Medical Meetings, a magazine I worked on and absolutely adored several years ago.

While I will heartily miss the association meetings beat (I love you guys!), I do look forward to renewing my acquaintance with those in the continuing medical education and pharma/medical meetings world. A more dedicated, committed, and smart group of people would be hard to find. And there’s always something happening with the rules and regs that surround everything pharma does, including its physician meetings and CME commercial support, which makes it a great field for its journalists (for those who have to actually do the work, probably not so much).

The move was in part facilitated by MM’s losing its editor extraordinaire of many years, Tamar Hosansky. Tamar left to become the first-ever director of communications for the Accreditation Council for CME, which is an even-more-perfect position for someone of her immense talents and knowledge of this field. Tamar, we miss you already! I’ll do my level best to keep MM to the high standards you have set.

So wish me well in my new job, and if you have any ideas for topics you’d like to see MM tackle, drop me a line any time.