If you haven’t dropped your cell phone into a punch bowl, puddle, half-full sink, or other electronically hostile place of excessive dampness, you’re lucky. For the rest of us, there’s this article from the Wired Wiki: Save a Wet Cell Phone. Thanks, Wired!

Am I a bad person because my first thought after hearing about the latest terrorist attempt to take down an airplane was, “oh great, now we’ll be banned from bringing any powders on board.” Not that I can think of any powders I would want to carry on the plane, but you know it’ll be coming. Along with who knows what other security theater measures TSA comes up with after conducting the thorough review President Obama is asking for now.

The answer is, of course, yes, I am a bad person. Those thoughts should have been of gratitude that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was caught in time, that no harm came to anyone on that flight, that the friends and loved ones greeting that plane could do so with joy instead of horror. And I am thankful for that, of course. But I think this article hits the nail on the head: “Despite the billions spent since 2001 on intelligence and counterterrorism programs, sophisticated airport scanners and elaborate watch lists, it was something simpler that averted disaster on a Christmas Day flight to Detroit: alert and courageous passengers and crew members.”

For those courageous passengers and crew members who stopped a terrorist in his tracks on Flight 253 last week, and for the unbearably courageous passengers and crew members on United Flight 93 who saved countless lives with their actions even as their own were lost, I am filled with gratitude. I’d like to think I could be so courageous under similar circumstances, but I don’t know. I hope no one ever again has to find out. Somehow, I doubt that banning baby powder will get us any closer to that goal.

For a lighter take on terrorism (and yes, there is one), check out The Borowitz Report’s Department of Homeland Security Issues Terrorist ID Cards

Here’s to a happy and healthy holiday season and a fabulous new year, from me and our new puppy Mango:

We know by now to thoroughly wash out hotel in-room coffee pots and to hit the TV remote with sanitizer before picking it up, but it doesn’t end there for true germophobics. Check out this article for more things to gross out over in your hotel room, from water glasses to doorknobs.

According to this survey by Special Events, events budgets are going to stay skintight in the coming year. Oh joy. From the article:

Some 71 percent of in-house special event professionals say that “having reduced budgets to work with” will be one of their greatest professional challenges in the new year. A whopping 78 percent of independents agree, though this figure is down slightly from the 2009 survey, when 81 percent of independents bemoaned tight event budgets.

An uncertain economy and short lead times round out the top three concerns event planners have for 2010.

Once again, Jeff Hurt hits it out of the ballpark with this post: Four Principles For Planning Brain-Friendly Annual Meetings. Not only are his suggestions things I’ve been stumping for forever, but he includes some great, if a bit gross, metaphors to hammer his points home (how does a goose being raised to provide pate liver resemble today’s meeting attendee? Read his post to find out).

Everyone does the early-bird special pricing for those who sign up for next year’s conference by a deadline, but surely there are more creative ways to get people to commit to coming by putting their bucks down now. In reading Seth Godin’s post, The magic of dynamic pricing, I was struck by how little dynamism there is in conference pricing. He’s talking about e-books when he says this, but what a great ideas for conferences: “you could reward the market for getting excited. What if the price for everyone drops if enough people pre-order it?”

Anyone game to give it a try? Any other interesting pricing incentives people are using these days to get on-the-fencers to sign up?

Ever wonder why you’re getting ever-decreasing returns on your e-mail marketing efforts? Check out this post by Kevin Holland: Our Emails Are So Pretty, Our Messaging So Consistent … I Wonder Why Everybody Ignores Them? Like Kevin, there are some organization’s whose e-mails are absolutely recognizable and always deleted from my in-box before opening. Who knows what I may be missing, but in the flood of hundreds of messages I get daily, a little variety definitely stands out. A little humanity would stand out even more. When I read his examples of two events-related messages Kevin wrote in response to a commenter, my eyes automatically skimmed the first, started skimming the second and stopped as soon as it started getting a little personality.

I know I’m a data point of one, but why not test different ways of e-mailing to small pieces of your list and see what happens. It might be something good, like actually getting their attention.

Picking an e-community tool to use in conjunction with an event can be tough, and it’s getting tougher all the time as new things come onto the market all the time. Thanks to Jeff Hurt, who goes through 14 online e-community options for events.

The only bad thing about reading his post is that I found a few I haven’t explored yet. Oh no!

Mike McAllen posted the top 5 qualities he thinks awesome meeting planners possess. I agree with every one of them! The only thing I can think of to add — and it’s sort of implied in a couple of his qualities — is grace under pressure. And the uncanny ability to simultaneously be completely absorbed in doing one thing while monitoring 20 or 100 other things happening on the periphery.