Saw this on BoingBoing and had to share. Fake spilled food? Yup, that’d work.

Just saw these air-quality balloons on Gizmodo and thought, “wouldn’t these be kind of cool for an environmentally themed reception?” Then I thought, “Hmm, given the air quality in all too many ballrooms, maybe not.” Then again, if they just measure diesel and exhaust fumes, it shouldn’t be too bad. Now if they measured for mold, dust mites, and other indoor-air-quality yucks, that might be a bit more colorful.

Hey, it’s Friday afternoon, why not obsess over air-quality balloons?

After moderating my first webinar yesterday (watch our home page for the archive — should be uploaded within a week. Topic was the rules and regs around pharma meetings for healthcare providers. Update: The link to the archived webinar is here.), I’ve been e-chatting with some people who do a lot of speaking about which is harder, speaking face-to-face to a live audience, or doing a webinar.

I would have thought a webinar would be easier, but I’m hearing that it’s actually more difficult because you don’t have the instant feedback from seeing how people are reacting. Plus there’s more technology to deal with and worry about. One big plus for webinars, I would think, is that people seem much more willing to ask questions and interact, whether through a chat or submitting questions or polling. Then again, that interaction is more anonymous and distanced than what you can achieve face to face.

So what say you, speakers?

And on the flip side, what do you feel on the audience side? I like the ease and convenience of webinars, not having to travel, etc. And I also like being able to shoot out questions as they occur to me, rather than having to wait until the end when I’ve likely forgotten them or can’t find them buried in my notes. But there’s also the distraction factor, which is so much higher when no one can see you fidgeting, pacing, or checking e-mail, and that back-and-forth energy between the speakers and the audience, and among audience members, that is maybe not entirely missing, but definitely different when everyone isn’t in the same space.

Webinars are here to stay, no doubt about it. I’m just wondering how we can bring more of the good aspects of the live experience to the Web, and those of the Web experience to the live?

And what, pray tell, might an EBBI be? It stands for the EventCIO Blog Brilliance & Innovation awards, and I’m inordinately pleased to say this humble face2face blog managed to squeak onto the short list of winners.

Talk about good company: The other four are among my all-time favorites: Jeff Hurt, of course, with his brilliant MidCourse Corrections (awarded the Attendee Engagement & Meetings ROI EBBI); Omnipress’s The Conference Handouts (awarded the Big Picture Thinking & Collaboration EBBI); Mike McCurry’s McCurry’s Corner (awarded the Community Building EBBI); and the amazingly prolific Cvent Blog, which won its Ebbi for being a Meeting Planning Tips Machine (and is it ever!).

F2f got the nod for “Musings and Metrics.” I’m not sure exactly what that means, but we’ll take it. Thanks, EventCIO!

If not, are you prepared to kill an attendee? Keith makes some excellent points about how a good risk manager takes the food prep into account, along with all those other risk factors. And he’s also right that you can’t tell the quality of food safety by the niceness of the facility — I remember back in my teenage years working as a waitress in a very swanky restaurant where we literally picked the cockroaches out of the french onion soup vat before popping on the toast and cheese and broiling it briefly (it was in a very old building, but still, this was our standard of practice. There were tongs dedicated to roach-picking right next to the soup vat). While I’m sure that would never happen nowadays, packing a meat thermometer for a quick check, while it probably would tick off the chef, isn’t a bad idea.

Just when I think they can’t possibly come up with another way to tack on a fee, Spirit Airlines surprises me. And not in a good way. The latest? A fee to talk with a human at the airport (as long as it would be possible to get the task done without human interaction). I’m with Keith Johnston at Event Industry Thoughts on this one: Why would you want to fly an airline that hates you and thinks you’re stupid?

Whether you are, aren’t, or sort of are measuring how green your meeting is, the MeetGreen Martyr wants to know.

She’s conducting a wee little straw poll that will take all of three seconds of your time (scroll down a few lines to get to the poll). Now I’m curious, too.

Have you ever looked at your boarding pass and actually found what you were looking for (gate, departure time, flight number) right off the bat? Me neither. I say we urge the airlines to hire Tyler Thompson to redesign the boarding pass. As he’s already done here (caution: some NSFW language). Much, much better!

(Thanks to Johnnie Moore for the pointer.)

Elizabeth Engel stirred up a hornet’s nest with her post about the launch of TEDWomen, the latest offshoot of the amazing TED conference. Most of the female commenters seem to agree with Elizabeth that holding a separate TED to look at how women are shaping the world is in effect consigning women to a pink meetings ghetto.

I remember agonizing over a series of articles I did on diversity and meetings a few years ago. One of those articles was a compliation of all the tips I’d heard from all the people I interviewed (and I made darn sure they were a diverse bunch) called 17 ways to be more inclusive. Oh did I get some nasty letters on that one! Particularly offensive was the suggestion to consider the idea of giving minorities their own space to meet within the meeting (which was a tip from a consultant on diversity issues). And I was even more surprised that the objections I was hearing came exclusively from white men (yes, I asked).

I’m still a little raw from that go-round, so I think I’ll mostly sit this one out. This I will say: Do I think it’s a good idea to showcase the ways in which women are changing the world for the better? Yes. Do I think this is the way to go about it? Hmm, probably not. Jamie Notter is so right in his explanation of why diversity issues are so hard — those in power don’t, can’t, really, understand where those not in power are coming from, and how they benefit from their power positions, and how their perception of the world can make even the best of intentions be perceived as condescending to those they are trying to show appreciation for.

It is a wicked problem, as Patti Digh would say. But it’s a wicked problem all meeting planners should at least be thinking about: Are your attempts to be more inclusive actually making people feel more marginalized?