I’m kind of surprised hotels haven’t been doing this long before now, but it sounds like a few are starting to use RFID chips to keep track of their linens—and nab towel thieves before they sneak out the door with their ill-gotten goods. One hotel says it’s already saving $16,000 a month in pool towel theft reduction.

As someone who tries to keep luggage to carry-on size (and I know from the stuffed state of the overhead bins these days that I’m far from alone) and has no interest in snagging hotel linens, I would think the fee for having to check a bag big enough to stuff a towel in would pretty much cancel out the value of the towel and make them not worth stealing. It sounds like it’s still a big, expensive problem, and this could be an easy solution. I am curious how they confront the towel thieves, though. Talk about awkward!

That’s what it sounds like upon reading Maureen O’Dowd’s Stripped of Dignity editorial in today’s New York Times. After railing about the various indignities and abusive searches in the news lately, she ends with John Pistole, the T.S.A. chief, saying “they are trying to move past a ‘one-size-fits-all’ program and implement a ‘risk-based, intelligence-driven process’ by the end of the year that would have more refined targeting. If passengers are willing to share the same information they give to airline frequent-flier programs, he said, maybe some day they will be able to ‘keep their jacket on and their laptop in their briefcase and hang on to that unfinished bottle of water.’”

That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?

Just wanted to let everyone know that the free webinar we put on last week on how to use social media to market your events is now available for viewing on demand. Here’s the link.

Update: How cool is this? Ellie Bayrd at the Meetings Blog has posted some of her top takeaways from the webinar.

Thursday’s the big day: We’re holding our free webinar on how to use social media to market events at 2 p.m. Eastern. I’ve been having a great time working with our panelists on this (I’ll be moderating), and I can tell you these folks have some great info lined up for you.

We’re starting off with Lara McCulloch-Carter, who it turns out is even smarter than I thought she was. In addition to being the chief brand storyteller for her company, READY2SPARK, Lara also founded #eventprofs, a thriving online community. Lara will talk about who your attendees are these days (and how to find them online), how to develop content that they just can’t resist, and how to avoid common problems event marketers run into when they begin to integrate social media into their efforts. Then Kate Slonaker, director of marketing for Cvent, will talk about how event marketers can use Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to reach their potential audience where they live.

Rounding out the lineup is Julius Solaris, founder of the Event Manager Blog and the popular Event Management LinkedIn Group. Julius will give tips on how to grow your Facebook Page, Twitter account, blog or Youtube channel, and measure your return on investment.

So c’mon down and join us at 2 p.m. EST on April 14. (Did I mention that it’s free?) If for some reason you can’t make it tomorrow, the webinar also will be available on demand afterward. Also, please feel free to follow along on the Twitter hashtag, #event2pt0, and definitely swing by that Twitter hashtag afterward because Lara, Kate, Julius, and I will be there to answer questions and continue the conversation.

Could it be that meetings of the future will be avatar-only, while we humans get to stay at our desks? And if, as this article on the advent of technology that makes true, productive 3-D digital meetings possible really has arrived, what does that mean for us humans? Do we get to goof off while our avatars do all the work? There are lots of funky implications that I hadn’t thought about before, but no matter how good the technology may be, I still think the best way to meet is in person, not in avatar. Then again, I haven’t experienced a true 3-D digital meeting, so maybe I could be persuaded to think otherwise?

Any ode to the airlines would have to begin, “How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways.” (Apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her famed Sonnet #43.) There is the meanness, the unsafeness, the overcharges and fees, the losing of the luggage, the lateness … and yes, airlines, we travelers notice these things. And rank you on them. Witness this article summing up who we think are the meanest, latest, most overchargingest (I know, not a word) airlines in the U.S. Enjoy.

No matter how much tiger blood flows through his veins, Charlie Sheen’s debut show in Detroit was nothing short of a disaster. As Tom Asacker points out in this brilliant article (link to PDF download), “He seemed to believe that ‘Charlie Sheen’ was the brand, and that people were exchanging their time and money simply to be in the presence of ‘the Warlock.’” Though they lack the “wild and crazy” promise, it reminds me of some association shows to that still think people should come just because it’s the industry show, then blame attendees for their dissatisfaction with the experience. It’s not enough to have a good brand—you have to be able to deliver (preferably over-deliver) on your brand’s promise.

What else can conference and convention organizers learn from Charlie?

A big challenge for most, if not all, of the meetings I’ve gone to in recent years is the ending. We generally start off with a bang—someone with inside information on industry trends, or a motivational speaker of some kind, or a big production number—and work out way through the conference in a mix of sessions, hallway conversations, impromptu meetings after hours in the lobby bar, etc., etc.

But the end is always such a throwaway. For some reason, everyone is so focused on catching planes and getting home that we miss the chance to put the conference away right. I’m one of the biggest offenders, although I will stay to the bitter end of for a Malcolm Gladwell presentation, even while suffering the early pangs of what turned out to be a heck of a flu. But the energy just isn’t there 98.6 percent of the time, and we all know it, so we all book as soon as we see an opening.

Not so with this year’s Pharmaceutical Meeting Management Forum, which we co-sponsor with The Center for Business Intelligence (warning: I may be a touch biased). A big part of the reason why the energy carried through to the end? I blame this little lady (and I do mean little—she packs a lot of attitude into a small Australian package):

This is productivity expert and author Neen James, and if you were at the Forum last week in Philadelphia, you probably met her. I know you heard her unique voice at some point. She was there at the opening reception, in the front row at general sessions, tweeting from breakouts, mingling on the show floor…the woman was everywhere, meeting everyone, and if the rest of the participants were like me, you kind of had to stick around to hear her final general session presentation on productivity.

We learned if we were planners, crammers, or slammers, night owls, early birds, or hummingbirds, and how to conquer the world in 15 minutes. We made pacts with each other to check in and make sure we’re following through on commitments. It was nothing short of awesome, and left us feeling connected to each other, still a community, instead of already breaking off to rejoin our life outside of that community.

Then Christine Duffy, the conference chairwoman, picked up where Neen left off, leading a discussion of some of the key learning points people had at the conference. And while that’s a great way to keep what we learned top of mind, it can get a little, well, dull, or at least overly earnest. Not this time.

Before it could begin to get bogged down, the fabulous troupe from Boston’s Improv Asylum took over the stage to illustrate some of the points in their inimitable way. I took some iPhone videos of it, but you really can’t hear what they’re saying over our laughter so I won’t bother to post them. But they kept the energy high right until we walked out the door, and even then I felt like I could go a few more rounds. And I definitely felt like I didn’t want to wait a whole year before I could hang out with these people I’d just been sharing laughs and experiences with again.

The experience just brought it home to me how often we don’t put as much thought into how we end our meetings as we do to everything that leads up to it. This was like a double hot fudge sundae after a great meal, when all too often we just get a mental toothpick.