That’s what Kristi Casey Sanders asks in this interesting post about how what’s hip today might become passé, presentation-format-wise. Plus she includes a great list of tips (and she’s funny).

I had been looking forward to this one because, while I’m not sure Richard Saul Wurman’s done the world a favor by unleashing a million TED knockoffs (then again, I shouldn’t blame him for others piggybacking on an idea that may not be a great fit for their meeting) and I’m not convinced his www.www conference format is all that (then again, as he said, he doesn’t care, since he didn’t invite me anyway).

From the abrupt introduction—here he is—to the abrupt end—I might as well stop now since I got a laugh—he was not everyone’s cup of tea, but I was delighted through and through. What a cranky, unique, fearless individual he is. He created TED because “I wanted to design a meeting I’d want to be at. I did TED because I wanted to do it.”

He described the designing process for TED as one of subtraction: He took out panels, dress codes (he cut off the tie of anyone who dared to wear one), took out the podium (which he described as just something to protect your groin and to give you a place to put papers to read off of—and “who wants to be read to?”). Meetings, he said, are made up of small things that make people feel comfortable so they can learn.

He talked a bit about his new www.www conference, which he’s again designing through subtraction (no tickets, no presentations, no set schedule). One thing that sounds interesting is how he plans to disseminate the conference later, which is going to be in black-and-white film available online that will offer customizable ways to find out more about each of the discussion participants. Basically, again looking to create a conference he’d like to be a part of, he’s looking for a modality that allows people to create their own experience based on what they’re interested in.

He went on for a while about a fable he created in his books What If, Could Be and 33. I won’t go into it, but it involved turning everything into its opposite (example: copyright becomes right to copy. Note to self: Buy these books. They sound really interesting.).

More favorite quotes:
“I don’t show visuals because I don’t want to be a caption.”
“The more famous you are, the shorter the introduction.”
“Learning is remembering what you’re interested in.”
“I’ve tended to fail sideways throughout my life.”
“Humor is not trivial: It’s the opposite of expectation.” (He said this just before reeling off some of my favorite Stephen Wright one-liners, like, “Everything is within walking distance if you have enough time.”)
“We live in the age of also.” (As in, you can do it this way, and also that way.)

And in case this wasn’t eclectic enough, he ended up with a quick biomimicry example of learning a better way to peel a banana by watching an ape do it. I actually learned this one a few years ago and have been peeling my bananas from the bottom up ever since. I later on in the afternoon got into a really interesting conversation about what else we can learn about meetings from mimicking what nature perfected a long time ago. Stay tuned for more on that one…

Let’s not even talk about going to the gym more, getting the right number of hours of sleep each night, and pushing away from the Buche de Noel—despite all our good intentions, we just know those resolutions won’t last past Valentine’s Day.

So instead let’s make some resolutions that will make the meetings industry, and hopefully meetings themselves, slimmer, healthier, and more joyous places to be in 2012. Here are a few off the top of my head (in no particular order):

1. Make meetings smaller. I know, we all like to brag about attracting thousands, tens of thousands, scads and scads of people to our events. But if you want to actually get something done, form real bonds, and really learn from each other, give me a small meeting over a monster mash any day.

2. Adjust the session length to what that session needs, not what slot is available in the schedule. That doesn’t mean cramming in more content, but right-sizing each session so those that need lots of discussion time and followup can have it, while those that would be best served by a Pecha Kucha format can do just that. PCMA plans to do this in January at its Convening Leaders conference, and I can’t wait to see how this works in real life. The concept, IMHO, is awesome.

3. Teach your teachers well. They may know their subject matter cold, but if they’re not also experts in facilitating learning, all that content expertise will likely go to waste.

4. Engage the senses, get interactive, wake up your audience to all those wonderful things you’re trying to let them in on!

5. Allow for some downtime, some blank space, some time to take in, assimilate, and apply what people are learning. Why we just shake our heads and laugh ruefully about how the best conversations take place in the hallways without trying to make them an even easier, more organic part of a conference, I’ve never understood. Give them social objects they will enthusiastically focus their learning around, talk with each other about, make them think about how to apply what they learn to what they do.

6. It’s OK to have fun. Really. I know this is a deadly serious conference about X, and all those Y participants are very, very important people. But the keyword is still “people,” and people who laugh together, learn together.

7. Do well by doing good, be it reducing your meeting’s carbon footprint or finding a way to give back to your meeting’s locale. There are so many great ideas out there at every price point that there’s really no excuse for not doing at least something to make your meeting a greener, better world citizen.

8. Find a way to include your virtual audience (and yes, you likely have a virtual audience whether you planned to have one or not). Unless everyone signs confidentiality agreements on the way in the door, at least some of your participants will be tweeting and Facebooking and whatever else social-networking your conference, even for the most decidedly non-hybrid of meetings. Accept it, embrace it, and help those not in the room get at least a taste of what the on-site goodies are from your organization’s point of view.

9. Have a plan in place going in to a meeting to deal with any possible PR fallout from a meeting. This goes for both hoteliers and meetings managers. Just think how much less ink “Muffingate” would have gotten if both sides could have instantly countered the perception with the reality of what that $16 muffin was all about? How much less a hit this business would have taken from the so-called “AIG Effect” if we had been able to explain a boon from a boondoggle from the get-go?

10. Free WiFi for all, everywhere.

I could go on, but I’m in a post-holiday daze at the moment and need to go replenish my blood sugar levels. So you take the reins—what’s on your list?

Robert A. Rauch, CHA, outlines his top 10 trend picks for hotels in the coming year. Among them:

-Look for more capital reinvestment in renovations and refurbishments (I foresee a lot of press releases in my future).

-More online and mobile device booking, and more social media interaction with travelers

-Up but uneven rates and occupancy, where rebounds depend on the destination

What do you see coming next year on the meetings side? Here’s what AMEX thinks is coming.

From snow showers to “amusement park” spas (can’t help but wonder what those might be?! Just looked it up—the Arctic Ice Room at Caesars Palace in Vegas includes falling snow) to “eyebrow coaches” (seriously?!), here are the latest spa trends around the world, according to SpaFinder. Who knew there was a health and beauty Facebook game named Spa Life? Obviously, not me, but then again, I’m not much of a spa person. I’ve never even heard the term “blingy beauty” before today—I must live a sheltered life.

Can you even imagine how cool this must have been in person if it’s this amazing on video?

Thanks to @JeffHurt and Conference Basics for the pointers.

Last week I heard about a cool research project the Velvet Chainsaw folks are doing with association learning trend research company Tagoras, and thought you might want to consider participating.

If you use industry and professional speakers at conferences with 500 or more attendees, you’re right on target for the survey, which I hear only takes about 10 minutes to complete. Those who participate get a synopsis of the results and the chance to win a $50 gift card, but I think the real prize will be that synopsis.

You can read more about the survey here, or click here to take it.

The Center for Exhibition Industry Research has been putting together a performance index of the various industry sectors for 12 years now. This year they put together an infographic that shows how key indicators (attendees, exhibitors, square footage, revenue) stack up for each market niche, and includes some predictions on how things may be going in those niches over the next few years (click on the graphic to enlarge it to an almost readable size).

So if you’re in the consumer goods/retail trade, food, or government sector, pull out your shades because things are getting brighter all the time for trade shows in those areas. Healthcare, which happens to be my niche, is looking a lot iffier. We’ll have to see how this all plays out to see if they’re right or not, but it’s interesting.

(Thanks to Defying Convention for the pointer!)

Think again.

(Thanks to @cmeadvocate for the link to this new version, though I think I like the background music better in the older one.)

I haven’t yet read these two case studies in innovation, but having read about them, I’m going to print them out and bring them along for vacation reading next week. OK, maybe not, but definitely when I get back home.

EventCamp Twin Cities and Game ON!: GMIC Introduces Game Design for Face-to-Face Meetings (Both can be downloaded from the link.)