Peter Hutchins posts an interesting result from ASAE and The Center’s Technlogy Conference today:

When asked in today’s Technology Conference Town Hall Meeting how many people had been to any form of technology training in the last year, a startling percentage of the room indicated that time had prevented them from taking advantage of any technology learning opportunity.

Do you buy that? I don’t, for reasons I outline in a comment on his post. If you are jazzed about the technology (or aardvark farming, or whatever the topic is), nothing will stop you from learning more about it, on your own time and in your own way if need be. The information’s out there on the Web to learn about pretty much anything, for free in most cases, so why not dive in? But, if you’re not interested, your employer can shove all kinds of training down your throat and you still won’t swallow. The excuse may be that you don’t have time, but the reality is that you don’t have the interest.

I would argue, hard, that these days, if you have the will, you’ll find the way (including time) to learn. If you don’t, any excuse will do, and time is a good one since everyone is so starved for it these days. Funny thing is that time spent learning usually ends up providing you with ways to make each of those precious minutes count a bit more. As Alanis Morissette would say, isn’t it ironic?

According to some planners I’ve been e-chatting with, if association members are happy with their local chapter, they tend to be happy with the organization as a whole. So why, then, don’t more associations play up the chapter aspect in their annual meetings?

PCMA tends to do a really good job with this, IMHO, though it’s been a few years since I attended. But they had fun teambuilding sorts of events that pit the chapters against each other to do silly things like write a song about their area and perform it in front of everyone. I’ve also seen some “Jeopardy” type sessions that have representatives of the various chapters as contestants. The energy level goes through the roof, and people who may not have been active in their local chapter (such as moi) get to know people and want to do more with like-minded folks in their area.

Seems like everyone would benefit, especially if the chapter challenges were really fun and involving (if anyone has done anything interesting along these lines, please let me know. I’m looking for ideas we could use in a professional association I’m involved with!).

An article we ran online last week, MPI PEC-Europe: Passover Problem in 2008?, caused a lot of chatter on the two meetings industry listservs. Most, if not all, who talked about it were shocked and appalled that MPI would schedule its Europe conference over Passover, but believe it or not, it seems to be fairly common to have events scheduled over holidays of one sort or another. Not saying it’s right, just that it happens.

As the stuff hit the fan last week, I found out about two other events for meeting professionals coming up in the next year that fall over religious holidays. It wasn’t meant as a slap in the face in either case. It was more a matter of those dates being the only ones they could get during the time window and price point they needed. Both organizers were worried about how to handle it, given that they really couldn’t change the dates. This isn’t an excuse, but it is the reality some planners have to deal with.

Call me crazy, but I think a little transparency and thoughtfulness goes a long to mitigate the fallout from a scheduling snafu. If the organizers explained the situation, apologized, promised to do better in the future, and asked what they could do to accommodate those who would like to attend but still want to celebrate their holiday (it could be as serious as a religious holiday or just something like the Superbowl), attendees would likely be at least a little more forgiving.

That’s what the organizer of my hometown’s annual fall festival just did when she inadvertently scheduled this year’s Grotonfest over Yom Kippur. She wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper apologizing, explaining, and promising to do better in the future.

To prevent future faux pas, planners can check with the numerous holiday calendars out there, including Earth Calendar and the International Holiday Calendar. I know that sometimes you just can’t help but do it when faced with unmovable dates and inflexible rate needs, but there’s no excuse for just not knowing your dates fall over a holiday.

At least, ASAE and the Center’s Prometheus Leadership program, which sounds incredible from what I’ve been hearing about it, is going away, and some people are none too happy about it. Ben at Certified Association Executive gives a good accounting of the dust-up that’s been going on around this program. I didn’t know anything about it until I started hearing that it was ending, but it appears it was a well-loved type of unconference, where whoever comes are the right people to be there, and whatever happens is what’s meant to happen. It was a small, intense, intimate, and very effective learning program, from what I’m hearing.

In fact, I hear that some are so upset that they’re thinking about doing it on their own, totally separate from ASAE and the Center. I think that’s cool. I’m involved in something similar, and it’s, well, almost magical in the connections that are made, and the learning that is done on site and continues throughout the year.

I’ve been e-talking with some folks about this phenomenon of why associations are always pushing “bigger is better” when it comes to their meetings, while they often ignore the power of small, intense programs, even when they can charge a premium for them. If I had a penny for every press release I’ve gotten touting the record attendance of this or that meeting, I wouldn’t be driving a Subaru, let me tell you. I know the basic math: More attendees=more money for the organization. But I can’t believe it’s all about the money—I honestly do believe that associations care about the educational benefits of what they’re offering.

But maybe associations aren’t the right people to be taking on these smaller unconferences. As Ben suggests, maybe it should be more of a grassroots effort: “ASAE rids itself of a program that is highly valued by a few, but doesn’t deliver an acceptable ROI. The program continues for those that are willing to support it.” The problem is, as we all know, not everyone can plan a meeting, and putting it in non-planner hands could be a disaster.

I don’t have any answers, but I sure would love to see more of these small unconferences in the meeting planner/hospitality space. I know that these are where I learn best, and I don’t think I’m the only one.

Hugh at Gaping Void issued a challenge to his readers to write a manifesto on something near and dear to their hearts—and to keep it under 500 words. Since I’ve done a fair amount of thinking about what I think makes meetings meaningful (both what to do and what not to do), I boiled it down to this.

Here are some ways we can change the world, one meeting at a time:

1. Provide access to big, relevant brains. It doesn’t matter if they’re the keynote speakers, session leaders, or other attendees–invite people who understand where participants are coming from, and where they can go.
2. Provide content that will wake up and shake up attendees. Take them out of their comfort zone and into the realm of possibility.
3. Show, don’t tell. Better yet, shoot your PowerPoint projector and let attendees take an idea for a test drive.
4. Surprise and delight attendees. Make it fun, make it interactive. Toys are cool, too.
5. Ignite their passion and touch their emotions.
6. Provide opportunities for meaningful conversations, not just business card exchanges.
7. Provide takeaways, and follow up to see how people are using what they learned.
8. Blow something up—whether it’s the usual lecture format or a leading misconception, dynamite something to make way for something new.
9. Content may be king, but presentation counts: Don’t make people sit in the dark, peering at too-small graphics on a big screen.
10. Ban jargon-heavy, acronym-laden speeches. Use ordinary, understandable language.
11. Give them time to absorb what they learned.
12. Deliver on your promises.
13. Know your audience. Trust your audience. Treat your audience with respect.
14. Meet people where they live, then show them how they can discover the knowledge and tools they need to spruce up the neighborhood.

Am I missing any major points here?

The New York Times has this story from a reporter who was on board the corporate jet that collided with the 737 that went down in Brazil last week, killing all on board. And then I think of those innocent girls in their Pennsylvania schoolhouse, who one minute were learning their sums, and the next shot by a madman.

Along with some things that have been going on in my personal life lately, it reminds me once again how quickly and completely life can change, how the vagaries of fate provide a miraculous landing to one plane’s passengers, and a fiery death to the other’s. Safety to one school’s kids, horror to another’s. It also reminds me to appreciate each minute of each day, savor every experience as if it could be my last. Because it could be. It’s so easy to sleepwalk through the day, lulled by routine and familiarity. But really, this moment is all we have for sure. I plan to make the most of it.

Check out this “Happy Hunting” guide from Dentyne gum, designed to help women land men, and men land women. OK, icky enough. But then check out the “backstory” section, where they advise women to memorize a made-up story about being a professional cheerleader, or being in a commercial as a kid; and guys to fake having been a caddy on a PGA tour, or to say they once played a dead guy on CSI. So, we’re all so boring we have to lie about who we are and what we’ve done to get someone interested? As Susan on A Bird’s Eye View says, “Are they nuts? Or am I? Are people seriously interested in meeting potential dates whose conversations are built on a totally phony premise?”

Can you imagine doing this at a networking event, just making up stuff to catch someone’s attention, like, say, you planned a national political convention, or the Superbowl, or whatever? So they’re impressed, and they call you, and they want to hire you or work with you in some way. At what point do you ‘fess up, in either your personal or professional life? OK, so I understand that the Dentyne thing is supposed to be funny and viral, but it is such a commentary on the value of flash over substance in our society that I couldn’t let it pass by unremarked.

This one will, without a doubt, somewhere, somehow come back to bite you. I know people do pad their resumes, and pump up their experiences to sound more interesting than perhaps they were, so caveat emptor, folks. While I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my time, I never did this one. I guess I’m lucky in that every time I’ve done something stupid, I’ve been caught, usually in the most embarrassing way possible. Every time. It’s a great incentive not to go there—honest.

I just saw an interesting post on the Soflow Creative Forum (subscription req’d) that made me think. The poster posited:

There will always be the mediocre guy, right? The one with half-baked ideas and weak weltanschauung that invariably invites the roll of the eyes or the sailing of the palm over the head indicating “clueless”.

Does mediocrity play an important part by showing/reminding creatives “where not to go”? He’s the fall guy, the brunt of endless humor, the targeted laugh of the day.

Where would we be without the guy who does the boring stuff, the tedious busy work that no one wants to get stuck with?

Or where would we be without the lukewarm work of someone else?

If we were all instense, amazing, prolific and wonderful artists, then what?

Meeting planning to me seems like a mix of the creative and the prosaic—at least on the surface. But even the most prosaic parts, say, registration or bag-stuffing, also has lots of room for creativity (I was so proud of myself for coming up with a better way to stuff bags at our first annual Pharmaceutical Meeting Planners Forum). Is there a place in meeting planning for mediocrity, if for no other reason than to make the stars shine brighter? I understand the need for the “workhorses” who just get it done, but I’d argue that there really isn’t.

But I was surprised at the answers the original poster got, which ranged from “mediocrity is just a matter of semantics” to “in some organizations, it’s better to be ‘in the safe zone’ of mediocrity than to stick your neck out to try something different.” Is that why so many meetings are mediocre, because planners are afraid to step out of the safe zone for fear that the neck that sticks out gets chopped? Or is it just inertia, the “we’ve always done it that way so why mess with success” syndrome?

David McCann wrote an interesting post on MISoapbox about MPI’s recent focus on return on investment, and whether or not that focus is setting planners up to fail (he thinks it is—read his post for arguments as to why he thinks this might be). I wasn’t able to attend this year’s MPI WEC in Dallas, but he says people he spoke with there are not all on the ROI bus on this one.

In a comment on his post, meeting industry maven Joan Eisenstodt points out that ROI isn’t all about dollars and cents, but also about what participants take away from the meeting. While I understand the increasing business need to prove meetings are worth the time and money being spent on them (and Sarbannes-Oxley reporting requirements just turned the heat up higher on this one), so much of the real value to the bottom line is intangible, and you’re not going to get at it by just doing the math on dollars spent versus dollars increased afterward.

For example, say I attended a journalism conference and came away with a better way of writing a story (I know, it’s not possible that I could write any better than I do, but let’s go hypothetical here ; o). Will ad sales increase as a result? Maybe, but I highly doubt it. Will I save the company money by using this new technique? Maybe, but probably not. In fact, I may end up costing the company more money by researching using a more expensive-but-better resource, or whatever. Will it make our magazine more valuable to readers? I would think so, but there’s no way to put a pricetag on that, is there? That’s the problem with trying to measure values that are more abstract than concrete.

Plus, and I’m sorry to say this, folks, it’s pretty well-established in the literature that adults generally don’t put something into practice after attending a one-time session unless it’s a serious no-brainer improvement. We need to be “touched” with the new knowledge at least seven times before it sinks in and we start using it—assuming we buy into it being a better way of doing things than what we had been doing. And there could be barriers to implementing the change that no education can address (say our budget won’t allow me to use that new resource I learned about, so I can’t do it, even if it would result in better articles). So expecting bottomline results from a one-time event is fairly unrealistic. It needs to be measured over time, in increments, with reinforcements.

And how many people measure results beyond the basic meeting evaluation form, anyway? Only once, ever, has someone followed up with me after a conference to see if I was using what I’d learned (and to my eternal embarrassment, while I remembered loving the session, I couldn’t even remember what it was about, much less anything I learned, much less anything I learned that I was using). Continuing medical education providers are the only ones I know who are really doing much in measuring the outcomes of their activities in terms of changed behavior, but even they are stymied by the high cost of this type of research, and the difficulties in getting good, objective data to work with.

Suffice to say that I think the ROI push is putting the cart before the horse. First we need to know what attendees really need to know to improve their performance, then we need to design the meeting so it will be most effective at addressing that need (if it’s a straight knowlege data dump, a lecture could work. But if you’re trying to change attitudes or beliefs about something, you need a whole different design). Then you have to measure how well that need was met on an educational level. Then you go back and measure, preferably after a period of time has passed, what people are doing differently as a result. And if you want them to be doing things differently, you’ll be following up with reminders, tip sheets, webinars, podcasts, papers, etc., to reinforce the learning and make it sticky enough that they’ll make some changes.

Then you can try to put some dollar value to those changes. Without all those other pieces, I have a hard time believing that any ROI study is going to come up with results anyone wants to share with the big brass. After all, who wants to measure ROI only to find it in the red?

I’ve been doing some more thinking about Guy Kawasaki’s ideas on creating community, and all that’s involved to make one work in a virtual environment.

The benefits, as Guy outlines, are many. The only problem, as I see it, is that both corporations and associations are terrified to lose control of the conversation. What if someone says something bad about the organization, or innapropriate, or downright libelous? By providing the resources and encouraging the community, is the organization liable for what that community says and does? The American Society of Business Publication Editors is soliciting members to submit their blogs for a member blog directory to be hosted on ASBPE’s site, which already contains links to blogs of interest to business-to-business publishers. If their member-bloggers (disclaimer: I’m one of them, as well as being on my local chapter’s board)

Apropos of nothing, other than I thought this was funny, Apple Computer Inc. has embedded a cute little poem to warn people not to hack OSX:

Your karma check for today: There once was a user that whined/his existing OS was so blind/he’d do better to pirate/an OS that ran great/but found his hardware declined./Please don’t steal Mac OS!/Really, that’s way uncool./(C) Apple Computer, Inc.