Boston’s gigantic, beautiful new convention center, the BCEC, opened just in time for a waning in super-huge shows, according to an article in yesterday’s Boston Globe.

When the Macworld Conference & Expo opens tomorrow at the new Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, the 10,000 computer geeks expected to attend will have the run of the massive South Boston meeting hall.

Well, sort of.

While the Macworlders grab their name tags and head for the center’s sprawling exhibit floor, about 1,200 others will be attending a corporate meeting sponsored by German software maker SAP in the meeting rooms upstairs. And chances are that those attending one convention will never encounter participants from the other.

For the convention center, Macworld is the first high-profile show. But the event represents more than an opening; it marks a shift in strategy.

So now it sounds like the plan is to put several smaller shows into the big new venue that was built to draw the rapidly shrinking number of super-events. Good plan, as far as it goes, but now that what seems like every city is either contemplating, in the midst of, or just opening a new or newly expanded center, makes you wonder if it’s worth all the effort and money to build something that’s no longer needed, at least for the short term, doesn’t it?

To receive a weekly blog update, e-mail Sue.

An interesting question posed by Association Meeting’s editor in the May edition of AM Extra e-newsletter brought in a flood of e-mail: How does the commoditization of hotels rooms (attendees going for the lowest price) affect group room blocks?

The answers ranged from chopping blocks by 30 percent, to increasing registration fees to cover meeting space rental, to begging–pardon me, asking–attendees to honor the group rate since that’s what pays the freight for the meeting.

What’s it doing for you these days, association planners?

To receive a weekly blog update, e-mail Sue.

According to an article from Pioneer Press, “More companies are paying attention to director attendance at shareholder meetings. But some say the ‘mundane’ annual affairs don’t much matter.”

Should members of a company’s board of directors attend the annual shareholder meeting? It seems to me that they should, and if the meeting is mundane, shame on the company and the planner. This is the one time to connect with shareholders, and should be taken seriously by all involved—especially in this era of Sarbanes-Oxley and corporate scandals.

To receive a weekly blog update, e-mail Sue.

According to an article on zdnet.com Comdex, once THE tech show, has been cancelled.

“Eric Faurot, vice president of Comdex organizer MediaLive International, revealed the plans in an exclusive interview with CNET News.com, saying the company plans to give Comdex a breather after years of falling attendance, in the number of both attendees and vendors.

“‘We feel that while we could run Comdex profitably this year, it really wouldn’t serve the interests of the broader IT industry,’ he said. The international versions of the show are expected to continue as planned.” The article also says they plan to get it back up and running for 2005. I’m not sure what this means in terms of their long-standing contract with the Las Vegas Convention Center, but my guess is that there’s some scrambling going on.

To receive a weekly blog update, e-mail Sue.

I just ran across an article I wrote for Association Meetings a while back on social, military, educational, religious, and fraternal (SMERF) meetings, and thought this part of it is still pretty funny–and relevant:

You know you’re a SMERF planner when:
* Your social organization’s attendees request rocking chairs so they can soothe the grandkids while debating land economics issues.

* You have to worry about food and beverage attrition not because your people don’t show up, but because they are veterans of the Korean War and they just don’t eat and drink like they used to.

* Your educational group doesn’t need a suite for its board meeting–it needs 4,000 square feet of meeting space.

* Your gospel group brings along a ten-dollar bill and the Ten Commandments, fully intending not to break either one.

To receive a weekly blog update, e-mail Sue.

Earlier in the week I went into a mini-rant about how hard it is to be a semi-vegetarian in a high-protein, low-carb-crazed meeting world. Then I got to thinking maybe it’s just me, and that meetings really aren’t going Atkins-friendly. Not, at least, not according to the results of MPI’s latest poll, where 76 percent of respondents said they were “seeing a trend toward more healthy/unique food and beverage choices at meetings in response to popular diets such as Atkins and South Beach.”

OK, I know it works for a lot of people. As for me, I’ll just keep telling myself that this too shall pass…

To receive a weekly blog update, e-mail Sue.

I remember a few years ago at the annual Religious Conference Management conference, they had an artist drawing to music as part of the final night’s gala. He was spectacular, and it was amazing to watch the paintings unfold before our eyes. Well, HCEA took this a step further this morning with its keynoter Erik Wahl, who warmed us up by painting an abstract Statue of Liberty to the tune, “Proud to be an American.” But this guy did so much more than paint. His subject was how the creative process can improve business, but that sounds so dry…

One thing he did was ask us to take off our watches and put them on the other wrist. Try it—harder than it looks, isn’t it? Even as I type this, the watch on my right wrist is banging against the laptop in a way I’m not used to; I have to type differently, which makes me sit differently…there’s a whole chain reaction, just from something as small as that.

We obviously do get stuck in doing things the same old way, and doing often translates into seeing, which translates into how we envision the future. Another example he used was to ask us what half of the number 8 is. We all knew, of course, the answer was four. But, he pointed out, it also could be zero if you bisect the figure itself vertically, or 3 or E if you bisect it horizontally. One kid once told him that it could be a bird flying sideways.

What can we do to think like we did when we were kids, when nothing was impossible and everything was a question, before we began to tell ourselves that we are defined by our limitations instead of our possibilities? What can we do in our businesses, jobs, and personal lives to stop competing and playing the same old game, and take a step back and change the game completely? I’ll be meeting tonight with a few of my cyber friends from the MIMlist listserv, and I hope to get that discussion underway, since these are some seriously bright people I’ll be dining with. Here’s hoping we come up with something worth sharing with my virtual friends here in blogland.

To receive a weekly blog update, e-mail Sue.

Our company, Primedia Business, recently held an “editorial summit,” where editors from magazines throughout the company gathered to share ideas, brainstorm, and learn from each other.

I wasn’t able to attend, unfortunately, but my colleagues who went just rave about it. In fact, in a post-meeting attendee survey, 91 percent of respondents said they were anywhere from satisfied to ecstatic about it. And the company’s working to keep the momentum going by posting materials on the corporate intranet, and launching an Editorial Summit Forum. I am so glad to work for a company that “gets it” when it comes to face-to-face meetings.

The other thing that really strikes me about this is how amazing it is that the Summit wasn’t planned by a professional meeting planner, but by some brave folks in our marketing department who, from the sound of it, must be reading our magazines! I wonder how many other part-time planners are out there putting together equally amazing events, to no fanfare?

To receive a weekly blog update, e-mail Sue.

That was the subject line of an e-mail I got this morning from a reader who said he had just “stumbled across (and was intrigued by) your article My Top 10 Reasons to Bolt.” He explained that Tufte is an expert on the display of information (his “Visual Display of Quantitative Information” is on the amazon.com “best 100 nonfiction books of the 20th century”).

For those who, like me, have some issues with PowerPoint-laden lectures, he suggests
The Cognitive Style of Power Point, a pamphlet in which Tufte demonstrates why PowerPoint presentations(especially when used with “wizards”) convey so little information.

Having just spent three days at a conference that exhibited PowerPoint use at its best and worst (mostly worst), I’m putting in my order today!

A friend recently sent me a link to this site on Buddhism. Being the bizarre person that I am, I found not only lots of food for thought, but a quote every meeting planner should take to heart when designing an educational program: “True wisdom is not simply believing what we are told but instead experiencing and understanding truth and reality.”

I know, not every program is intended to help people develop true wisdom, but wouldn’t it be great if that were the case?

Happy Friday!