ISSUE
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THE TECHNOLOGY ISSUE
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March 2010 • Volume 3 • Number 3
In It Together
EDITORIAL STAFF
EDITOR IN CHIEF David R. Basler, dbasler@mpiweb.org
MANAGING EDITOR Blair Potter, bpotter@mpiweb.org
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Michael Pinchera, mpinchera@mpiweb.org
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Jason Hensel, jhensel@mpiweb.org
ASSISTANT EDITOR Jessie States, jstates@mpiweb.org
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jeff Daigle, jdaigle@mpiweb.org
Smart Uses of
Technology = Success
DESIGN AND PREPRESS Sherry Gritch, SG2Designs, sherry@sgproductions.net
COVER DESIGN Jason Judy, jjudy@mpiweb.org
MPI ADVERTISING STAFF
Denise Autorino, dautorino@mpiweb.org, Phone: (407) 233-7305
(FL, GA, Canada, Caribbean, Central America, Mexico, South America)
Cheri DeLand, cdeland@mpiweb.org, Phone: (410) 822-4810
(AK, AZ, CA, HI, ID, NV, OR, WA)
Antonio Ducceschi, Director of Sales/Partnership Development-EMEA,
aducceschi@mpiweb.org, Phone: + 352 26 87 66 63
(Europe, Middle East and Africa)
WIRED MAGAZINE PREDICTED THAT IN 2010 THE MEETING AND
Katri Laurimaa, klaurimaa@mpiweb.org, Phone: (817) 251-9891
(AL, AR, CO, IA, IL, KS, KY, LA, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NM, OK,
SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, WY)
EVENT INDUSTRY WOULD SEE A 500 PERCENT INCREASE IN VIRTUAL
Sandy Lavery, sandylavery@mpiweb.org, Phone: (301) 254-2423
(CT, DC, DE, IN, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, VA, VT, WI, WV)
MEETINGS. When you look back at the state of virtual meetings just two
Carolyn Nyquist, Manager of Client Services, cnyquist@mpiweb.org,
Phone: (972) 702-3002
years ago, that’s an absolutely staggering statistic.
The development of virtual meetings that work, the introduction of
hybrid events, the transition of e-mail to products such as Google Wave, the
implementation of smartphone apps for the purposes of connecting people
quicker and easier—these are all new, growing and seemingly ubiquitous
technologies.
But I can’t tell you how many times I hear the same question from our
multi-generational community: “How do I use these technologies effectively?” It doesn’t matter whether you’re young or old, experienced or new to
the industry, these new technologies are just that—new. The key is learning
the little quirks that make each technology important and useful to our sector
of business.
Most everyone in business can plug in a computer camera and run a wellplanned teleconference, but the same cannot be said about a successful virtual
meeting. The technology is still working its way into popularity, and the concept still has somewhat of a stigma of uncertainty attached to it.
In the pages of this issue you’ll learn more about virtual/
hybrid meetings and how they’ll increasingly became an integral
part of our industry
indust in the coming year (Page 82). Our hope
is to continue the dialogue that began at our MeetDifferent
conference in Cancun
Canc late last month—a successful example of
a hybrid meeting (see
(s the conference wrap-up story in the April
issue of One+).
One+)
In this
thi issue, we’ll also introduce you to Google
Wave and how it could easily transform how you
communicate
every day (Page 88), and we’ll show
comm
you some hot new apps you absolutely must
have
hav on your smartphone (Page 92).
Most important, we hope to get you thinking “outside the box.” Success is all about connecting—either
in person or virtually. Either
n
way,
technology is going to play a role.
w
That’s the one thing everyone can agree on.
Kathryn Welzenbach, Publications Coordinator, kwelzenbach@mpiweb.org
MPI EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT
Bruce M. MacMillan, C.A., President and CEO
Jeff Busch, Vice President of Strategic Communications
Meg Fasy, Vice President of Sales and Marketplace Performance
Vicki Hawarden, CMP, Vice President of Knowledge and Events
Diane Hawkins, SPHR, Director of People and Performance
Greg Lohrentz, Chief Financial Officer/COO
Sandra Riggins, Director of Governance and Chief of Staff
Didier Scaillet, Vice President of Global Development
Junior Tauvaa, Vice President of Member Care and Chapter Business Management
INTERNATIONAL BOARD OF DIRECTORS
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Chairwoman of the Board
Ann Godi, CMP, Benchmarc360 Inc.
Chairman-elect
Eric Rozenberg, CMP, CMM, Swantegy
Vice Chairman of Finance
Craig Ardis, CMM, Mannatech Inc.
Vice Chairman
Kevin Kirby, Hard Rock International
Vice Chairman
Sebastien Tondeur, MCI Group Holding SA
Immediate Past Chairman
Larry Luteran, Hilton Hotels Corp.
BOARD MEMBERS
Chuck Bowling, MGM MIRAGE
Matt Brody, CHSP, JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort and Spa
Paul Cunningham, IIMC International Information Management Corporation
Cindy D’Aoust, Maxvantage
Luca Favetta, SAP SA
Chris Gasbarro, C3 llc
Caroline Hill, Eventful Solutions
Kevin Hinton, hinton+grusich
Issa Jouaneh, PENG MBA, American Express
Patty Reger, CMM, Johnson & Johnson Sales and Logistics Company LLC
David Scypinski, ConferenceDirect
Carl Winston, San Diego State University
Margaret Moynihan, CMP (MPI Foundation Board Representative), Deloitte
Jonathan T. Howe, Esq. (Legal Counsel), Howe & Hutton Ltd.
POSTMASTER: One+ (Print ISSN: 1943-1864, Digital Edition ISSN: 1947-6930)
is published monthly by Meeting Professionals International (MPI), a professional
association of meeting + event planners and suppliers. Send address changes
to One+, Meeting Professionals International, 3030 LBJ Freeway, Suite 1700,
Dallas, TX, 75234-2759. Periodicals postage paid at Dallas, Texas, and
additional mailing offices.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: Members receive One+ as a membership benefit paid for
by membership dues. Nonmembers may subscribe to the publication for $99
annually. “One+” and the One+ logo are trademarks of MPI. © 2009, Meeting
Professionals International, Printed by RR Donnelley
REPRINTS: Material in this publication may not be reproduced in any form
without written permission. To order reprints, call Wright’s Reprints toll free at
(877) 652 5295 or visit www.wrightsreprints.com.
CONTACT ONE+: Contact us online at www.mpioneplus.org or e-mail us at
editor@mpiweb.org. View our advertising, editorial and reprint policies online
at www.mpioneplus.org.
MPI VISION: Build a rich global meeting industry community
GLOBAL HEADQUARTERS:
Dallas, TX
DAVID R. BASLER is editor in chief of One+. He
can be reached at dbasler@mpiweb.org. Follow
him at www.twitter.com/onepluseditor.
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REGIONAL OFFICES:
Doha, Qatar
Ontario, Canada
Luxembourg
Singapore
The body of One+ is printed on 30 percent post-consumer-waste
recycled content and is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified.
Please recycle this magazine or pass it along to a co-worker when
you’re finished reading.
One+ is a proud member of
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ISSUE
0 3
10
Your Future, Today +76
To keep up with the phenomenal rate
of technological innovation, you must
be hip to what’s coming tomorrow.
The Virtual State +82
The recession is driving businesses
to take virtual meetings more
seriously and come to terms with the
reality of existing offerings.
Google Wave for Meeting
Professionals +88
+76
Your guide to the next phase in online
collaboration.
App Appraisals +92
A glimpse at creative mobile phone
apps and their value to our industry.
+94
A Business Model for Peace +94
As head of the world’s first Israeli/
Palestinian-owned company, Zvi
Schreiber is overcoming social
borders and computing paradigms.
+88
New Ways to Learn +61
+70
The Texas Association of School
Administrators
learned about the
A
latest in educational technology
during its annual conference last
year in Houston.
Lessons Learned +66
An emergency call and a flexible
speaker helped the National
Council of Teachers of English
conference in Philadelphia
have a successful event.
True Colors +70
+66
+82
The World Bodypainting Festival
is a celebrated tradition in
See
Seeboden,
Austria, that showcases
art and the town’s beautiful setting.
mpiweb.org
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ISSUE
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CONVERSATION
In It Together +2
Editor’s note
The Energy of Many +12
Global update from MPI
Impressions +14
Letters to One+
Overheard +18
Rumblings from the industry
Irrelevant +44
TweetBookz
INNOVATION
Agenda +21
Where to go, in person
and online
IGNITION
Creative Pioneering +48
Ashely Muntan, CMP
Global View
Getting the Greatest
Return on Your Event +52
Steve Kemble
A Dose of Sass
You Are Where You Live +54
Jon Bradshaw
Reboot Your Brain
Should You Dumb
It Down? +56
Dawn Rasmussen, CMP
Get the Job
Nobody Knows But You +58
Douglas Rushkoff
High-tech Humanity
Art of Travel +34
The latest in transportable
technology
+22
RECOGNITION
Top Spots +22
New venues + re-openings
Focus On +24
Mark Murphy has a new carwash
+44
Spotlight +26
Industry leaders announce job
advancements
Your Community +36
Flipped Out; Find an Expert,
Be an Expert; Got a Minute;
Increase Your Reach
Meet Where? +100
Wow us with your knowledge
CO-CREATION
Hot Buzz +28
+40
Munich Airport, air in Asia,
government report card, Cuban
connections, Tech Bytes, Haiti
hotels, Thoughts+Leaders,
Plus/Minus
Making a Difference +38
IMEX Group scholarships
Connections +40
Trade show + Government
officials
mpiweb.org
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www.mpioneplus.org
online
Social Media Done Rightt
Learn more about social media with One+
+
online columnist Robert Swanwick.
k.
+
+
Free Pass to
Education
The News From Down Under
One+ editor Jessie States attended AIME in Melbourne, Australia, this
month. Catch up on her tweets @somewriter and check out stories
and blogs about happenings at the event at www.mpioneplus.org.
The Virtual Access Pass gets
MPI members free access to
MeetDifferent content. Don’t
miss out on the educational
sessions in-person attendees
have been raving about.
Complete issues of One+
are available in PDF
format. Be sure to check
out the supplement about
Colorado at the back
of this month’s issue.
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Contributors
GINA TRAPANI is author of The Complete
Guide to Google Wave, the first book on
Wave (it’s available to read free online at
http://completewaveguide.com), and as the
founding editor of Lifehacker.com, a daily
blog on software and productivity, she’s also
published a book, Upgrade Your Life, based
on the site. Trapani co-hosts This Week in
Google, a popular technology podcast about
Google and cloud computing, and she blogs
at http://smarterware.org.
Based in the United Arab Emirates since
moving to Abu Dhabi in 1998, Australian travel writer LARA DUNSTON has
co-authored more than 40 travel guidebooks with her husband, photographer
Terence Carter. Together the couple
have traveled to more than 60 countries
and have had scores of articles published
in newspapers and magazines worldwide,
including Wanderlust, USA Today, The
Independent and National Geographic
Traveler. Dunston has a background in
filmmaking and academia and a handful
of degrees, including a half-completed
Ph.D. on the connections between film
and travel.
PETER GORMAN is an investigative journalist whose
work has appeared in more than 100 national and
international publications. He is a former recipient
of the Houston Press Club’s Texas Print Journalist
of the Year award. Born in New York, he currently
resides in Joshua, Texas, with his three children,
and is a staff writer for the award-winning Fort
Worth Weekly.
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RYAN SINGEL is a staff
writer for Wired.com. He coedits the award-winning Threat
Level blog that covers security
and online crime, and he also
covers search engines,
telecoms and innovation for
Wired.com’s business blog.
He’s currently watching a succession of cool Android phones
being introduced and is patiently
biding his time to upgrade until
the perfect phone comes along.
He lives in San Francisco, where
he’s waiting for the perfect
information filter to replace
his too-large collection of bookmarked Web sites and blogs.
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The Energy of Many
Thinking Outside the Room
IN THE PAST MONTH, THE WORLD HAS
WATCHED WORLD-CLASS ATHLETES COMPETE
AT THE 2010 OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES IN MY
HOMETOWN OF VANCOUVER. Spectators and
athletes alike were thrilled and inspired by their agility,
precision and creativity. As many of our members at
MeetDifferent 2010 watched the games from Cancun in
the Olympic lounge hosted by our Vancouver/Whistler
partners, we were emotionally connected to home and
country (especially during a spirited U.S. vs. Canada
hockey game). The connection to this glowing-heart
spirit
thousands of miles outside the
p of competition
p
venue was made possible because of technology.
satellite imagery of
Whether it was high-definition sat
iPhone apps or onsite
the games, regular prods from iPhon
attendees connecting via Twitter to cchat or heckle
friends back home, powerful conne
connections were happening well beyond the competition venue itself.
And while we will always focus on unleashing the
power and potential that is the face-to-face
experience,
face
increasingly we need to expand our vision to what
connections and results we can deliver
delive “outside the
room.” It is through technology
that our
te
realm of attendee
attend opportunity, our
ability to make
ma a powerful performance difference,
expands
d
exponentially to people and
exponenti
we may not have
places w
imagined. That’s why it
imagin
critically important
is cri
to llook strategically at
how and where techho
nology can deliver
no
these connections
th
to accomplish our
objectives—financial,
ob
emotional and even
emo
spiritual.
spiri
Outside our industry,
O
Google launches Wave
and Buzz, and Apple debuts the iPad. All the while,
Twitter’s explosive global growth begins to wane just as
LinkedIn and Facebook find ways to interface with it. It
goes on and on. The pace of technology often outpaces
the normal course of planning events. For organizations
that select venues three to four years in advance, the idea
of reacting to emerging technology that can be the hottest thing a month before your event can be daunting.
I still hear and read debates about the role of connection/collaboration technology in the meeting and
event world. While the concept of hybrid events is
getting lots of profile these days, we need to get comfortable with the fact that technology is forever taking
meetings and events beyond the room rather than creating different classes of events that might confuse. The
performance continues to play itself out.
During MeetDifferent we took the unprecedented
step to actively engage and connect our virtual and
onsite audiences in social media before, during and
after, and I have to tell you, the response has been
overwhelming. While the final numbers are not fully
audited, the efforts of our 1,100-plus attendees connected another 200-300 participants to the energy
and conversation in Cancun. Cisco’s 2009 global sales
meeting (http://ow.ly/Tab6) was moved into a virtual
environment, allowing more than 19,000 salespeople
from 89 countries to attend. Harvard Business Review
called the 2010 Olympic Winter Games “...the largest
ever social media experiment” (http://blogs.hbr.org/
cs/2010/02/welcome_to_vancouver_the_world.html).
The Games’ Opening ceremonies were attended by
more than 60,000 people, and another 3 billion were
connected by broadcast and Web connectivity.
The list goes on. These are not anomalies. They are
realities. Remember, though, one thing: While technology was the critical enabler, it was and always will be
the content and experience “in the room” that made
these connections valuable and remarkable.
BRUCE MACMILLAN, CA, is president and CEO of MPI.
He can be reached at bmacmillan@mpiweb.org. Follow
him at www.twitter.com/BMACMPI.
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Impressions
Great Storytelling
[Re: Once Upon a Time, February 2010] I enjoyed this
article in regards to the focus on human social interaction
and communication. I have seen so many dull, “professional” workshops. Even youths sometimes forget about
these key factors when attempting to present as an “adult”
or as a “professional.” Too often people associate “professional” with a PPT slide with a bunch of text and a monotone voice to match. I hope articles such as this inspire
presenters and trainers to be more human and emotional
when trying to convey information or a message.
—Julie Tieman
University of Nevada, Reno
MPI Sacramento/Sierra Nevada Chapter
Turn It Off
EDITOR’S NOTE: We appreciate
the feedback on MPI and your
magazine, One+. Your ideas
and thoughts are important to
us. Let us know what you think.
E-mail the editorial team at
editor@mpiweb.org.
You Tell Us
How do you avoid work
overload? Tell us about it.
Send an e-mail to editor@
mpiweb.org.
[Re: High Tech Humanity: Taking
It All In, January 2010] Spitting
on the sidewalk, wearing too
much fragrance and now, public
misuse of technology complete
my list of pet peeves. Douglas
Rushkoff’s article made me
cringe. My heart goes out to
Danah Boyd and all presenters
who must deal with planners
and audience members in need
of training in the new etiquette.
When cell phones, texting and
tweeting invade what is supposed
to be a learning space, it is rude
to the speaker and those audience members who wish to focus
attention on the program, especially if it is live.
—Marney Roddick
Oregon Employer Council
MPI Oregon Chapter
In the C-suite
[Re: Why Do You Want a Seat
at the Table?, PlusPoint blog] I
agree that power isn’t the reason. Influence in the interest of
positive internal organizational or
strategic external change is the
reason.
MPI members know that
everything is negotiable—that is
the C-suite experience (known in
the association realm as a seat
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at the board table). The real
reason that people want a seat
at the table is that, yes, they are
representing the credentials and
perspective of their staff departments or sectors, but they are
also weighing in on the global
issues facing their corporations
or organization boards, and they
want to lead toward actualizing
the positive success outlined in
the goals and pathways they are
working to every day.
—Chrissy Ward, CAE
Society of Gynecologic Oncologists
MPI Chicago Area Chapter
Not PowerPoint
[Re: Event Bytes: Ditch Boring
PowerPoints, January 2010
online] I disagree that you should
ditch PowerPoint for Prezi or
some of the other new cool presentation tools. I like Prezi. It is
fun to work with and has some
very cool results. These are all
tools, and if used correctly, you
can design and produce some
powerful support visuals for your
meetings and events. It is not
“Death by PPT,” but death by bad
PowerPoint. You can kill a presentation just as easily with a bad
Prezi. PPT can be an extremely
powerful tool if used correctly,
but most people do not take the
time to plan and design a good
PPT presentation.
—Marshall Makstein
Eslide
MPI Greater New York Chapter
The Bottom Line
[Re: So, What’s in It for the
CEO?, January 2010] Ms. Hulbert provides good insight, and
highlights many concerns we
have found with working with
customers attempting to develop
a strategic meetings management program. When outlining
the project (cost and effort)
required to successfully deliver
such a program, the C-suite only
cares about the bottom line.
But, there is more. It is critical to
understand the challenges faced
with the current environment
and process, current process
owners and, most importantly,
the change management that will
be required to achieve success.
Thus, when we work with our
customers to build a comprehensive business case (strategic
value analysis), we ensure that
the bottom line message Ms.
Hulbert refers to also takes these
factors into consideration.
—Ross VanDooser
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Overheard
Insult to Injury
“Nevada has one of the most distressed economies in the
country, and the president has done little to focus on job
creation over the past year. Discouraging people from
coming to our state to make a political point adds insult to
injury.”
—U.S. Rep. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) after President Barack Obama
compared the government’s need to curb spending to blowing
“a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college”
What Downturn?
Name Change
Fat Tax
“We are here, we are surviving and some are growing. If
we are serious about growth,
we can achieve it, even in a
recession. Even though our
key U.S. and U.K. markets
had economic challenges, we
experienced an increase in
arrivals in 2009—proving that
growth is possible even in a
recessionary period.”
—Edmund Bartlett, minister
of tourism for Jamaica
“Nothing else has changed.
We haven’t changed our
service. We haven’t changed
our staffing. All we’ve done is
take ‘resort’ out of the name,
because if you don’t, you don’t
even get to bid on the business.”
—Brian Johnson, managing
director of the hotel formerly
known as the Loews Ventana
Canyon Resort (The Arizona
Daily Star)
“On one hand, it’s not unreasonable for airlines to charge
passengers extra if they
occupy more than one seat.
On the other, many would
argue that it should be the
responsibility of airlines to
adjust their standard seat
size, enabling them to comfortably accommodate all passengers.”
—Co-founder and director
Barry Smith on a Skyscanner
report that 76 percent of
people believe airlines should
charge a “fat tax”
Up in the Air
“The Aircruise concept questions whether the future of
luxury travel should be based
around space-constrained,
resource-hungry and all-toooften stressful airline travel.
A more serene transport
experience will appeal to
people looking for a more
reflective journey, where the
experience of travel itself is
more important than getting
from A to B quickly.”
—Nick Talbot, design director for
Seymourpowell, on the unveiling
of the concept for Aircruise, a
giant, vertical airship powered
by natural energy
Best of the Blogs
Have Brand
Posted by Joe Quarto
J&S Audio Visual
These days, brand image campaigns motivate
customers less and less. How the brand
experience relates to and advances their environments and cultures is the true motivation.
There is an old saying, “Sales is getting people
to buy what you have, and marketing is having
what people want to buy.” Let me add, “Branding is getting people to know what they are
getting before they buy it.”
Time for Change
Posted by Cassie J. Duckett
SIFE
It’s time to plan for your success now. Before
you jump into organizing your life/business,
make a pact with yourself to be a proactive
planner throughout the year. Don’t let negative
thought patterns steer you away from your
success. Start slowly. You will be pleasantly
surprised how doors and opportunities will
open for you along the way.
Social Means
Posted by Kristen Kouk
MPI
We can talk all day online. We can Skype,
tweet and e-mail every second of the day.
I can create meaningful relationships with
individuals on the other side of the globe. I
can network with multiple industries. But, I
will never have the same appreciation for an
individual until I meet them face-to-face. Why
have a Social Media Club of Dallas meeting?
Because face-to-face matters.
Find out what the editors of One+ think at www.mpiweb.org/
pluspoint, and check out the new official MPI blog, Engage, at
www.mpiweb.org/engage.
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Agenda
MARCH 25-28 TUR 2010
GÖTEBORG, SWEDEN
Focus on the rapidly growing Nordic meetings sector with Meetings@TUR during
the two trade-only days at the 26th annual TUR exhibition, Scandanavia’s leading
travel exhibition. Meet, develop and do business while attending seminars sandwiched between trade activities. Visit http://tinyurl.com/meetings-TUR.
JORMA VALKONEN/SVENSKA MÄSSAN
MARCH 29-31 GIBTM
ABU DHABI
Mix business and pleasure at the Gulf Incentive, Business Travel & Meetings
Exhibition (GIBTM). Qualify for the hosted buyer program as a meeting
and event organizer and enjoy Abu Dhabi Day featuring visits to the Sheik
Zayed Mosque and Dhow area, the Emirates Palace and the Saadiyat Island
Exhibition, as well as an early evening cocktail reception at the InterContinental
Abu Dhabi. Visit www.gibtm.com.
APRIL 7-9 IT&CM
SHANGHAI
Source new destinations and products with leading MICE industry players at
IT&CM China this spring. Meet regional and international industry suppliers faceto-face, receive updates on the latest market trends and network with industry
colleagues and peers. Visit www.itcmchina.com.
APRIL 14-15 Affordable Meetings Mid-America
CHICAGO
Free to qualified meeting planners, Affordable Meetings Mid-America offers information on cutting-edge industry products and services. Sponsored by Hospitality
Sales and Marketing Association International, delegates speak with exhibitors,
attend educational seminars, research and secure venues and destinations and
earn continuing education credits. Visit www.hsmai.org.
Connected
BUG ME NOT
CASHING IN
GET THE MESSAGE
Hate being asked to submit personal
information just to read an online
article or make a comment? BugMe
Not.com offers user names and passwords to hundreds of Web sites, so
you can keep your private details…
well…private. BugMeNot users submit
alias accounts for public use, and each
user name and password set appears
with its statistical success rate, so you
can feel comfortable in your anonymity
again.
Airfare prices and hotel rates are
volatile. At Yapta.com, you know when
to buy low. The site conducts daily
price checks on the specific flights and
hotels that you choose, and alerts you
when prices drop or fall within your
budget. If you’ve already booked a
ticket, Yapta tracks the flight’s price
and alerts you when you’re eligible for
a refund or travel credit.
For those times when you know
you’ll forget, send yourself a note
at TextReminders.net. Create the
message and choose when you want
to receive it, and at the specified time,
your cell phone receives your message.
You only receive text messages
from the reminders you create. The
service is free, though standard text
messaging fees apply.
mpiweb.org
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Top Spots
N E W VEN U ES + RE-O P ENING S
1. MEET Las Vegas
MEET Las Vegas, an exhibition and
event space, opened this month.
The 30,000-square-foot, three-story
venue and outdoor pavilion offers
capacities of up to 2,000. Its first
two floors are a blank canvas,
providing expedient move-in and
tear down because the rigging
and technology infrastructure are
fixed elements. With color changing
exterior and interior lighting to boot,
MEET Las Vegas provides “customized branding galore.” The third floor
is an executive concierge lounge and
state-of-the-art multimedia training
center.
3. Novotel Christchurch
Cathedral Square
The Novotel Christchurch Cathedral Square opened in January
as the first new four-star hotel to
open on New Zealand’s South Island
in 15 years. Located in the heart of
Christchurch on Cathedral Square,
the hotel incorporates the
heritage-listed Warner’s Hotel,
originally built in 1863, into the
complex. A new building has been
constructed behind the existing
hotel, adding 154 guest rooms
to the existing 39 heritage rooms
and suites. The hotel also offers six
conference rooms that can accommodate up to 130 delegates.
1.
2.
2.
3.
2. Life Resort Danang
The 187-room Life Resort Danang
opens this month on Bac My An
Beach in Vietnam. The resort
includes nine categories of accommodations, including 67 superior guest rooms, 91 deluxe guest
rooms and one grand presidential
suite. The resort also features the
10-treatment-room Nang Spa, a
fitness center, tennis courts, a
resort pool, conference facilities and
several food and beverage outlets,
including the 300-seat Senses
restaurant.
4. Omphoy Ocean Resort
For a fresh approach to Palm
Beach’s (Fla.) famous social season,
the brand new and elegantly chic
Omphoy Ocean Resort debuted just
in time for the 2009/2010 season. The only beachfront boutique
resort in Palm Beach and the first
new construction there in nearly 20
years, the 130-room resort caters
to a younger audience, bringing
together the sophistication of New
York and the South Beach boutique
hotel experience. The resort features four conference areas and
6,000 square feet of meeting
space.
5 1
4
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4.
5. The Padre Hotel
4.
5.
5.
Nearly two years after renovations
began, the Padre Hotel, the only
boutique property in Bakersfield,
Calif., opened last month. The 112room property features Isoform
beds with down duvets; multiple pillow types; flat-screen, high-definition
TVs; luxury H20 bath amenities;
free Wi-Fi throughout the hotel; a
workout facility; and 24-hour in-room
dining. The hotel also features
meeting spaces accommodating
up to 100 delegates and reception
areas for up to 200.
6. Palazzina Grassi
Hidden behind a door in Venice
marked only by a bull’s head is a
magical world of mirrors, glass
sculptures, rare books and vintage
objects—Philippe Starck’s first Italian
hotel and Design Hotels member,
Palazzina Grassi. Set in the heart
of Venice next to Palazzo Grassi on
Canal Grande, the hotel is housed
in a 16th-century building and
features the G club for events.
The hotel is just a short walk
from museums and art galleries,
including the Guggenheim Collection
and the Galleria dell’Accademia.
6.
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3
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Focus On...
Mark Murphy has a new
carwash.
Mark Murphy
Software developer
High Five
Five things you may not know about being a software
developer.
1. We still find computer use after work a recreation.
2. We aren’t all nerds; some of us even play sports.
3. We aren’t all Trekkies, but we all love Star Wars.
4. When stuck with a really tough problem, we dream
in code to find a solution.
5. We believe in the phrase, “When in doubt, Google it!”
Not a techie, but still interested in how
technology can make your life and job
easier? Check out features about virtual
meetings (Page 82) and Google Wave
(Page 88) in this issue.
24
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The Showcare software developer was helping a man register
for the annual Carwash Association conference some years ago
when he discovered that the
gentleman owned the establishment right down the street from
his house.
It’s this kind of connection that
first drew Murphy to the meeting industry; the millions (yes,
millions) of lives and careers he
touches keep him here.
Murphy got his first computer
for Christmas when he was 10
years old, and it was love at first
sight. He studied software design
in college and then worked for the
government and the lumber industry—where he developed voice
command applications designed to
save lives in dangerous conditions.
Six years ago, he joined Showcare
as a Web developer and onsite
technician—now he practically
runs the joint as executive director
of technology.
“This is such a wonderful
industry, but it’s slower to adapt
to technology,” Murphy said,
echoing the thoughts of many
of the meeting sector’s top tech
gurus. “But I see where we are
headed, and that makes me
excited. We have more clients that
want to be cutting edge, and that’s
fun.”
Murphy says the industry must
begin to focus on existing technologies already embraced by other
sectors. Mainly, he sees meetings
as becoming increasingly mobile,
where attendees complete session
surveys in real time and planners
obtain vital stats and numbers on
site.
He speaks excitedly about his
most recent project, a mammoth
one-stop portal where planners
can store exhibitor contracts and
event sponsorship booth sales
for multiple events and years and
manage registration and housing—in addition to the standard
agenda builders, session managers,
banquet seating applications and
hosted buyer programs.
He’s not feigning his excitement.
“Programming and computers
have been my lifelong passions,
and it seems natural to pursue
a career that is with something
that I love,” he said. “During my
time with Showcare, I have seen
how much of an impact software
can have on meetings of all sizes
and types. The desire to create
software that can help grow and
develop the meeting industry is a
strong passion for me.”
Finding a great carwash was
just the beginning.
—JESSIE STATES
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Spotlight
Destination Winnipeg
Inc. appoints Marina
James as incoming
president. James has
19 years of executive
management experience
in hotel operations,
issues management,
negotiations, customer
service, tourism
development and
asset and financial
management. She is
currently vice president
of hotels for Westcorp
Properties Inc. in
Edmonton.
Event branding firm Impact
Unlimited names Bruce Dickerson
as Zurich-based creative director
for European operations. Prior
to joining Impact, Dickerson was
the global design manager for
brand agency Harkess-Ord and
the design production manager
for U.K. pharmaceutical agency
Photosound Communications.
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Wynn Las Vegas welcomes Aaron Missner
as national sales manager, responsible for
the corporate, association and incentive
markets in the U.S. Southeast. Missner
joins Wynn from the Four Seasons Hotel
Las Vegas, where he began his hospitality
career in 1999 in hotel operations, before
which he served in the U.S. Marine Corps.
The Hospitality Performance Network selects Kip Horton as senior vice president of HPN Global
EMEA and India. Horton has
more than 25 years of hospitality
sales and marketing experience,
including 10 years with Starwood
Hotels & Resorts in Brussels
and Atlanta and one year as director of sales and marketing for
the Sheraton Centre Hotel and
Towers in Toronto.
Craig Moyes joins Reed Travel
Exhibitions as group exhibition
director for the company’s event
portfolio. Moyes was previously
exhibition director for the World
Travel Market, a position he held
since 2006. Prior to that, he
directed and managed events for
Informa and Brintex Exhibitions and
worked the exhibition and event
industry for more than 15 years in
South America, Asia and Europe.
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HOT BUZZ
It’s All In
Perspective
+
KMG
Munich Airport operating
company FMG has unveiled its first-ever sustainability report. The
110-page Perspectives
documents the company’s concept for a sustainable business policy,
according to CEO Michael Kerkloh (pictured).
The document outlines
plans to balance ecological, economic and social
objectives.
Indeed, FMG has set
an ambitious target for
its future corporate policy—to achieve CO2-neutral growth in airport
operations by 2020.
Without a determined
program of preventive
measures, CO2 emissions
would increase somewhere between 50,000
and 70,000 tons by that
year. To prevent this, all
new buildings are expected to show a 40 percent
reduction in CO2 emissions as compared with
existing structures. One
quarter of the nearly
3,000 floodlights that
ensure visibility on the
aprons and park positions at night are now
switched on only as
needed.
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Air in Asia
In 2009, intra-Asia-Pacific travel eclipsed North
America-based trips as the world’s largest aviation
market, according to the International Air Transport Association. Asia-Pacific’s travelers numbered
647 million compared to 638 million within North
America. And by 2013, an additional 217 million
travelers are expected to take to the skies in AsiaPacific. The global aviation industry is expected to
reduce its losses from US$11 billion in 2009 to
$5.6 billion in 2010, led by Asia-Pacific carriers,
which are expected to see losses shrink from
$3.4 billion to $700 million.
+
Report Card
The U.S. government earned a C+ in 2009 for its treatment of
business and corporate travel issues, according to the National
Business Travel Association. The trade group praised recent progress, such as the allocation of US$8 billion for high-speed rail
development, but gave the government poor 2009 scores in the
areas of taxes and regulation.
Government Scores
Cuban Connections
Dozens of U.S. travel representatives
will meet with their Cuban counterparts to discuss the potential for travel
between the countries March 24-26 at
the Gran Meliá Cancun Hotel. A Cuban
delegation of more than 20 officials
and travel specialists from Havana
will meet with more than 100 U.S.
attendees during the event to discuss
travel potential, practicalities and U.S.
law. The U.S.-Cuba Travel Summit is
being organized by Alamar Associates
and the National Tour Association and
sponsored by the U.S. Tour Operators
Association.
Haiti Hotels
Choice Hotels International Inc. remains
on track to open two properties in
Haiti, and has expanded its support of
relief efforts, sending relief supplies
including food, water, fuel, soap and
laundry detergent directly to its Comfort Inn conversion property (scheduled
ISSUE
GRADE
Federal Aviation Administration Funding .................F
Airline Performance and Aviation Congestion .........B+
Transportation Infrastructure ...............................A
Domestic Registered Traveler ..............................CTerrorist Watch List and Passenger Rights ...........B
Traveler Taxes .....................................................C
Energy and Climate Change ..................................Incomplete
Regulation of Business Travel ................................D
International Registered Traveler ..........................A
Visa Processing and the Visa Waiver Program ......BWestern Hemisphere Travel Initiative .....................AModel Ports of Entry ............................................D-
TECH BYTES
Talk Back
A new LCD keypad from Turning Technologies provides participants with visual confirmation of their responses, taking the
guesswork out of audience response systems. The ResponseCard shows channel
settings and battery life and boasts streamlined components and speed. In addition to
to open later this year).
In January, Choice Hotels announced
plans to open the 32-room Comfort Inn
and a 120-room Ascend. The properties will be the first Choice-brand hotels
for Haiti and the first global hotel brand
for the island in more than a decade.
Owned by New York-based SIMACT, the
hotels will be located on Haiti’s south-
its ResponseCard line, Turning Technologies also offers
solutions for polling in any
PC or Mac applications,
polling without computers
or projectors, polling via Internet connections and more.
ern coast in Jacmel, known as the
island’s cultural hub thanks to its vibrant arts, music and film festivals.
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HOT BUZZ
Thoughts+Leaders
What about recent
technology disappoints
you most?
Corbin Ball, CSP, CMP
President
Corbin Ball Associates
If pressed, I admit that I have been disappointed with how slowly the industry is embracing APEX (Accepted Practices Exchange). As chairman of the Technology
Advisory Committee for APEX from 2000 to
2001, I envisioned that it would be fully
+
implemented by the end of the decade.
It is now 2010, and venues are still
exchanging specs using last-century methods. Planners write the specifications, hotels
translate these into their systems and print
them out and planners correct the translation errors. Changes are managed manually
on a case-by-case basis. We are an industry
of clerks and proofreaders! It is my hope
that technology companies soon provide
Ruud Janssen
Serial Entrepreneur
TNOC | The New Objective
Collective
We live in a multi-channel
world where distraction
and attraction get confused. I am disappointed
with the ability of speakers (myself included) to
handle this effectively in
real life and at events. I
point the finger at myself,
knowing that I am an
early adopter and love to
experiment with new methods of communication. Whether mobile or real-time, front channel or back channel, online or offline,
I keep being surprised when it comes to knowing the profile of
the audience. What really engages them in creating desirable
and valuable dialogues?
The learning curve we need to go through as industry professionals is tremendous, and I am anxious to get to grips with
the multi-channel approach. I must accept that making mistakes, asking questions and not stepping away from experimentation are the ways to learn. (I must also accept that Internet
connectivity is not omnipresent.) In a live conference setting
when the stakes are high, experimentation is a daring adventure. But what a rush when the dialogue is on and it resonates
in multiple channels!
30
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collaborative event specification tools using
APEX standards. The timing is right; rich
Web applications and APIs (application programming interfaces) allow complex data to
be exchanged via the Web, and it is relatively
easy to get different systems to work together. If our industry is to come into this century in terms of how we exchange data, we
must move toward standardization tools.
Robert Swanwick
CEO
Speaker Interactive
For the most part, I am
thrilled by how technological advances are
supporting event improvement. Yet, it
remains challenging to
establish good bandwidth at conferences.
Broadband and Wi-Fi
have penetrated homes
and businesses to a huge extent, but at events we enter
a black hole of coverage. A great number of capabilities
available for events hang on the ability of users to get
online with decent bandwidth. Participants crave connection. Our inability to offer online features is limiting the
greatness of our events. Poor bandwidth and/or no
Wi-Fi block participants from: checking e-mail without
mobile devices, tweeting and blogging live about sessions
and streaming session video to wider audiences.
Check out Robert Swanwick’s monthly
online tech column Event Bytes at
www.mpioneplus.org.
03.10
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HOT BUZZ
Under the Sea
British entrepreneur and air maven Sir Richard Branson opens
his eyes underwater with the Necker Nymph, a three-person
aero submarine. His company, Virgin Limited Edition, will introduce the vehicle, which has
been likened to an underwater
aircraft and is the first of its
kind to hit the market. Unlike
conventional subs that use ballasts to sink in the water, Necker Nymph uses downward “lift”
on its wings to fly down to
depth. The open cockpit affords
near-ideal, 360-degree viewing
for occupants, creating a uniquely open experience. The craft is
available when chartering luxury catamaran Necker Belle or
while staying on Branson’s private Necker Island in the Bahamas. Dives can last up to two hours.
Incentive
e
for Incentives
ntives
Recognition programs
must include multiple
award forms to satisfy
different worker needs
but don’t necessarily
need to be costly, according to research by
the Human Capital Institute, the Forum for People Performance Management and Measurement
and the Incentive Research Foundation. Cited
case studies—of restructured recognition programs at Scotiabank,
Delta Airlines and MGM
Grand—demonstrated
that incentives are most
effective when the recognition is of value to individual workers and
award for behaviors is
linked to specific job
performance.
Lift Off
The check-in hall at Düsseldorf International Airport housed the world’s
first airport indoor ski jump as part
of the seventh annual TravelSuperMart in February. Snowboarders and
ski-freestylers performed stunts and
jumps up to 30 feet on the 130-foot-
long slope. In addition to the ski jump,
an entertainment program offered
other sports, comedy and musical
performances, free flights and tours
and animal shows. Former British
Olympic ski jumper Eddie “Eagle”
Edwards opened the event.
Back to Work
The U.S. Congress should institute travel-related tax deductions and hire more
consular officers to create jobs and
stimulate the economy, according to a
letter to Senate leaders from the U.S.
Travel Association. Recommendations
also included a promotional program
aimed at international travelers.
“Travel is vital to the nation’s economy, ranking among the top 10 industries in 48 states and the District of
Columbia in terms of employment,” said
Roger Dow, president and CEO for U.S.
Travel. “It is critically important to take
all steps possible to foster growth in the
travel industry and realize travel’s potential to improve the American economy.”
Dow’s proposal included immediateand medium-term projects. He suggest-
32
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ed the addition of 100
new consular
officers in
large countries such as
Brazil, China
and India to help process visa applications. And he urged Senate leaders to
consider expanding the current tax code
to allow incentive program sponsors
to deduct the cost of qualified travel
awards and exempt winners from paying
taxes on the resulting “income.”
Dow also supported final passage of
the Travel Promotion Act, which will
create the first-ever promotion and communications program aimed at attracting
international travelers to the U.S.
U.S. Travel
Recommendations
IMMEDIATE IMPACT
• Spousal travel tax deduction
• Business meal tax deduction
• Performance incentive travel
tax deduction
MEDIUM-TERM IMPACT
• Travel Promotion Act Passage
• Hiring and placement of
consular officers
• Investments in highways and
bridges to facilitate
increased travel
• Funding to modernize the U.S.
air traffic control system
• Airport entry funding
03.10
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Recovery Down Under
Tourism Australia has introduced a recovery campaign to be
financed by AUD$9 million in government spending and an
additional $11 million in industry contributions. The program
includes $2 million of activity for the business event sector.
Officials hope the effort will reverse the 1 percent decline in
international visitors seen in 2009 by taking advantage of
opportunities in China, the Gulf region, Hong Kong, India,
Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore.
Where You At?
In an industry first, the Chicago Office of Tourism has created
a presence on Foursquare, a location-based social networking
application for mobile phones. Follow Explore Chicago at www.
foursquare.com/explorechicago and “check-in” at more than
60 eligible citywide locations. Discover the Blues through historic sites and iconic clubs, meet up with friends across town
while searching for the perfect Chicago-style hot dog or re-enact movie scenes at one of many well-known locations throughout the city.
The High Life
The world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa Tower in Dubai,
closed its observation deck indefinitely in early February
after a broken lift stranded 15 passengers for 45 minutes.
The 2,717-foot-high building officially opened on Jan. 4, and
the observation deck opened Jan. 5 on the 124th floor at
1,450 feet.
You’re Grounded
During the past six years, more than 65,000 U.S. flights
should never have taken off, according to an investigation by
USA Today, which found incomplete or improper maintenance
leading to hundreds of deaths. The report detailed “substandard repairs, unqualified mechanics and lax oversight by
airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration.”
Home Alone
Travel in Canada
Seventy-six percent of business travelers intend to travel the
same or more in Canada this year when compared to last,
according to data by the Hotel Association of Canada. The
Canadian Travel Intentions survey also showed that environmental initiatives are important to more than 40 percent of
both leisure (44 percent) and business (42 percent) travelers, up more than six percent over 2009 figures.
Nearly 74 percent of business travelers say their stay-behind spouse has expressed concern about being left home
Mor
alone. Moreover,
79 percent frequently worry
about th
their significant other when traveling
for bus
business, according to a study by Wakefield Re
Research commissioned by Logitech.
To ease
eas the anxiety, stay-at-home spouses
t TV on (56 percent), turn on more
leave the
th
lights than
usual (53 percent), talk to themselves (15 percent) and sleep with a stuffed
anima (10 percent).
animal
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2/24/10 9:35:34 AM
AR
of Travel
Portable Sun
Energizes Your
Business Trip
Put Jet Lag
to Rest With
New Monitor
Jet lag no more with
the SLEEPTRACKER
Elite, which monitors
your sleep cycles for
an optimal waking
moment near your
time of choice.
Confused? When
you sleep, your body
goes through a
series of five-stage
cycles, each lasting
about 100 minutes.
Waking up at the
wrong moment can
leave you haggard
and slow. The
SLEEPTRACKER
finds almost-awake
moments and gently
wakes you when
you’re most alert, so
you feel refreshed,
not groggy.
(Sleeptracker.com,
US$179)
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Lack of sunlight during rainy and winter
months can affect
our moods, energy
and sleep habits.
Zadro’s Sunlight 365
replicates the sun’s
frequency so that
the brain perceives it
as natural sunlight.
And it lacks harmful
UV rays. Completely
portable, the Sunlight 356 is perfect
for your business
trip to Dikson, Russia, during its polar
nights. (Zadro.biz,
US$59.99)
Steam Bug
Irons Out
Your Wrinkles
Wrinkled clothes are
inevitable when you
travel. Don’t take
chances. The Steam
Bug ultra-compact
travel iron offers
peace of mind when
you’re away from
home. The iron heats
up in just 15 seconds
and features a dualvoltage design, three
temperature settings,
one-touch steam
control and a travel
pouch.
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Your Community
CHAPTER SPOTLIGHT
Flipped Out
Attendees at the Mid-Atlantic Conference and Exhibition (MACE!) in
December proved that new tagline
“FLIPPED!” may be here to stay.
Instead of a traditional exhibit hall,
the MPI Potomac Chapter offered
its first-ever fully “flipped” marketplace at the Gaylord National Hotel
& Convention Center. More than
40 meeting planners participated
in the new format, and played
host to their own set of supplier
appointments throughout the morning. Comfortable living room-style
furniture adorned the edges of
the marketplace for spontaneous
networking opportunities.
Students and non-participating
suppliers convened separately
during the flipped marketplace for
learning experiences geared toward
specific needs. Also, for the first
time, MACE! offered a peer-led
White Space. Other innovations
included Spotme question technology during the luncheon keynote
and networking breaks at InGenius
Bar stations.
And talk about ROI: Participants
sent almost 500 messages and
appointment requests, exchanged
more than 1,000 electronic
business cards and rated the
educational content as having built
upon their skill base. Just to be
sure, MACE! surveyed participants
on their Spotme devices at the end
of the day: 100 percent of participants who responded said that
not only would they attend MACE!
again, but they would recommend it
to colleagues.
CHAPTER SPOTLIGHT
Find an Expert, Be an Expert
Members looking for
guidance or looking
to guide need look
no further. The MPI
Chicago Area Chapter
has launched its
new Subject Matter Expert (SME)
program to serve as
a resource database
for members. The
tool connects those
with questions to
those with answers.
Chapter members can
search the online SME
Catalog for experts in
a variety of categories,
including the CMM
and CMP designations, hotel contracts,
marketing and more.
Researching technology vendors that
offer Radio-Frequency
Identification (RFID)
for printing onsite
badges? Simply search
the online SME Catalog for experts in the
area. Planners can
contact suppliers via
e-mail or phone to get
advice and direction,
providing for more
short-term feedback in
a very specific matter.
Got a Minute?
In the past, those who missed MeetDifferent missed out. Not anymore. Taking cues
from such preeminent events as TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) and CES
(Consumer Electronics Show), MPI presents
the Virtual Access Pass, offering its global
audience entrée to world-class education
hence available only to onsite delegates.
Most importantly, it’s free to members.
So watch broadcasts from the comfort
of your home office, and connect with the
MeetDifferent community on your own
schedule. Visit www.mpiweb.org/Events/
MD2010/Overview/VAP.aspx.
Increase Your Reach
It’s easier than ever to
bring your message
and brand to industry
members and future
clients. Partner with MPI
and showcase your worth
to the industry’s largest
worldwide community of
36
one+
professionals with MarketSmart Business Solutions. Achieve a higher
level of involvement,
improve ROI and drive
revenue.
Here’s how it works.
Top tiers create their ideal
marketing mix. MarketSmart Business Solutions
combine sponsorship
and advertising (and an
option to donate to the
MPI Foundation) for as
little as US$25,000 in a
series of tiered programs.
There are more than 100
products to choose from,
including webinars and
general session sponsorships to live event sponsorships and more. Find
more information at www.
mpimarketsmart.org.
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Making a Difference
Funding the Future
Following years of support for industry
education, innovation and collaboration, IMEX Group has announced yet
another landmark grant program,
this time a €100,000 gift to the MPI
Foundation. Over the next five years,
the trade show group will finance 50
scholarships for meeting professionals
to attend MPI Global Training courses
and further their careers through an
internationally recognized education
scheme.
Part of the MPI Knowledge Plan,
the training practice offers a multitiered map for educational growth
that touches on every career level
and incorporates the four levels of
the Global Certificate in Meetings and
Business Events (GCMBE), the Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) and
Certification in Meetings Management
(CMM) designations and an Executive
Leadership Program.
According to IMEX CEO Carina
Bauer, this global education alignment
reflects her own organization’s focus
on industry growth and recognition.
IMEX has long supported industry
learning, including a strong focus on
students. The IMEX Future Leaders
Forum welcomes the industry’s youth
across the world during more than
a dozen annual events. IMEX also
strives to educate regional and national politicians during its Politicians
Forum (see Page 40).
“The goals of the MPI Foundation
and IMEX are well aligned in supporting industry-wide projects that further
education and growth,” Bauer said.
“There is a firm link between what we
do through our programs and MPI’s
new training practice, and we felt
compelled to show our support.”
IMEX Frankfurt is scheduled for
May 25-27 in Frankfurt, and IMEX
America will debut Oct.11-13, 2011,
in Las Vegas.
FOCUS ON FOUNDATION
January 2010 Contributors
The MPI Foundation thanks the following organizations and individuals for their generous support.
U.S. CORPORATE
Platinum Donors
AT&T Park
Carlson Hotels
Dallas CVB
Detroit Metro CVB
Fairmont Hotels
Hilton Hotels
Hyatt Hotels
IHG
Las Vegas CVA
Loews Hotels
Omni Hotels
Starwood Hotels & Resorts
Universal Orlando Resort
The Venetian
Wyndham Hotels
Gold Donors
American Express
AV Concepts
Bloomington CVB
Encore Productions
HelmsBriscoe
Maritz
MGM Mirage
ProActive
San Antonio CVB
Swank Audio Visuals
Freeman
Silver Donors
Aimbridge Hospitality
Anaheim CVB
Aramark
Atlanta CVB
The Broadmoor
Fort Worth CVB
Global Hotel Alliance
The Greenbrier
Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
hinton + grusich
LA Inc.
LXR
Meet Minneapolis
Millennium Hotels
Park Place Entertainment
Pier 94
PRA
PSAV
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Puerto Rico CVB
Salt Lake City CVB
St. Louis CVB
Walt Disney World Resort
Weil & Associates
Bronze Donors
Accor Hospitality
Associated Luxury Hotels
Benchmark Hospitality
Destination Hotels & Resorts
Dolce
Experient
Gaylord Opryland
Global Events Partners
Hard Rock International
Harrah’s Entertainment
Hello USA!
HelmsBriscoe
PC Nametag
Philadelphia CVB
SearchWide
Seattle CVB
Walt Disney World Resorts
Walt Disney Swan and Dolphin
Wynn
Small Business Donors
4th Wall Events
Best Meetings
Concepts Worldwide
Creative Meetings and Events
CW Worldwide Meetings Inc.
(Site Solutions)
Dianne B. Devitt
Kinsley & Associates
Landry & Kling & Seasite
Meetingjobs
Meeting Site Resource
One Smooth Stone
Song Division
Swantegy
SYNAXIS Meetings & Events Inc.
Special Donors
Blumberg Marketing
Boca Resorts
Carol Krugman, CMP, CMM
CVent
Dave Scypinski
David DuBois, CMP, CAE
David Gabri
Folio Fine Wine Partners
George P. Johnson
JetBlue
Jonathan T. Howe, Esq.
Katie Callahan-Giobbi
Ken Sanders
Kevin Olsen
Little Rock CVB
Mark Sirangelo
Pasadena CVB
Passkey
Production Plus Inc.
SAS Institute
Visit Raleigh
Friends of MPI
Alan Pini
Brian Stevens
Chris Gabaldon
Gaylord Texan
Hattie Hill Enterprises
Helen Van Dongen, CMP, CMM
Hello Florida! / Hello USA!
Ivan Carlson
Jeff Wagoner
Joe Nishi
Ken Sanders
Kevin Olsen
Margaret Moynihan
Michael Massari
Mike Deitemeyer
Richard Harper
Rick Smith
Rob Scypinski
Vito Curalli
CANADA CORPORATE
Platinum Donor
Fairmont Hotels and Resorts
Starwood Hotels & Resorts
Gold Donor
AVW-Telav
Caesars Windsor
Convention Centres of Canada
Delta Hotels
PSAV
Silver Donor
AV- CANADA
AVW TELAV
Calgary Telus Convention Centre
Cascadia Motivation
Coast Hotels & Resorts
Evolution
Hilton Canada
IHG
Marriott Hotels & Resorts
Canada
The STRONCO Group of Companies
Tourism Calgary
Tourism Toronto
Tourisme Québec
VIA Rail Canada
Bronze Donor
The Conference Publisher
D.E. Systems Ltd.
Destination Halifax
Direct Energy Centre
IncentiveWorks
Tourisme Montréal
Tourism British Columbia
Tourism Vancouver
Special Donor
Accucom Corporate Communications Inc.
ADMAR Promotions
Calgary Exhibition & Stampede
Cantrav dmc
Centre Mont-Royal
Colleen Rickenbacher
Destination Winnipeg
Exposoft Solutions Inc.
Fletcher Wright Associates Inc.
Gelber Conference Centre
Groupe Germain Hotels
The Great West Life Company
Investors Group Financial
Services
Mendelssohn Livingston
Naylor Publishers Inc.
The Planner
EUROPE CORPORATE
Heritage Club
EIBTM
IMEX
Diamond Club
MCI
IHG
Platinum Key Donors
BTC International
Starwood Hotels & Resorts
Gold Key Donors
Fairmont Hotels & Resorts
Malaga CVB
The Rezidor Hotel Group
Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre
VisitDenmark
EIBTM
Silver Partner Donors
ExpoForce
RefTech
Bronze Friend Donors
Amsterdam RAI
Hotels van Oranje
Ince&Tive
Visit London
INDIVIDUAL DONORS
Diamond
Alan Pini
Arizona Sunbelt Chapter
Brian Stevens
Chris Gabaldon
Christine Duffy
Dave Gabri
Hello USA
hilton+grusich
Huston Area Chapter
Indiana Chapter
Jeff Wagoner
Ken Sanders
Kevin Olsen
Lawrence Luteran
Margaret Moynihan
Mark Komine
Michael Massari
Mike Deitemeyer
Mike Beardsley
Northern California Chapter
Oregon Chapter
Philadelphia CVB
Potomac Chapter
Richard Harper
Rick Smith
Rob Scypinski
Texas Hill Country Chapter
Tony Lorenz
Four Star
CACBSO
Chicago Area Chapter
John Melssner
Kentucky Bluegrass Chapter
Wisconsin Chapter
Three Star
Diane Schneiderman
Mariela McIlwraith
MPI Atlantic Canada Chapter
Robyn Byrd Powell
Fellow
Allison Kinsley
Anna Lee Chabot
Bill Boyd
Carl Winston
Cheryl Renzenbrink
Evelyn Laxgang
Jonathan Howe
Joseph Lipman
Kevin Kirby
Matthew Schermerhorn
Melanie Cook
Melvin Tennant
Ping Liu
Robin Lokerman
Ron Guitar
Sandra Riggins
Sara Torrence
Sebastien Tondeur
Steve Kimble
Susan Buntjer
Synaxis
Unni Soelberg-Claridge
03.10
p036-038 MPI Foundation 0310.indd 38
2/24/10 5:00:53 PM
0310_039.indd 39
2/26/10 8:01:13 AM
WHO:
Connections
Carina Bauer
CEO for IMEX Group
Trade Show + Government Officials
In early 2009, the university
town of Borås, Sweden, had
little draw for the business
events sector, and no marketing
plan to speak of.
A year later, the city celebrated the launch
of its public destination management company
and convention bureau. Borås also pledged to
work with neighboring Gothenburg to promote the iconic hills of southern Sweden as a
remarkable event destination. The question on
so many minds at the time in this quiet hamlet
was, what changed?
And while the city had been snailing forward on plans for a CVB for some years, local
officials claim a trip to the IMEX Politicians
Forum in May transformed the way they
viewed meetings and events—personally, politically and fiscally.
The annual forum, now entering its eighth
year, aims to impress upon politicians the
economic, educational and cultural value of
meetings and events and to discuss the trends
and conditions that shape the future of the
industry. It is held under the auspices of the
Joint Meetings Industry Council (JMIC) and
is organized by trade show giant IMEX in
collaboration with European Cities Marketing, a network of European tourist offices and
convention bureaus, and the International Association of Congress Centres (AIPC). Any exhibiting destination at IMEX can recommend
politicians for hosted attendance.
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Rod Cameron
Managing director
for Criterion
Communications Inc.
and program manager
for the Joint Meetings
Industry Council
EVENT:
IMEX Politicians Forum
May 25
Frankfurt
“We gained ideas for how we can get better
at attracting more meetings and conferences to
Borås,” recounted Ulrik Nilsson, chairman of
the town’s municipal board. “We have many
successful academics and other leaders with
national and international networks. Through
our convention bureau they now get assistance
in hosting a meeting here, which will benefit
everyone in Borås.”
Indeed, Nilsson heard case studies from
Gothenburg as well as Málaga, Montreux
and Sydney (among others), all touting how
a new—or even renewed—focus on attracting business events has changed the course
of regional and national economies. This
year’s forum promises even greater effects, as
organizers look to examine European Union
legislation as it pertains to the event sector in
addition to discussions of the hows, whys and
whens of landing and hosting great events.
“We all have a shared interest in the industry improving its relationship with government; after all governments are the biggest
investors in our industry, owning more than
70 percent of convention centers worldwide,”
said Rod Cameron, managing director for
Criterion Communications Inc., program manager for the JMIC and special advisor for the
03.10
p040,042 Connections 0310.indd 40
2/26/10 8:04:36 AM
0310_041.indd 41
2/26/10 8:01:59 AM
AIPC. “They find themselves
in the position of developing
policies that have dramatic effects on an industry they don’t
know much about.”
A driving force in the creation of the forum, Cameron
says the event is designed to
show politicians how their
destinations fit into the global
meeting industry picture. Attending leaders walk IMEX’s 3,500-exhibit
trade show floor before convening to discuss
what they learned—that the meeting sector is
serious industry.
The 2010 focus will unequivocally convey
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this economic value of meetings and events on local
economies, a campaign that
began in earnest last year
with speakers who have
successfully forged industrygovernment relationships,
according to Carina Bauer,
CEO of IMEX Group. And
the trade show plans to
host a second annual forum
when IMEX jumps pond
and establishes an Americas
show in October 2011.
After all, a lack of meeting
sector knowledge is hardly
restricted by country or
continent—it’s universal.
“We want to show politicians the wider economic
impact, the true reach of the
meeting and business event
industry,” Bauer said. “We
want to impress on them the
importance of the industry
to hotels, transportation,
congress centers and restaurants as well as the social
benefits of bringing in highly
trained demographics such as doctors and physicists and artists.”
Examples of this economic impact will come
from this year’s speakers, as they highlight
programs that have fostered the growth of the
meeting and event industry in their own communities. Consider keynote the Hon. Bruce Baird,
AM, founder and former chairman of the Commonwealth Government Friends of Tourism,
which issued a white paper plan supported by
AUD$235 million in funding over four-and-ahalf years. Part of that plan: the creation of Tourism Events Australia to ensure that the country’s
international marketing efforts benefited the
business event sector. Now consider the global
possibilities.
—JESSIE STATES
03.10
p040,042 Connections 0310.indd 42
2/26/10 8:04:49 AM
0310_043.indd 43
2/26/10 2:45:15 PM
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03.10
p044 Irrelevant 0310.indd 44
2/25/10 8:37:39 AM
0310_045.indd 45
2/15/10 3:09:30 PM
SPECIAL ADVERTISEMENT
San Antonio
CVB
meetings.visitsanantonio.com
Bigger and better, San Antonio’s new additions are
giving meetings more options than ever before.
From an expanded River Walk to the opening of the
world’s largest JW Marriott, there’s more to enjoy in
this South Texas treasure.
In the Heart Meetings
After launching the award-winning brand “San
Antonio. Deep. In the Heart.,” San Antonio has gone
a step further by creating a pledge to meeting professionals and delegates—“In the Heart Meetings.”
“In the Heart Meetings” is more than a smart
tagline for planners seeking an inspiring meeting
experience. It is the city’s call to action for meeting
venues, hoteliers, restaurateurs and every person
from wait staff to taxi drivers to unite in an effort
to provide a heartfelt service and hospitality experience. This standout commitment to San Antonio’s
hospitality industry is one of many ways that the city
fosters a top-tier meeting experience.
“In the Heart Meetings” capitalizes on the city’s
strongest attributes. Regarded as “the four P’s,”
these attributes reflect that San Antonio is a proactive, productive, playful and prudent meeting
destination.
More River Walk, More Options
The River Walk has been the heart of productive
meetings for decades. Its paths along the San Antonio River connect thousands of hotel rooms, restaurants and cultural hotspots with inspiring venues
such as the 600,000-square-foot Henry B. Gonzalez
Convention Center.
A recent extension has nearly doubled the River
SPECIAL ADVERTISEMENT 03.10
p048-049 San Antonio Advertorial 0310.indd 46
2/23/10 10:54:55 AM
Walk in length, connecting even more of the city’s
attractions. Delegates will now be able to stroll or
take a river taxi to the San Antonio Museum of Art
as well as to the 126-year-old Pearl Brewery, one of
the nation’s leading eco-friendly meeting venues.
In 2014, San Antonio’s River Walk will welcome
an additional nine miles in what is being called
the nation’s largest ecosystem restoration in an
urban area. This serene stretch will connect four of
San Antonio’s Spanish colonial missions—fantastic
examples of the city’s ability to preserve its enchanting past.
World’s Largest JW Marriott Opens
in San Antonio
The world’s largest JW Marriott (JW Marriott San
Antonio Hill Country Resort & Spa) just opened in
San Antonio, adding more than 1,000 guest rooms
to the city’s hotel repertoire of more than 40,000
guest rooms. It is now one of three 1,000-plus-room
properties in San Antonio joining the Marriott Rivercenter and the Grand Hyatt.
Set in the scenic Texas Hill Country, the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort & Spa is only 20
minutes from historic downtown and the San Antonio International Airport. Delegates can indulge in
a wide assortment of Texas fare with the resort’s
seven eateries and kick back at its 26,000-squarefoot spa. Aside from sprawling views and 140,000
square feet of meeting space, one of the resort’s top
features is Tournament Players Club golf. Two PGA
TOUR courses designed by golfing legends are ready
to challenge delegates. In addition, meetings in May
will have the added bonus of the Valero Texas Open
p048-049 San Antonio Advertorial 0310.indd 47
(May 10-16, 2010).
New Terminal at San Antonio
International Airport
San Antonio’s unprecedented growth and popularity has spurred the need for an airport expansion.
Already ranked as one of the top airports in the
nation for customer service, the San Antonio International Airport is about to offer even more. This
October, the new eight-gate Terminal B will take
off with public art installations and a distinctly San
Antonio feel. In addition, a new two-tiered roadway
system will open this spring, adding to the convenience of airport pick-ups and drop-offs.
Ranked Among Most Affordable Destinations
The cost of doing business in San Antonio just makes
sense. It starts with a walkable downtown that frees
up transportation budgets. Everything needed—the
convention center, event venues, accommodations,
restaurants and entertainment—can be found along
the River Walk. The city of San Antonio is also cutting
the cost of planning by flying in qualified meeting
professionals to experience the city for themselves
with “In the Heart Visits.” It’s just one more way that
San Antonio is setting the course as a value-centered
meeting destination.
For many, it is the character of San Antonio that
catches their attention; but in the end, it is always
the city’s functionality, authentic offerings and
affordability that ensures the San Antonio meeting
experience will reside—Deep. In the heart.
Learn more at meetings.visitsanantonio.com
or (866) 517-7771.
2/23/10 10:55:02 AM
Ashely
Muntan
Global View
Creative
Pioneering
TODAY’S ENVIRONMENT CONTINUALLY
CHALLENGES US TO BE CREATIVE PIO-
branding opportunities. While flying to
your next destination, pop open the airline magazine, as it may have an article on
a possible guest speaker or spark an idea
for a conference theme. Brilliant ideas are
often in plain sight, but you won’t notice
unless you practice keeping one creative
eye open at all times.
NEERS, and our overloaded schedules don’t
yield time for exploring new, catchy ideas.
Nonetheless, in my quest to become more
imaginative, I have discovered that people
often overlook fundamental creativity
and abstract thinking when meeting new
people. Consider these tips for opening up
your mind to new ideas.
Use the Internet as an infinite resource for
visionary direction—such as user groups,
blogs, YouTube.com and Facebook.com.
Visit groups and blogs such as Spinplan
ners.com and interactivemtgtech.word
press.com to solicit ideas or feedback and
obtain valuable industry insight.
Conduct informational interviews with
people outside the meeting planning
industry who produce large gatherings
such as sporting events, concerts, speaking
engagements or large church functions.
It’s an ideal opportunity to gather insight
into how they create experiences for their
audiences, generate attendance and plan
logistically. Many best practices exist, and
we must find which are most suitable for
our individual working styles and company cultures.
Collaborate and brainstorm as a team.
When kicking off a brainstorming session,
set ground rules and avoid the use of the
word “but”—replace it with the word
“and.” This will allow ideas to build off
one another rather than be crushed before
it even has a chance of survival. Collaboration in a trusting environment is
the magic key to creative and innovative
ideas.
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p048 Global View 0310.indd 48
BIO
Strive to keep your eyes and ears open
for new, intriguing ideas wherever you
are. If you’re attending a concert, check
out the stage set. If you’re at a sporting
event, watch for clever audience engagement techniques or unique signage and
Being a creative pioneer is about viewing an idea from different perspectives,
looking at every possible angle, turning
it on its head and using it as a fundamental building block. When you find some
basic idea, customize it into your next big,
innovative initiative.
ASHELY MUNTAN, CMP, is a senior event planner for Symantec Corp.
and resides in Atlanta. With more than 10 years in the industry, she
manages large events and takes pride in creating memorable experiences
for attendees. She can be reached at ashely_muntan@symantec.com.
2/23/10 9:19:38 AM
0310_049.indd 49
2/15/10 3:10:20 PM
SPECIAL ADVERTISEMENT
Experience
Columbus
www.experiencecolumbus.com
Short North Arts District
The Short North Arts district is located just north of the Greater Columbus
Convention Center and is alive with restaurants, bars, art galleries and boutiques.
Columbus will surprise you as the perfect destination for your next meeting or convention. Meeting
facilities and hotels in the heart of downtown are
located among or within walking distance of four
vibrant entertainment districts—areas ripe for client
entertainment or a night out with colleagues. And
Tradeshow Week ranked Columbus as one of the
most affordable U.S. meeting destinations.
Inside the Greater Columbus Convention Center,
the newly renovated Battelle Grand opened in January. It’s the largest ballroom in Ohio, with 74,000
square feet of space. The halls’ US$40 million facelift
includes a dramatic and high-tech ceiling system that
provides customized lighting options, movable wall
systems that allow the space to be divided into five
areas, a new kitchen and a large window that offers
an expansive view of downtown Columbus.
Downtown Columbus is getting an exciting
addition—a new 532-room Hilton Convention Center Hotel directly across from and connected to the
Greater Columbus Convention Center. The $160 million full-service hotel, scheduled to open in fall 2012
includes 48 suites, 30,650 square feet of meeting
space and an adjacent 900-car parking garage. The
property is expected to have a large atrium in the
lobby featuring skylights to give an indoor-outdoor
feel with a combination brick and glass façade. It’s
conveniently located next to the Short North Arts
District and Arena District.
When night falls, there’s no shortage of things to
do within walking distance of the convention center.
The Short North Arts District is filled with funky galleries, hip restaurants and appealing bars. For artistic
action, don’t miss a Short North Gallery Hop held the
first Saturday of every month. The Arena District is
another destination for great food, drinks and nonstop nightlife. Here you can catch local bands or take
in a big-name concert at Lifestyle Communities Pavilion, an NHL hockey game at Nationwide Arena or
visit America’s best new ballpark as voted by Ballpark
Digest, Huntington Park, home to the Columbus Clippers, the AAA affiliate of MLB’s Cleveland Indians.
If you’re looking for ideas for board meetings,
team building, spouse tours and offsite events for
delegates and exhibitors, then Experience Columbus’
expanded Experiential Tourism offerings are worth a
look. They take guests behind the scenes of attractions and performances and provide participants
access to experiences they won’t find anyplace else.
These 57-some tours offer carefully designed experiences that take groups to the heart of the action,
give them unprecedented backstage access, teach
them a new skill or even help them create something
special to take home. Experiences range from arts
SPECIAL ADVERTISEMENT 03.10
p050-051 Columbus Advertorial 0310.indd 50
2/23/10 11:29:59 AM
COLUMBUS HIGHLIGHTS
• Columbus was ranked the second most
affordable U.S. destination to hold a meeting,
convention or tradeshow by Tradeshow Week
• Columbus is within 550 miles of more than
half of the U.S. population
• Convention center is 10 minutes from Port
Columbus International Airport
• Thirteen downtown hotels with a total of
3,256 guest rooms. Plus, coming in 2012, a 532room Hilton
• Six hotels with 1,552 guest rooms adjacent
to and/or connected to the Greater Columbus
Convention Center
• More than 100 restaurants, pubs and clubs
within walking distance of the convention
center
Huntington Park
Named 2009 Ballpark of the Year, Huntington Park is home to the Columbus
Clippers, Triple-A affiliate of the Cleveland Indians.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
EXPERIENCE COLUMBUS
Scott Peacock, media relations manager
(614) 222-6104
SPeacock@ExperienceColumbus.com
Brian Ross, vice president of sales
(614) 222-6108
BRoss@ExperienceColumbus.com
277 W. Nationwide, Suite 125
Columbus, OH 43215
and culture, sports and culinary affairs to gardens,
history, child’s play and more.
Columbus is located within 550 miles of more
than half of the nation’s population and is easily
accessible by car or plane. Two major U.S. freeways
intersect near downtown, I-71 running north and
south and I-70 running east and west. Port Columbus International Airport is less than 10 minutes
from downtown, served by 11 airlines and their
regional affiliates providing more than 300 daily
arrivals and departures to 33 airports, including 155
nonstop flights. Also, Columbus offers some of the
lowest airfares in the country, according to the U.S.
Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
As you can see, the Columbus convention package is a win-win for meeting planners and delegates,
offering the best in connectivity between meeting
facilities, hotels and several arts and entertainment
districts, all at an attractive value.
p050-051 Columbus Advertorial 0310.indd 51
Battelle Grand
In January 2010, Battelle Grand opened with 74,000 square feet of remodeled
multifunctional space at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.
Greater Columbus Convention Center and new Hilton Convention Hotel
The new Hilton Convention Hotel will open in fall 2012 with 532 rooms connected
to the Greater Columbus Convention Center.
2/25/10 2:37:04 PM
Steve
Kemble
A Dose of Sass
Getting the
Greatest Return
on Your Event
MANY COMPANIES AND INDIVIDUALS
ARE QUESTIONING WHETHER THEY
SHOULD BE DOING EVENTS at their meet-
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BIO
ings and conferences as well as even doing
standalone events in today’s economic conditions. It is our job as meeting and event
professionals to show the power of events
by putting in various methods where we can
show ROI to our colleagues and clients.
As many of you know, I am a firm
believer in the value and power of events
as marketing tools to promote not only
various products, but business as a whole.
We need to focus on the marketing value
and the ROI vs. the frills and fun of the
event when pitching to our colleagues and
clients. Whereas five years ago the theme,
the entertainment and the food and beverage were what everyone wanted to hear and
talk about, today it is the ROI—we have to
show why they should spend coveted budget dollars to hold an event.
The key to determining ROI is incorporating measurable activities within the event.
In order to measure activities, you must first
get the right people to the event (which in
itself is measurable) and then measure how
long they stayed or how many signed up to
participate in a new program or initiative
announced at the event.
When thinking about how you are
going to produce the event itself, think of
various ways in which you can determine
ROI. First, determine exactly what your colleagues and clients want to achieve by holding the event. Trust me, in today’s world,
you will not hear what we heard quite often
in years past—that we held it just for fun.
While some companies are indeed still
doing celebratory events, today even these
events need to show ROI. For example,
company XYZ may play host to a celebratory event for winners of an incentive contest, yet more importantly they are probably
holding it because they want to encourage
those in attendance to have even greater
sales next year. Therefore, while you have
the enthusiasm and captive attention of the
event’s attendees, think about various activities you can do during the event to encourage greater sales for the next year. For
example, hire an emcee or have the CEO
announce and issue a challenge (a launch if
you will) for the coming year at the event
that is measured each quarter of the fiscal
year, and have those in attendance sign up
for the challenge. The energy and enthusiasm that you create at the event, because of
the concept, will encourage attendees to sign
up. Consider, too, giving bonus points to all
those who sign up at the event.
The same can be true for events you are
doing for your clients. Personally, I think
determining ROI on an event for your
clients should begin from the initial stages,
the moment the attendees are invited. By
designing an event that seems both intriguing and worthwhile, you will get the clients
STEVE KEMBLE has been the magic behind countless international events
for more than 20 years, from celebrating NFL players’ accomplishments
to organizing parties for two presidents. Follow him at www.adoseofsass.
com or on Twitter @stevekemblechat.
2/24/10 12:39:19 PM
You are invited...
By designing an event that seems both intriguing
and worthwhile, you will get the clients to respond
and attend.
to respond and attend. Everyone’s time
today is valuable, and you yourself have to
invest a great amount of time into the prestages of the event to entice those prospects
to make the time to attend (especially if it is
a multiday event). Again, the event has to
seem as if it’s going to be enjoyable, while at
the same time attendees have to feel they are
going to get something out of it.
Therefore, you can go back to your client or superiors and say, “As the first stage
of determining our ROI on this event, we
are going to measure the actual number of
quality client responses we get to the invitation itself. This ROI (attendee number) will
be based in great part upon the concept
you came up with for the event itself.” The
graphics, the body copy explaining the event
(put in an actual schedule of events, e.g., “7
p.m.-New Product Announcement”), the
location, the guest speaker, the date and
timing are some of the critical factors that
will determine attendance. Then when you
host the actual event (as mentioned above
with an employee incentive event), be sure to
include activities that are measurable.
Many times as event professionals,
we do the event and then close the file.
I encourage you to follow-up with your
clients every quarter and ask them how
the ROI program that was initiated at the
event is doing and how sales are tracking.
If sales are tracking well, then most likely
you will be able to again produce the
event in the coming year, because the clients did receive a great ROI for the event
produced on their behalf.
mpiweb.org
p052-053 A Dose of Sass 0310.indd 53
53
2/24/10 12:39:27 PM
Jon
Bradshaw
Reboot Your Brain
You Are Where
You Live
IT WAS 3:15 P.M. ON THE FIRST DAY
OF MPI’S WORLD EDUCATION CONGRESS IN SALT LAKE CITY LAST JULY.
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BIO
The room was full, 120 people ready to
be entertained, challenged and (hopefully)
inspired by me. But before I began, I asked
the audience an important question, the
answer to which would prove rather critical
to the success of the presentation: “Do you
understand me?!”
I live on the south coast of England and
while I don’t sound like Prince Charles, I
have a strong English accent, something that
had already caused communication problems in Utah with a taxi driver, a bellboy
and—with far more serious ramifications—
a police officer (there is no such thing as
jaywalking in the U.K.). Having promised to
speak slowly and encourage questions, I’m
pretty sure that those in the audience who
stayed awake understood everything.
What’s interesting is that although most
of you will have an idea of what constitutes
a typical English accent, our tiny country
has no such thing. Our small group of
islands has a huge and diverse range of
accents, and I find it quite refreshing that,
in a world where so much seems to be morphing into one of the same, I often struggle
to understand those from northern cities
such as Liverpool, Manchester or Newcastle, the latter being particularly difficult.
The way we speak generally indicates
where we spend time geographically, our
accents largely picked up unconsciously
from those around us. However, when
it comes to personality traits, we proactively relocate to live in places that match
our existing mindsets, attitudes and
behaviors.
Dr. Jason Rentfrow is a psychologist
at The Psychometrics Centre at the University of Cambridge, England, and has
researched this phenomenon, conducting
studies in Britain and the U.S. His U.S. study
had more than 1 million respondents and
seemed to show that personalities are not
distributed randomly but, as social mobility increases, people move to places that
suit their personalities and that behavioral
characteristics become clustered into distinct
geographic patterns.
The research suggested that extroverts
with open personalities, as well as those
with higher intellect and a longing for diversity and stimulation, gravitate toward cities,
while those with a tendency toward introversion and relaxation head for small towns
or the countryside. Within the U.S., he
found that people living on the East Coast
were stressed, irritable and depressed, while
those on the West Coast were emotionally
stable, calm and relaxed (Ha!). People on
both coasts, however, scored stronger on
traits such as openness and imagination
than people living in Central and Southern
states. (Although unpublished, I am sure the
findings would have confirmed that Dallas
was home to the most grounded, intelligent
and attractive Americans, especially those
who worked for the leading meeting industry association.)
JON BRADSHAW presents and trains internationally on a variety of subjects in the field of human behavior and performance. He is also director
of business development for IMEX, the European Meetings and Events
Exhibition and can be contacted via www.equinoxmotivation.com.
2/25/10 9:11:34 AM
...behavioral studies
show that your honesty,
how much you sleep and
even the speed you walk
all change depending on
where you live. Where
we call home affects us
in far more ways than
we may have imagined.
Rentfrow’s study contradicts the idea
that globalization and the Internet are ironing out differences between regions. Instead,
it suggests pre-existing differences between
regions are being amplified, with different personality types clustering ever more
strongly in places where they will find others
of a like mind.
“Our findings suggest people are happiest where their personalities most closely
resemble that of the others in that area,”
Rentfrow said, going on to suggest that
people’s choice of where to live is now as
important as choosing a career or a spouse.
In the U.K. study, Londoners, while not
being the most agreeable, were shown as
becoming psychologically separate from the
rest of the county with data suggesting they
were more analytical, assertive, dominant,
efficient and creative.
Of course, predictably, not everyone
agrees. In his book The World is Flat: A
Brief History of the Twenty-First Century,
Thomas Friedman argues that globalization
will iron out regional differences and that
humans will be able to “innovate without
having to emigrate.”
Whether characteristics change as a result
of living somewhere—like our accents—or
whether we do in fact proactively choose to
live in places that match our existing behavioral traits is an interesting question that I
leave you to ponder. What is clear, however,
is that behavioral studies show that your
honesty, how much you sleep and even the
speed you walk all change depending on
where you live. Where we call home affects
us in far more ways than we may have
imagined.
Broaden the view to include national
cultural differences, and we really do open
up a can of worms—but that is an aspect I’ll
explore another time as I’ve got to dash to
the airport. Didn’t I tell you? I’m moving to
California.
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Dawn
Rasmussen
Get the Job
Should You
Dumb It Down?
THERE IS A RAGING DEBATE OVER HOW
TO LIST CREDENTIALS ON A RESUMÉ,
AND THE BATTLE LINES HAVE BEEN
DRAWN. In this economy, people are
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desperately looking for work—anything
that brings home a paycheck—even seeking jobs that are vastly below their skills,
knowledge and abilities.
This begs the question: When your
credentials seem more like a liability than
an asset, should you “dumb down” your
resumé?
The one thing you don’t want to do is
convey to a hiring manager that you are
far more qualified than the job position,
and therefore send a subliminal message
that you will jump ship to a higher position the first chance you get. Remember,
prospective employers are evaluating you
as a candidate to fill the current open
position. It’s costly to employers for you
to use open positions as springboards for
your career; they lose money by having
to start the hiring and training process
over again. This is a common frustration
of hiring managers and human resource
professionals. And let’s face it: Many
workers do exactly that just to get their
feet in the door.
However, some job seekers worry that
they are simply too qualified for open
positions. They need jobs—any jobs—even
if they are vastly over-qualified in terms
of education and professional experience.
Some industry experts argue that a resumé
needs to be written with the employer’s
needs in mind. If the job description
doesn’t require a doctoral degree (and you
have one), don’t include that information
in the document. Selective omission can
improve your chances, according to some
career management experts.
Continuing along those lines, let’s say
you’ve been working as a hotel sales manager for more than 10 years and lost your
job. You’ve been looking for a year and
half with no success. Then, an entry-level
job posting comes up, and your skill sets
fit 100 percent. Do you list all 10 years
of your experience in the field, or tone it
down to only list a few years, suggesting
that you are still fairly new to that position yet possess the necessary qualifications in that area?
It’s a slippery area ethically—you can
certainly choose to play that game and
push an employer into buying that newto-the-industry perception. But what happens, if, in the interview, or even during a
background check, it comes to light that
you’ve been employed for much longer in
this particular area? You weren’t straightforward in your application, and that can
spell trouble, as employers perceive you
as less-than-honest.
Conversely, look at it from the
employer standpoint. Companies that are
hiring right now are on a shopping spree.
It’s a buyer’s market. They can “buy”
DAWN RASMUSSEN, CMP, is the president of Portland, Ore.-based
Pathfinder Writing and Careers, which specializes in hospitality/meeting
professional resumés. She has been a meeting planner for more than 15
years and an MPI member since 2001.
2/26/10 5:44:41 PM
When your credentials seem
more like a liability than an asset,
should you “dumb
down” your resumé?
top industry talent that they couldn’t have
afforded salary-wise just five years ago.
Sure, there’s the danger that a much-credentialed candidate will move up or out
at the first available opportunity. But the
company can still reap the benefits of hiring an industry expert, albeit for a shorter
amount of time. So, listing relevant credentials could put you at the top of the
pile for some employers who are on the
hunt to build company capacity and quality with talented top staff.
There really isn’t a right or wrong
way to go about it because both sides of
the equation have merits. The only real
way to try and resolve how to make your
background work for you is to know your
audience. Understand more about your
target company culture and values, especially by doing what you can to get insight
from someone on the inside, to help you
evaluate whether you should “dumb
down” your resumé.
Know what hiring managers are looking for by leveraging your network to
its fullest, and don’t be afraid to call
in favors within your business, professional and social networks. Everyone
else is doing the same thing, so you have
to gain as much intelligence as you can
about the open position and find out
what the real objectives of the hiring
managers are, so you can design your
resumé to meet those expectations.
A good rule of thumb is to target
your resumé to showcase the history
that is most relevant to the job for which
you are applying. You might need to
omit accomplishments made in other
industries (otherwise known as “selective omissions”). Ask yourself, “Will this
help or hurt me?” You aren’t de-emphasizing accomplishments, but rather not
listing them because they are neither pertinent nor important to your target job
opening.
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Douglas
Rushkoff
High-Tech Humanity
Nobody Knows
But You
THE IMPACT OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY
ON OUR MINDS AND BEHAVIORS IS
STILL RELATIVELY UNEXPLORED, mean-
ing you are the only one who can make
that assessment.
I just survived the production and
release of another PBS documentary
about media and technology called Digital
Nation. What did I learn after two focused
years of research into the impact of digital technology on our brains, emotions,
behaviors and culture, or most relevant to
our community, how living in a digitally
connected culture changes the way people
Until the real research comes
in decades from now—if it ever
does—the only way we have
of gauging the total impact of
living in the digital realm is to
do so on a personal level.
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relate to one another in the real world and
real life? The real answer is that nobody
really knows for sure what this stuff is
doing to us.
Perhaps this shouldn’t be so surprising.
How could anyone really measure such
a thing? We still haven’t measured the
impact on people’s brains and behaviors of
watching TV—and nobody’s really planning to do so, beyond, however, one program or another that might help somebody
sell something to you.
Even if we had the money and the
funding, the effort itself is probably futile,
anyway. Sure, we can put people in MRIs
and look at brain activity while they’re
playing with computers or reading books.
Or maybe we can look at the way the
brains of different generations have grown
or shrunk in different areas.
But none of these changes is truly
occurring in isolation from other causes
and effects. TV was part of a huge shift
in our culture and behavior—but was this
due to the fact that people were sitting and
looking at a tube instead of listening to
the radio (or before, for that matter, the
piano)? Or was it more the result of the
new style of advertising to which they were
being exposed: those interruptive, 30-second commercials?
Or, in an even bigger context, was the
shift due to the new impact of national
brands and the psychological research
that went into that development before
unleashing them—through TV—onto the
general public? What if TV had started
with a “pay” model like that of HBO
instead of a commercially sponsored model
such as CBS? Or even a publicly funded
one like the BBC?
Likewise, it’s hard to parse the effects of
video games from those of chatting online
from those of banner ads from those of
simply sitting with an illuminated screen
14 inches from your face. We can find out
some things, such as the fact that keeping
DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF is the author, most recently, of Life Inc: How the world
became a corporation and how to take it back. He teaches media studies at
The New School in New York, and can be contacted at rushkoff@rushkoff.com.
2/23/10 12:31:47 PM
an e-mail window open behind your
document as you work makes you half
as efficient as working with the program
closed, or that someone taller than you in
a virtual simulation enjoys a huge negotiating advantage over you back in the real
world.
But, until the real research comes in
decades from now—if it ever does—the
only way we have of gauging the total
impact of living in the digital realm is
to do so on a personal level. How does
using a particular technology make me
feel? Does it make me feel more or less
connected to the person I’m engaging
with? Am I more likely to get mad when
conversing over e-mail? Is it taking me
less time or actually more?
On top of that, we have to cope with
the fact that the way we feel might not
be the way we actually are—like a drunk
person, sometimes we over-estimate our
abilities under the influence. As one of
the scientists we spoke with for Digital
Nation has learned, people think they
are successfully multitasking, when in
fact they are making many mistakes they
wouldn’t make were they single tasking.
Likewise, we might assume, people sometimes feel closer to others online, even
though some of these relationships have
less true intensity and less true substance.
And again, all of these perceptions
are colored and clouded by who and
what we are relating to through all these
devices. The computer looks and feels
differently to a grandmother using it to
connect with her grandchildren than to a
worker who uses it to fend off commands
from an irate boss or client complaints. The
computer is just the messenger.
Yes, our digital technologies have biases
all their own: The cell phone makes us
more vulnerable to prods from others, the
Internet makes us part of more different
affiliations of people, video games increase
dopamine levels. But now that these technologies have established themselves in our
lives, the biases of our technologies may be
secondary to the ways in which we choose
to use them.
The trick, at least for me, is to unplug
from the digital for long enough to regain
my bearings. Re-establish myself as an
organic life form, primarily, and a virtual
presence only secondarily. And during
those interludes, remember what it is I
want in the first place—for myself, my
loved ones, my colleagues and my society.
Meeting up with other people in the real
world is the ultimate reset button.
Watch the Digital
Nation TV show
Douglas Rushkoff
worked on and cites
in this column by
visiting the One+
PlusPoint blog at
www.mpiweb.org.
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What’s
New in
Houston
+
Boutique hotels are the
fastest-growing segment
of the local market. The
Hotel ICON, the AldenHouston Hotel and the
Houston Magnolia are
new to the area.
GREATER HOUSTON CVB (2)
La Torretta Lake Resort
& Spa, the former Del
Lago Resort, completed a
US$135 million renovation
to its 445 suites, golf
course, restaurants,
swimming pools and
private beach.
New Ways
to Learn
The Texas Association of School Administrators learned
about the latest in educational technology during its annual
conference last year in Houston.
BY KEVIN WOO
provide assistance and direct students to
resources that were once inaccessible.
The Internet has transformed the way
RIENCE. To complete assignments, students
frequented the library alone, looking through teachers teach and students learn. It has crebook stacks or browsing through volumes of ated a world where teachers and students colmicrofiche. Chatting with classmates meant laborate at any time from anywhere.
In October, the Texas Association of
face-to-face or telephone interaction, and
collaboration was a euphemism for copying School Administrators (TASA) held its 49th
annual meeting at the 850,000-square-foot
homework assignments.
Today, learning is a group effort. Students George R. Brown Convention Center in
spend hours instant messaging, texting and Houston. More than 6,000 teachers, adminchatting via webcams as they work on group istrators and students were on hand for the
projects or complete homework assignments. two-day convention.
The conference agenda focused on digiTeachers are no longer considered “the sage
on the stage” giving information or having tal learning, and the Digital Learning Pavilone-way conversations. Education is a collab- ion exhibit hall featured more than 200
orative effort, learner- not teacher-driven. Stu- vendors demonstrating the latest in educadents tell instructors what they need in order tional technology and how it is being used
to complete projects, and teachers instantly by teachers and students in school districts
A GENERATION AGO, LEARNING WAS,
FOR THE MOST PART, A SOLITARY EXPE-
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GREATER HOUSTON CVB
+
Transportation Tips
Houston is served by two major airports:
George Bush Intercontinental (21 miles from
downtown) and William P. Hobby (12 miles
from downtown).
Houston’s METRORail is a 7.5-mile rail line
that connects downtown, the Museum District,
Texas Medical Center and Reliant Park.
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throughout Texas.
“Today’s students rely heavily on technology to learn about
the world around them, to solve
problems and to communicate
with their peers,” said Jackie C.
Spencer, director of convention
and systems administration for
TASA. “The potential of flexible
learning anywhere, anytime and
at any pace must be embraced
by educators. The pavilion was
dedicated to demonstrating how
the current technologies available in a digital
learning environment can be the catalysts for
teaching and learning in an era where cuttingedge skills, adaptability and flexibility are
paramount.”
The Digital Learning Pavilion was developed over nine months through a partnership between TASA, the Texas Association
of School Boards, Apple, the SHW Group of
Dallas and Smart Technologies of Calgary,
Canada.
Within the pavilion, four distinct areas
demonstrated 1) how teachers use technology at home, 2) how technology is used in the
classroom, 3) how students learn in the community and 4) how students learn at home.
TASA attendees entering the Digital Learning Pavilion were given iPod Touches, which
were preloaded with short videos describing
the technology on display.
Educators and students manned each
booth. The teachers demonstrated how they
use technology to teach, how the tools are
used to collaborate with colleagues online and
how they use various forms of technology—
such as text messaging, Twitter, Facebook
and webcams—to interact with students,
sometimes during non-school hours.
Students from three Texas school districts
demonstrated how they use technology in
the classroom, at home and with friends.
The students’ participation was a crucial
component of the Digital Learning Pavilion
because they were able to give the teachers
and administrators unique insights into the
world of 21st-century students and how they
use technology to learn, communicate with
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+
Fun Facts
Houston is approximately 634 square miles,
making it the fourth-largest U.S. city and
the biggest city in Texas.
The first word spoken by Neil Armstrong
when Apollo 11 landed on the moon
in 1969 was “Houston,” as he spoke to
mission control at the Lyndon B. Johnson
Space Center in Houston.
Houston is home to the National Museum
of Funeral History. The museum’s tagline
is, “Any day above ground is a good one.”
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friends, complete projects and study.
Several teachers at well-known Texas
technology high schools demonstrated how
they use tools such as Smart Boards—interactive pen and finger whiteboards that integrate the use of touchscreen computers connected to the Internet—to teach students. The
instructors demonstrated how software, Web
sites, video and audio technology are integrated to give students a richer educational
experience.
For many teachers and students, Project Based Learning (PeBL)—pronounced
“pebble”—is the primary software application used for digital learning. Teachers use the
software to post lesson plans and associated
information. Students log into their PeBL
accounts to see specific assignments, communicate with other students and instructors via
Gmail and identify resources that can be used
to complete assignments. In some instances,
teachers post videos of classroom lectures or
guest presentations online so students who
miss class can access the videos through
PeBL or YouTube. Teachers and students
demonstrated how PeBL is used at school
and at home.
iWorks, Apple’s suite of productivity
applications, is widely used by students, as
demonstrated in several booths. iWorks’
word processing and spreadsheet applications are used to write reports, but its Apple’s
multimedia applications—iMovie, iDVD,
iPhoto and Garageband—that really play a
key role in improving the quality of education. Students use these applications to make
videos, edit photos and create podcasts, educational components that were unimaginable
as recently as 10 years ago.
With PeBL, parents are now more
involved in their children’s education. They
can log on and have real-time access to current and upcoming assignments and grades
and have ongoing dialogues with teachers.
Report cards are no longer a surprise because
both parents and students can keep track of
progress on a regular basis.
KEVIN WOO is a San Francisco-based
freelance writer.
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+
Lessons Learned
An emergency call and a flexible speaker helped the National
Council of Teachers of English conference in Philadelphia
have a successful event.
BY ILONA KAUREMSZKY
ANY MEETING PLANNER CAN TELL YOU
WHAT A NIGHTMARE IT IS when a guest
speaker cancels just hours before a show
opens.
This scene played out for Jacqui JosephBiddle, convention director for the National
Council of Teachers of English (NCTE),
which held its annual convention in Philadelphia last year.
“I was in sessions and running around
when I got the call, so we put our team to
work immediately,” she recalled.
Carol Jago, NCTE president and program chairwoman, delivered an emergency
call to a handful of authors who were to
speak on that day, crossing her fingers that
something might give.
“As it turned out, Nicholas Sparks, who
was scheduled to do a smaller session on
Saturday, said he’d do it,” said Jago, who
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described the final evening as a real showstopper, turning what could have been a
regular Saturday night into a night of fun
and humor. “He had all the young teachers swooning and totally delighted the
audience.”
Welcome to the NCTE convention of the
New Age. The surprise backup, bestselling
author was so successful, a packed house
of nearly 7,000 educators poured into the
Pennsylvania Convention Center’s ballroom
on a rainy Saturday night.
Blame it on technology. Turns out one
of the convention’s steamy topics—bringing
teen social networking inside the classroom
walls—saved the day, turning a nightmare
scenario into a dream come true.
Not only did the capacity crowd arrive
in droves, but Joseph-Biddle says delegates
were all busily texting and tweeting about
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+
What’s
New in
Philadelphia
The Philadelphia Convention Center expansion,
expected to be completed
in 2011, will nearly triple
the amount of existing
space to a total 1 million
square feet. The center
will have 700,000 square
feet of meeting space,
including the U.S. Northeast’s largest contiguous
exhibit space.
Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group Inc. opened
eco-friendly LEED boutique
Hotel Palomar Philadelphia in October. This
US$92 million project
has 6,000 square feet
of meeting space in five
meeting rooms.
The 40-story Vine Hotel
is a $320 million project
scheduled to open this
year. The 325-room
property has apartments
and a handful of condos
on its upper floors and
will have 18,000 square
feet of meeting space,
an upscale 24-hour
restaurant and a fullservice spa.
the latest conference developments.
“I had one guy show me his tweet
and wouldn’t you know it, the room was
packed,” Joseph-Biddle said.
Jago concedes that Sparks caters to a
younger demographic and is wildly popular
with the 18-34 crowd.
“Usually when a speaker cancels, the
price of booking another air ticket, finding
accommodations, not to mention securing
the author at that late stage, would have
offset costs, adding unexpected expenses,”
Jago said.
Not so in this case.
“Nick was such a good sport, he literally
went running to the airport seconds after he
completed his speech,” Jago said.
No extra plane ticket was needed as
the author of The Notebook, A Walk to
Remember and Dear John took his regularly scheduled flight.
Jago, in a down-to-earth teacher tone,
concedes she learned a lesson that night.
“The learning I took away from that scenario was, it’s a Saturday night and people
don’t want a didactic speaker,” she said.
“They’ve been in sessions all day Friday and
Saturday.”
The iconic organization, which celebrates
its centennial this year, faced tough times
with fewer resources before the event.
“In the past, we were able to secure
authors to attend the conferences, but with
growing costs involved in speaking fees and
publishers having fewer dollars committed,
it’s becoming harder,” Jago said.
But the firecracker president took this
negative and flipped it into a positive.
“We decided to find authors who would
be releasing books, as they’d be on a book
tour,” she said.
The result was procuring authors in
NCTE’s target audience—including Julie
Andrews—and getting them to speak.
The conference’s theme—Once and
Future Classics: Reading Between the
Lines—had thousands of literacy educators
from pre-K through graduate school head to
Philadelphia for NCTE’s 99th Annual Convention Nov. 19-22 to hear experts and practitioners in literacy research and policy and
to problem solve, network and get inspired
by the newest names in literature.
Best described as a literary Olympics,
Joseph-Biddle explains that on average 60
sessions were offered nearly each hour with
600 sessions organized between Thursday
and Sunday.
“I wanted people to think everything
works by magic,” she said.
+
PHILADELPHIA CVB (2)
Fun Facts
In 1787, 55 delegates, including the Founding
Fathers, gathered in Philadelphia for the
Constitutional Convention, which resulted
in the Constitution of the United States of
America.
Philadelphia boasts a host of firsts. Among
them: America’s first zoo, hospital, medical
school, stock exchange, protests against
slavery and department store.
Pegged as “Walker’s Paradise” with
its Center City, waterfront and historic
neighborhoods, Philadelphia was recently
ranked the fifth Most Walkable U.S. City by
Walk Score.
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+
For US$7, take the Airport Rail
Line (R-1), which departs from the
airport every half hour from 5:30
a.m. to 11:25 p.m. The trip takes
approximately 25 minutes to the Center
City District.
For a $5 all-day pass, you can hitch a
ride on Phlash, the historic Philadelphia
purple trolley, and enjoy all day hopon-hop-off service to 27 key locations
including Franklin Square, the Liberty
Bell Center and Penn’s Landing.
Operates daily spring till fall from 10
a.m. to 6 p.m.
More than 40 percent of Americans
live within a day’s drive of Philadelphia,
accessible by interstates 95 and 76,
as well as the Pennsylvania and New
Jersey turnpikes.
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This magic comes with early planning.
A call for proposal submissions goes out
during the conference, and Joseph-Biddle
begins conference planning in January,
accepting all submissions via the Internet.
A former high school English teacher who’s
a bona fide conference guru (she helped
orchestrate the last 23 conferences, the first
10 years as an assistant), she works with a
team of reviewers and heads a committee
that carefully assesses each submission.
“I color code all the tracks to ensure
there is a session to meet the needs of all
our participants,” Joseph-Biddle said.
The host city won the bid in early 2003,
and the Philadelphia CVB (PCVB) did more
than enough to help.
“Many of our delegates were booking
last minute,” Joseph-Biddle said, and when
she made a call requesting overflow rooms,
the CVB responded within minutes with a
suitable venue for the extra registrants.
“The PCVB focused on working with
its hotel partners to extend blocks or give
blocks to NCTE at the same time the destination was accommodating the Philadelphia Marathon,” said Jack Ferguson,
executive vice president for the PCVB.
“The PCVB holds a monthly meeting with
its hotel partners and reviews all convention
business and special events for the next 12
months to identify trends either up or down
and makes adjustments accordingly with
the organizations. That way, everybody is
on board as to what the actual days of the
NCTE (2)
Transportation Tips
meeting or event are going to look like.”
Philly was chosen due to the whole
package, and Ferguson says the PCVB was
in talks with the NCTE years prior as to
why the city was an ideal destination for
the conference.
“The location of the convention center
in downtown, hotel-walkable for attendees,
things to do after meeting all day,” he said,
listing examples and adding that the NCTE
also learned through the PCVB that 15 percent of Philadelphia’s convention demand is
educational groups.
Now there’s another lesson learned.
ILONA KAUREMSZKY is a Toronto-based
freelance writer.
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The World Bodypainting Festival is a celebrated
tradition in Seeboden, Austria, that showcases art
and the town’s beautiful setting.
BY KIMBERLY KING
ARTISTS HAVE ALWAYS FOUND INSPIRATION IN NATURE. From Georgia O’Keeffe’s
desert landscapes of New Mexico to Vincent
van Gogh’s sunflowers, we have grown accustomed to seeing the natural world depicted
in art. It is no surprise then that Seeboden, a
treasured lakeside town nestled near the foothills of the Nockberge Mountains in Austria,
serves as an apt backdrop for a festival where
artists from more than 40 countries gather to
create art. What may be a surprising, if natural, choice is that the canvas these artists use is
the human body.
A Colorful Past
Body painting has a history that reaches back
to ancient times: Decorating the skin with clay
and other natural pigments for battle or ceremony is believed to have been prevalent in
most tribalistic cultures. It was not until the
1960s, however, that body painting had its
Western revival, due in part to the free-spirited
attitude pervasive during that time and more
relaxed social mores regarding nudity. Today,
artists work professionally as body painters
all over the world. Their work is seen on TV
and in magazines; body painters also work frequently in film, particularly in science fiction.
p070-071 Dest Austria 0310.indd 70
The idea for an annual body painting festival occurred simply enough—Alex Barendregt, a manager at the Seeboden Bureau of
Tourism, landed in a leading role in the industry at a young age. After some contact with
a body painter at the Fine Arts Academy in
1998, Barendregt researched and discovered
that there was no festival to celebrate the art of
bodypainting, something that interested him.
He thought this lack, coupled with his hometown Seeboden’s beautiful setting, presented
a unique opportunity for showcasing this art
and bringing in visitors.
“There was no such event for bodypainting artists before [the World Bodypainting
Festival],” Barendregt said. “Over the years,
we’ve maintained the original idea and kept
the event high in quality.”
The festival centers on a very simple
concept.
“Let’s bring body painters to a place that is
surrounded by the beauty of nature in order to
give the art form of body painting a great place
to develop,” Barendregt said.
With each passing year, the World Bodypainting Festival becomes larger and more
influential, spawning spin-off festivals
worldwide.
+
What’s New
in Austria
The Hotel Stein in
Salzberg was recently
renovated to include a
rooftop cafe and suites
with leather upholstery and
zebra-skin fabrics.
Austria’s train network has
improved with the addition
of its newest and fastest
train, the Railjet. It
will shorten travel times
between Budapest,
Munich and Vienna
(and connect Vienna to
Innsbruck and on to Zurich
in 2010-2012).
In Austria, smoking is
now officially verboten
in restaurants and
cafes, but large establishments are allowed to build
separate smoking rooms
for their patrons if they
choose.
WORLD BODYPAINTING FESTIVAL
True Colors
2/23/10 12:39:40 PM
+
Fun Facts
About Austria
Vienna’s Central Cemetery has more
than 2.5 million tombs (more than the
city’s present population), including those
of composers Beethoven, Brahms, Gluck,
Schubert, Schoenberg and Strauss.
A mummified corpse from the Stone Age
was found in the ice of the Otztal Alps,
between Austria and Italy, in 1991.
Austria is the only continental European Union
country that is not a member of NATO.
Written on the Body
Because of his ties with the Seeboden Bureau
of Tourism, Barendregt organized the inaugural event unilaterally with few obstacles.
“In the beginning we had a bit of an issue
concerning nudity, but the fact is that our
images and works of body painting art are
presented in a highly artistic way,” he said. “It
is a family event—kids get their faces painted,
we have drawing classes that include them and
of course all of the children want to get airbrush tattoos. In 2009, we had around 4,000
visitors under 14 years old.”
Now approaching its 13th year, the World
Bodypainting Festival is a celebrated tradition in
Austria—the weeklong festival uses teamwork
and help from sponsors to combine dance,
drama, painting and photography to create
boundary-breaking art in a group setting.
Last year’s theme was “Poetry—the Power
of Words,” and each day, live stage performances treated 26,000 participants in keeping
with that theme.
“Every year, new programs are added, and
the particular community of participating artists
makes every year unique,” Barendregt said.
Because the works of art at the festival are
fleeting and typically last just hours before
being washed away, few events in Europe
attract as many photographers. Various photography competitions have become another
artistic aspect of the festival.
Seeboden’s stunning environment and surrounding Lake Millstatter are not overlooked or taken
for granted by participants.
“We want people to get to
know the culture and environment before and after the festival,”
Barengredt said. “We organize
tours, side events, etc., to get people attached to the area.”
Festival goers participate in
selective auto, bicycle and hiking tours, including a trip to Austria’s highest mountain, the
Grossglockner, and the 655-foot Malta dam.
Area bars and restaurants also offer services at
discounts for festival visitors.
New Hues
Planning for the 2010 World Bodypainting
Festival is well under way—this year’s events
will take place July 12-18. Slated features
include a night contest for UV effects, a course
on colors and composition and a special
workshop about the technique of painting on
realistic clothing. The week’s events will conclude at a fantasy ball in the medieval castle
Sommeregg.
WORLD BODYPAINTING FESTIVAL
OSWIN EDER
+
Transportation Tips
Seeboden is situated in Carinthia in south
Austria. The village is centrally located and can
be reached via the A10 Autobahn by car.
With the Austrian Railway and the ÖBBEVENTticket, there is a discount to the nearest
train station, Spittal-Millstättersee.
The voucher will be available in the World
Bodypainting Festival program brochure and
also on the Web site for downloading.
The closest airport is Klagenfurt, about
50 miles away. There is a daily bus shuttle to
Seeboden and surrounding villages especially for
festival participants. Other airports are Salzburg
(77 miles away) or Ljubljana (74 miles away in
Slovenia).
KIMBERLY KING is a New York-based
freelance writer.
mpiweb.org
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SPECIAL ADVERTISEMENT
Freeman
www.freemanco.com
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“Through our alliance with Freeman, Maritz better
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senior vice president for Maritz Travel. “That, in combination with our deep understanding of what drives human
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Already, clients are benefitting from the Freeman-Maritz alliance.
“The Graphic Arts Show Company (GASC) produces
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other Top 200 trade shows ours, too, have been tested by
the current economy. Freeman has been a valuable and
responsive partner for us in the past and, like GASC, continues to innovate, which is why we have chosen the new
Freeman-Maritz solution,” said GASC Vice President Chris
Price. “We believe that by producing a virtual preview of
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Freeman and Maritz customers can expect more innovative services and products that will make their events more
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SPECIAL ADVERTISEMENT 03.10
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SPECIAL ADVERTISEMENT
Hiltons of Texas
HILTON ANATOLE
www.hilton.com
Experience the legendary, inspirational
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The Hilton Austin features 60,000
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SPECIAL ADVERTISEMENT 03.10
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Your
Future
TODAY
To keep up with the
phenomenal rate of
technological innovation,
you must be hip to what’s
coming tomorrow.
B Y RYA N S I N G E L
B Y RYAN S IN GE L
76
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A
t one time, predicting the future of technology
was a game best left to imaginative children and sci-fi authors
and thought leaders such as Philip
K. Dick (Minority Report) and
Vernor Vinge (father of the term
“singularity”).
While an endless supply of cool
gadgets will continue to shape our
lives, big innovations will center
on figuring out how to live in a
world of constantly flowing data.
We’ll have new ways to get
at the data that we need or the
data will find us. The separation
between the physical and online
worlds will get thinner and at
times disappear. Meanwhile, we’ll
be left to figure out how much we
really want to contribute to that
global data stream—and live with
the consequences. It’ll be fast,
overwhelming, confusing and,
one hopes, a lot of fun.
Augmented Reality
Augmented reality (AR) is a fancy
term for technology that is like the
Terminator’s vision, it puts new
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layers on reality—a blending
of dimensions. Try this on for
size. Point your smartphone’s
camera down the street in San
Francisco in search of a caffeine fix, and on the screen
you’ll see not only the live
reality before you, but also
pop-up bubbles indicating
that the best Italian-style cappuccino in the neighborhood
is at Caffe Trieste. Click on
the “W” in the corner of the
screen and Wikipedia informs
you that Jack Kerouac used to
hang out there and that Frances Ford Coppola penned The
Godfather inside.
T
hen you launch a
facial recognition app that provides a detailed list of current
café occupants. You notice a
fellow in the corner buried in
an old-fashioned paper copy
of The New Yorker, and the
app reveals that he works for a
company you’re about to land
as a client—a slight but important intellectual advantage for
that meeting next week.
The ability to overlay a
filter on a map isn’t new, but
when that filter is incredibly
sharp and constantly updated
it becomes incredibly powerful. Right now the best map is
created by earthmine, whose
cars drive around the world’s
78
one+
major cities snapping photos
of streets, homes and alleys—
all in 3-D. The depth perception lets the company assign
each pixel a three-dimensional
location.
What that means in practice is that an earthminepowered smartphone app can
align its overlay exactly with
the real world, placing labels
and objects in exactly the right
place. (With GPS, the best you
can expect in a city canyon is
somewhere within 50 to 100
meters.)
“That [quality] creates a
seamless relationship between
what is in the field and what is
in a database,” earthmine cofounder John Ristevski said.
For those new to AR,
Ristevski recommends Junaio (available via smartphone
app and standard computer),
which lets users place 3-D
objects into the AR world
for the value or amusement
of other users. Users of these
types of apps literally experience a different, previously
unknown, vision of reality.
Hobbyists have even fashioned virtual reality goggles
from smartphones with such
location intelligence and AR
capable of transporting a
user’s vision to much of the
world. With these goggles,
you can walk the streets
of Paris turn by turn—just
beware, without walking in
something akin to a humansized hamster ball, the virtual
sidewalk upon which you
chose to stroll may be interrupted by a wall or moving
vehicle in the non-augmented
world. But this is all just the
beginning: Specialized digital
mapping of event venues will
one day free virtual event
attendees from the confines
of their office chairs and computers and provide immersive,
mobile experiences.
As for AR picking out
and naming people in a live
camera view, that technology
already exists in rough form.
Companies such as Google
are leaving it out of their early
AR offerings, such as Google
Goggles (snap a photo and the
app identifies the subject), for
privacy reasons.
Consider the more in-depth
applications of AR and the
future of a developing reality.
At Columbia University, in
the lab of AR pioneer Professor Steven Feiner, Maj. Steve
Henderson is creating a system that helps frontline soldiers make guided repairs to
armored vehicles, rather than
sending them to the rear for
repair.
Soldiers with mechanical
abilities strap the Androidbased Droid smartphone to
their forearms and put on
special goggles that replace
their normal eyesight with
enhanced camera views that
are sent over WiFi from a
nearby laptop. The video projection in the goggles guides
the soldier, illuminating which
nut to loosen and even imposing a fake wrench in the vision
to illustrate the operation. The
Droid acts as a remote control
for the system.
AR could also be used to
create training modules and
to keep people from skipping steps in routine but
critical tasks such as airplane
maintenance.
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“We think the power is in
the training potential,” Henderson said.
H
e imagines ARdriven training “videos” that
gradually remove the instructions from an overlay as a student progresses.
Training via AR at your
next event? Perhaps, but now
your event has gone hybrid at
the very least, if not altogether
virtual.
Very Social Media
If you think Facebook reveals
too much public information,
you’re in for a surprise.
You’re all LinkedIn, with
a humming presence on Facebook, and you’ve grown comfortable knowing that a large
chunk of the world can find
you and judge you online, if it
so desires. Perhaps you’re even
on Twitter, which takes sharing to another level—turning
140-character messages into
notes for the eyes of the entire
world.
That’s led to the explosion
of location reporting tools such
as Loopt and foursquare, a
location-based service in which
you “check-in,” usually with a
message, when you go somewhere, allowing friends to find
you—and ooze jealousy as you
take on the title of “mayor”
for a spot where you frequently
check in. Who will be the mayor
of your next trade show booth/
display?
Now comes Blippy, a service that lets you designate a
credit card as your “public”
card. So instead of typing out
your activities, your purchases
are automatically broadcast,
be they opening night movie
tickets or hotel charges. The
service, which opened to the
public in late January, is backed
by an A-list of venture capital, including Charles River
Ventures, Sequoia Capital and
king of Web 2.0 investors Ron
Conway.
Co-founder Philip Kaplan
says the world is now truly
realizing the power of selfpublishing services like Twitter.
That micro-blogging system hit
its tipping point at the 2007
SXSW tech and music conference in Austin, Texas, and now
“Twitter runs the conference,”
according to Kaplan. (See “A
Virtual Mess” in the August
2008 issue of One+ to learn
more about this infamous event
that forever changed eventattendee dynamics.)
So, what of these auto-publish tools? Enthralled by the
possibilities, Kaplan wonders if
companies will take note of this
newly available data stream
and apply it to better compete
for business. He was just in
Phoenix for a business meeting,
and got messages from locals
who saw his Blippy purchases
at area stores and asked to meet
up.
“They know what movies
I watch and what music I’ve
been buying,” Kaplan said. “It
B
lippy lets you
designate a credit
card as your
“public” card. So instead
of typing out your activities
as you would with Twitter,
your purchases are automatically broadcast, be
they opening night movie
tickets or hotel charges.
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prevents awkward conversation and it turns a cold lead
into a warm lead.”
Think of Blippy as just the
start of another revolution
in self-publishing. The oftconfounding question of how
to monetize these tools is suddenly becoming clearer.
Like it or not, it’s increasingly necessary to constantly
market yourself and your
company. It might seem like
all too much noise, but that’s
where the conversation
and the business is found.
It’s easy to dismiss the idea
that you need to broadcast
the fact that you’re stuck in
the airport with a half-hour
delay—which seems like
unseemly self-aggrandization—but a new contract,
job or even spouse may be
just a “check-in” or Blippy
purchase away.
F
or those unsure, there’s
also middle ground, where
self-publishing isn’t about
a world audience—it can
be your digital scale reporting your weight to Google
Health, which passes it along
to your doctor, or Blippy
passing along trip purchases
to your assistant to streamline expense reporting, or
feed a micromanaging boss,
client or CFO.
80
one+
New Interfaces
and Gestures
Computers used to have
a cord that led to a device
called a mouse that was best
used on a specialized piece of
plastic called a mouse pad.
There have been many variations of the mouse, but the
real trick is transforming the
user’s hand into a mouse, or
whole body into a remote
control.
Our devices are already
beginning to train us. We now
know the pinch, the swipe
and the scroll. So when do
we get to start e-mailing photos to friends with the sweep
of an arm, trash e-mails with
a dismissive flick of the wrist
or sift through data by twisting our hands—Minority
Report-style?
Well, we’ll likely start late
this year with Microsoft’s
Natal, a 3-D camera for the
Xbox 360 that uses your
body as the game controller—a significant step beyond
controls on the Wii gaming
system. Want to kick the ball
into the goal? Pull your leg
back and swing. Microsoft
promises Natal late this year,
but it has yet to announce a
delivery date for its research
into bands on your forearms
that turn muscle movements
into commands.
The iPad, Mac’s newly
announced tablet computer,
will also teach us a new array
of motions when it’s released
this month. The designer
who helped create the Hollywood special-effects-only
interface in the Minority
Report film is working to
make it real—gloves and all.
And in Germany, researchers
have created the iPoint 3D,
which uses cameras to determine your spatial position in
the air.
Currently, you can use the
iPoint to play pong with your
bare hands in space, but you
may eventually be using it to
find sales leads from gigabytes of Twitter posts and
other social media data or
guiding a multimedia conference presentation.
Automated
Information Sifters
As we move into the era of
the real-time Web in which
news moves in seconds and
minutes—and everyone is
just one Tweet from being
out of the loop—it’s becoming harder to find the information you need amid the
chatter.
Just ask Anand Rajaraman, who co-founded Kosmix, a search engine that
focuses on presenting and
classifying results.
“Today, not only is
data volume going through
another order of magnitude
increase, driven by social
media and user-generated
content, this new data is also
arriving at unprecedented,
real-time rates,” Rajaraman
said. “We very definitely need
new ways of filtering the data
deluge in the social Web.”
Consider the revolutionary data-mining work
pioneered by IBM’s Dr.
Ching-Yung Lin. (See “Social
Currency” in the January
2010 issue of One+.) His
massive SmallBlue project
has the challenge of finding
specific, relevant information from within its social
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“We very
definitely need
new ways of
filtering the data
deluge in the
social Web.”
network dataset—the largest
publicly known to exist.
This is a longstanding problem. Google has tried to figure
it out with its algorithmicpowered news site. RSS feeds
became too overwhelming to
handle, so readers turned to
user-voting sites such as Digg
and Reddit to find top stories.
Many now just use their friends
on Twitter and Facebook to tell
them what to read—turning
those acquaintances into personal front-page editors.
Techmeme is one of the
most successful of such sites
to date, billing itself as Page
A1 of the tech press. But it’s
bolstered its algorithms with
an editorial staff that relies on
tips submitted via Twitter to
make sure it gets hot stories
fast. Then there’s the upstart
TwitterTim.es, which makes
a personalized “online newspaper” of the hottest stories—
based on the recommendations
of the people you follow. And
since Twitter feeds are public,
you can subscribe to the TwitterTim.es editions of other
Twitter users—such as competitors and your boss.
Rajaraman says that’s a
good step.
“We need to move beyond
10 blue links to categorizing
and organizing results to make
them easy to explore,” he said.
“And to deal with real-time,
we need to move from a pull
model where users search data
to a push model where the right
data finds the interested user.”
There are other attempts out
there as well, such as iCurrent
and Rajamaran’s MeeHive.
Each of these feeds you stories it thinks you should read
based on your self-identified
interests—and then fine-tunes
by studying what you read on
the site.
None has yet cracked the
code of always getting you the
full panolopy of information
you need, but they are getting
better and are definitely at the
point of being too useful to
ignore. Until one hits the magic
formula, combine a few of
them and you’ve got a way to
keep a grip, if only a precarious
one, on the zeitgeist.
RYAN SINGEL is a San
Francisco-based tech writer
and frequent contributor to
Wired News.
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THE V
The recession is
driving businesses to
TAKE VIRTUAL
MEETINGS MORE
SERIOUSLY and come to
terms with the state
of the existing
technological
offerings.
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VIRTUAL
THE VIRTUAL MEETING AND EVENT
INDUSTRY IS STILL IN ITS INFANCY,
technology. That’s when our industry took off.”
yet it has seen a dramatic increase in demand over
the last year. Wired magazine predicted 2010
would see a 500 percent increase in virtual events.
GigaOm.com, a highly regarded tech Web site,
predicts that high-end virtual technology and virtual worlds will see a growth from about US$50
million in 2009 to $8-$10 billion by 2014.
“At the end of 2008, the financial crisis kicked
off a recession that impacted all aspects of the
meeting industry,” said Cece Salomon-Lee, director of marketing for InXpo, a virtual event producer. “Companies started canceling and scaling
back their meetings. So what we saw in 2009 was
a huge demand for technologies that still allowed
these companies to meet without having to be in
the same location. And the solution was virtual
HESITANTLY EMBRACING
Small virtual gatherings may be fully serviced with
Skype and webcams. But if you’re dealing with
500 or 5,000 people, those virtual tools won’t
likely cut it. For larger meetings, the range of tools
includes everything from the use of live Twitter
and Facebook streams to 2-D presentations projected into a 3-D space and virtual worlds where
participants utilize avatars—yes, pretty much
like the movie—to walk, talk and make deals for
their real-life counterparts. But not everyone in
the business world has embraced virtual meeting
technology.
According to technology consultant Scott
Gavin, “a lot of companies are still not even
using webcams, and that’s old stuff. They’re just
BY PETER GORMAN
STATE
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so used to teleconferencing that they
don’t use the technology that’s out there
that would allow them to do so much
more.”
But as businesses become more
global and budget-conscious it simply
becomes impossible to hold strictly faceto-face meetings as often as companies
would like.
Virtual meetings herald potential
budgetary savings and audience growth,
but at what cost? First, the technology
still has glitches. Next, consider that the
real, physical face-to-face meeting—the
opportunity to size up a potential business partner or co-worker in person
rather than in avatar—is absent.
When you’re in a room with real
people you see what they are doing,
who is engaged and who isn’t, Gavin
says, whereas in a virtual meeting people might be walking off to make a cup
of coffee.
“Face-to-face meetings are [generally]
most important early on in the relationship,” Gavin said. “After that you can
have comfortable virtual meetings.”
But this all depends on the techno-
graphics of your audience.
“Basically, I’ve got about 20-30 seconds to get someone involved or I’ve
lost them,” Salomon-Lee said. “When I
went to see Avatar, if I had to do anything more than put on a pair of 3-D
glasses, I would not have gone to see
that movie. And that’s how people feel
about virtual events as well.
“IBM and Cisco have utilized Second Life, a virtual world where people
utilize avatars, but those companies are
the avant garde of technology,” she said.
“For most businesses that model doesn’t
Necessity is the Mother of
INVENTION
In April 2009, Ariba Inc., a spend management analysis firm
based in Sunnyvale, Calif., held its ANNUAL CUSTOMER
CONFERENCE, ARIBA LIVE, ENTIRELY ONLINE.
In prior years, the company
held physical conferences,
but when the early registration reports indicated that
attendance for the 2009
event might not hit expectations, Traci Oziemblowsky, CMM, CMP, Ariba’s
senior manager of global
corporate events, realized
the company might need to
implement Plan B.
“I was worried that we’d
throw a party and no one
would show up,” she said.
Oziemblowsky knew
that canceling the entire
annual conference wasn’t
an option because the
invitees represented Ariba’s
biggest customers. Her
solution was to deliver the
conference via the Internet,
cancel the physical Ariba
Live event and conduct a
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scaled down, six-city road
show immediately after the
virtual conference to meet
face-to-face with customers and prospects. If the
customers didn’t have the
budget to travel, she reasoned, Ariba would travel
to the customers.
With only five months
to transform the physical
conference into a virtual
event, Oziemblowsky and
her team researched the
major players in the online
event community and drew
up a short list of potential
partners. Cramer Digital
Marketing of Norwood,
Mass., and Unisfair of
Menlo Park, Calif., were
selected to design the look
and feel of the conference
and provide technical
expertise.
To kick off the project,
Cramer Digital worked with
Oziemblowsky to create
a video of the proposed
virtual event. The video
was crucial to Oziemblowsky’s internal sales
efforts because it helped
Ariba’s management team
visualize what a virtual
event might look like.
Oziemblowsky also knew
that the demo video would
help prove that an online
conference with a virtual
learning component was
much more than a webinar
on steroids.
Once Ariba’s senior
management team
approved the virtual event,
Oziemblowsky concentrated her efforts on developing content. She worked
with Ariba’s product
managers and partner
companies to develop an
information-rich conference
agenda.
“There is no substitute for content,” she
said. “Presentations at
physical conferences
tend to be monologues,
not dialogues. But with
our virtual event, we had
multiple ways [for people]
to interact: IM, chat, Twitter,
Facebook and LinkedIn.”
Ariba sold sponsorships and booth space at
previous events to help
offset production costs.
The company had become
adept at driving traffic to
the exhibit hall but the
idea of driving traffic to a
virtual booth presented a
challenge. To help solve the
problem, Oziemblowsky
turned to Joerg Rathenberg, senior director of
marketing at Unisfair.
Unisfair provides a socalled virtual event platform
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yet apply, not only because you’re limited to maybe 100 participants, but
only a technologically accomplished
audience can maneuver in that space.
Second Life is very complex—too complex for most businesses. A good virtual
event is not so complicated that people
have difficulty functioning in it. There’s
a learning curve but it shouldn’t be too
steep or you’ll lose your audience.”
Even though not everyone is ready
that enables all conference
sponsors and partners to
effortlessly build virtual
booths, broadcast presentations online, integrate different types of digital communication such as instant
messaging and online chat
to link attendees together
and generate post-event
reports to measure ROI.
To market the exhibit
hall and drive traffic,
Rathenberg recommended
that Ariba send instant
messages to people as
they attended keynote
presentations and breakout
to operate an avatar, components of
virtual meeting technology are already
embedded in most business lives on a
daily basis. Scott Feldman, managing
editor of VirtualWorldNews.com, says
that while there are companies resisting
virtual technology, most will fall in line
and use it in the near future.
“Virtual meetings are becoming
more the norm,” Feldman said. “Workforces have come to accept engaging in
a digital format,
as much as they
might
profit
sessions. He also suggested that the company
post messages on Twitter
and LinkedIn, and make
people aware of booth
contests and give-aways
for those who were willing
to sign a virtual guest book.
PROMOTING
THE EVENT
To promote Ariba Live
2009, Oziemblowsky
purchased banner ads,
pitched stories to bloggers,
created LinkedIn and Facebook communities, sent
e-mail blasts and asked the
from face-to-face. And even though
this is thought of as a young person’s
game—because of their experience
growing up playing video games and
having avatars fight battles and so
forth—well, if it works, if it facilitates
business expansion and saves a company money, then even the older executives will go for it.”
EXPANDING EXPERIENCES
While many companies were financially
pushed into the world of virtual meetings—the cost of getting 1,000 people
conference presenters to
post messages on Twitter
so their followers were
aware of the event.
Post event traffic
reports that detailed who
attended keynote presentations, breakout sessions
and who visited the virtual
booths were provided to
each partner. The reports
have proven to be among
the most valuable benefits that Ariba has provided
to its partners.
“If the reports showed
that an attendee visited
a booth several times,
attended several presentations on the same general
topic and downloaded
brochures, it’s safe to say
that’s a good prospect
and a sales person could
contact them immediately,”
Rathenberg said.
Overall, Ariba Live
2009 exceeded company
expectations. The virtual
conference attracted more
than 2,500 attendees (twice
the number of people who
typically attend physical
events), delivered 36 breakout sessions, generated
more sales leads than
physical events and saved
the company 20 percent on
event production and travel
costs.
Might virtual conferences replace physical
events? Not likely, Oziemblowsky says.
“There’s no way to
replace face-to-face
contact,” she said. “[Virtual
conferences] are a different
kind of meeting.”
The future, it would
seem, is…virtually…
limitless.
—Kevin Woo
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to a destination, then putting them up
in hotels and feeding them for three
days is sizable—Salomon-Lee says
those companies are discovering that
virtual meetings do a lot more than
just save money.
One of the key advantages she
sees is the quantity of intelligence
she can gather from virtual meeting
participants.
“From the moment you log into
a virtual conference, I begin learning
about you. I can see which exhibition
booths you visited, which speakers you
heard, what presentations you downloaded,” Salomon-Lee said. “And
if I am running that conference and
see that no one is staying longer than
September for 15,000 that was done
all virtually, according to Kathy Doyle,
senior manager with Global Cisco Live
and Networkers Conferences.
“This extends the reach of our customers,” she said. “We’re giving them
exposure to conferences they could
not have attended in the past. We’re
seeing this as a great new marketing
channel.”
Doyle says some of the events she’s
involved with allow virtual participants to interact with the live portions
of the events in real time.
Such live-virtual hybrid events are
the future, according to Michael Westcott, managing director of the Event
Marketing Institute, a think tank dedi-
From the moment you log into a virtual conference, I begin learning about you. I CAN SEE
WHICH EXHIBITION BOOTHS YOU VISITED,
which speakers you heard, what presentations you downloaded...
10 minutes for the keynote speaker’s
remarks, well, I know I had the wrong
keynote speaker.”
That information is invaluable for
planning future events and not necessarily something you can glean from
live events and surveys.
“So creating a virtual space in
which to hold meetings and conferences and trade shows might have
initially been a way to save money for
a company, but people are also realizing that the technology can become an
integral part of their event strategy.”
Cisco held a salesperson meeting in
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cated to the development of business
intelligence for companies using live
marketing.
“You might bring in 500 of your
key personnel for a live event, but
make it accessible to several thousand
others. Or you can bring your whole
team and then utilize the virtual elements to extend the physical one.”
NEW SAVINGS?
But do virtual events actually save
money? Upfront costs to buy platforms used to generate virtual events
start at about $10,000, but with bells
and whistles can run much higher.
“When you start designing custom
interfaces, gaming, flash animation,
video and other experiences into your
event to make it more engaging and
potentially a more educational experience, you’re probably talking about a
couple of hundred thousand dollars or
more,” Westcott said.
Still, companies are seeing the
value of the investment in those tools
“because they can use them long after
the live portion of the event is over,”
he said.
Despite the sometimes stiff upfront
costs for the virtual platform, companies still save money when utilizing them. InXpo reports, based on
their own data and that from a 2009
American Express Business Travel
Survey, “the average virtual event
saves roughly $1,000 per attendee in
travel and costs.”
“Essentially, you’re looking at a
30 percent cost savings for any large
event, and that’s just on travel,” Westcott said. “Throw in hotel, venue, food
and beverages and most companies
are saving more than that. But you
have to remember that the bottom line
isn’t only the bottom line in terms of
monies saved. It’s also about increasing the audience and leveraging your
investment in the content of an event
far beyond that one moment in time.”
Of course, pending your attendee
technographics, there’s surely a debate
to be had as to the most efficient content delivery system.
PETER GORMAN is an awardwinning investigative journalist.
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o
g
o
G le Wa
ve
FOR M
EE
TI
NG
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PR
O
FE
S
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GOOGLE ENGINEERS bill Wave
as “what e-mail would look like
if it were invented today.”
Don’t overlook this new collaboration tool, as it can help meeting and
event professionals and attendees
document and discuss meetings in
real-time on the Web. Instead of
sending locked-in messages from
one e-mail box to the other the way
we send postal mail, Wave offers
a single, hosted conversation that
everyone contributes to. Using Wave
for group communication means
no more endless e-mail back-andforth, useless CCs or unnecessary
reply-to-alls fragmenting a conversation into bits and pieces scattered
into multiple inboxes.
In Wave, you create lowercase
waves: documents in which participants can edit and chat at the
same time, their cursors moving
live before your eyes. Even though
it’s still in invitation-only preview,
meeting professionals are already
using Wave to collaborate on notes,
create conference backchannels and
broadcast live from events.
ES
SIO
NALS
Introducing Wave
Once you log into Wave, you’ll
notice it looks very much like your
e-mail program: you have an inbox,
contacts and a list of new waves
you’ve received. Click on a wave
in your inbox to view, edit or reply
to it.
A wave consists of individual
messages called “blips.” Given full
access to a wave, its participants
can edit the contents of each other’s
blips, add new blips below existing
ones and even add a blip inside an
existing blip, to address a specific
bit of text inline. This feature, inline
replies, solves one of the biggest
problems with e-mail: the difficulty
in responding to individual points or
questions in the body of a message.
Wave’s purpose is to help groups
grow documents out of conversations in a single place. In a wave,
participants can both chat as well
as co-edit each other’s blips. This
happens in real-time. In a wave
where several people are working,
you can see each participant’s different-colored cursor move as they
type, keystroke-by-keystroke, live.
This makes Wave the perfect place
to document and discuss events as
they happen.
BY GINA TRAPANI
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Waving Meeting
Notes
Collaborative meeting notes are one of
the most obvious uses of Wave. With
several people in a room discussing a
predetermined agenda, everyone collaborating on notes in a single place
is more efficient than each person taking notes individually and duplicating
work.
Indiana University’s principle multimedia analyst Manjit Trehan says
collaborating on meeting notes is the
most common use of Wave for himself
and his colleagues. Trehan’s meetings
usually have about 10 attendees; four
or five take notes in Wave.
“What I learned after a few meetings [of taking notes in Wave] is that
it is best to enter one agenda item per
blip. This allows a separate thread to
progress below each item,” Trehan
said.
Instead of everyone editing a single
note’s blip, Trehan’s co-workers take
advantage of Wave’s ability to host
inline conversations about individual
points with individual blips.
“Say we are meeting about ordering some hardware, and there are
three open items to be discussed: vendor selection, installation schedule and
deployment schedule. Each of these
would end up in a separate blip,” Trehan explained.
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Pamela Fox, a Google Wave API
developer advocate, put together a
public meeting notes template you
can use to get started trying out Wave
for collaborating on notes. Log into
Wave, and visit http://goo.gl/cxsW
(URL shortened for readability) to see
the template. From the wave’s timestamp drop-down on the top right,
choose “Copy to new wave” to make
an editable copy, where you can enter
your meeting’s name and agenda as
well as add participants.
Wave as Conference
Backchannel
Wave doesn’t just work well in small,
private meetings. Two key features
make Wave a useful place for attendees to create publicly accessible forums
on the fly: the ability to tag waves and
make them public.
Tech-savvy conference organizers already publicize a unique tag
for their attendees to use when they
post event status updates to Twitter
or photos to Flickr. Attendees can use
that same tag in Wave to create and
add to event-specific discussions, too.
For example, at the Web 2.0 Expo
in New York in November, the public,
agreed-upon conference tag was w2e.
I gave a keynote presentation called
“Making Sense of Google Wave,”
and invited attendees to wave about it
using that tag. Before I took the stage,
I started a public wave and tagged
it w2e so that anyone who searched
with:public tag:w2e in Wave could
discuss my keynote or any other session they attended.
At a conference with several tracks,
each session can have its own wave,
which attendees can use as a backchannel to chat and take notes about
the presentation as it happens. Hosting your backchannel in Wave has
two main advantages over traditional
group chat or Twitter. First, Wave supports richer content. Participants can
easily add images, links, documents,
video clips, maps and Yes/No/Maybe
polls to the wave to share with other
attendees. Second, unlike traditional
chat or a Twitter search for a hashtag,
both of which are linear, sequential
updates that flow down a page in one
direction, Wave can support hierarchical discussions. Attendees can easily
chat about a point made three minutes
ago in its own inline thread, without
disturbing the rest of the wave—the
flow of the conversation.
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AT A CONFERENCE with several
tracks, each session can have its own
wave, which attendees can use as a
backchannel to chat and take notes
about the presentation as it happens.
Wave for
Broadcasting
at Live Events
Not only do public waves make it
easy for conference attendees to discuss an event as it happens, they make
your event more accessible to anyone
who is not on site, enabling global
reach and participation.
The first high-profile use of
Wave this way was at the United
Nations Climate Change Conference
(COP15) in Copenhagen in December. During the conference, a global
youth panel virtually debated climate
change issues in Wave. Organized by
Debatewise.org, the panel was made
up of more than 1,000 young people
ranging in age from 15 to 25 years
old, located in 140 countries, talking
over the events as they happened at
COP15.
“This type of panel would have
been impossible without the Internet,
in fact it’s only just become feasible
thanks to Google’s revolutionary collaboration software Wave,” said
Debatewise Founder David Crane.
He says that Wave’s real-time typing feature was useful for the quickly
moving discussion because a panelist
could start thinking about a statement
or answering a question before it was
even fully typed.
To see the public debate waves that
happened during COP15 for yourself,
in Wave search for with:public global
youth panel debate.
Wave’s Current
Drawbacks
Wave is a useful tool, but at this early
stage it’s not yet ready for primetime.
Wave adoption is low because it is
still so new, and in invitation-only
preview. Until Google makes Wave
public, it’s very likely your co-workers
and event attendees won’t have Wave
accounts. In fact, they may not have
even heard of Wave. The Wave preview can be unstable and crash, especially when you open lengthy, active
waves. Finally, the Wave preview is
still missing important features, such
as the ability to remove a participant
from a wave. (Google promises this
functionality is forthcoming.)
Until Wave adoption ramps up
and the product itself is more evolved
and stable, meeting and event waving
will most likely be limited to a small
number of tech-savvy early adopters.
However, even though Wave
hasn’t seen mainstream adoption
yet, it’s already paving the way to a
whole new way meeting professionals
and attendees can discuss and document events in real-time on the Web.
INVITATION
ONLY
Google Wave
is currently in pre-
view stage, which means you need an
invitation to create an account and
that it suffers from minor quirks and
instability. Early adopters who want to
test Wave can visit wave.google.com
to request an invitation. Alternately,
check with someone you know who
already uses Wave and ask for an invite,
as current Wave users get invitations to
share with co-workers and friends.
GINA TRAPANI is author of The
Complete Guide to Google Wave,
which is freely available to read at
http://completewaveguide.com.
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APPRAISALS
There are hundreds
of thousands of smartphone apps for Android(Droid, G1, Nexus One)
and Apple-based (iPad,
iPhone, iPod Touch)
devices, without even
getting into the relatively small BlackBerry
and Windows Mobile
app markets. Here are
some of the tantalizing
apps for driving meeting
and event success.
BY MICHAEL PINCHERA
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TripIt organizes your travel
itinerary. That’s it. E-mail (or manually input) flight, hotel and other
confirmation details to TripIt and
the data are neatly blended into
a concise document (destination
maps can be easily added). And
you can also share your travel
details with your contacts.
The TripIt app, with the above
abilities and more, is free. The Pro
version (US$69 per year) does
more, including automatic flight
updates (should there be delays or
changes) and travel loyalty point
tracking.
The most comprehensive (and
fan favorite) air travel-related
app is FlightTrack Pro. If
air travel schedules and updates
are your primary need, this is the
cheaper alternative to TripIt. The
Pro version is less than $10 and
gives users some of the same
functionality as TripIt, specifically
the ability to input flight data by
simply submitting confirmation
info via e-mail. But don’t discount the base model FlightTrack
($4.99), complete with live flight
track maps and gate information.
Open up Layar to get the
low-down on your final destination.
This free app uses augmented reality (AR) and location-identification
(such as GPS) to connect you with
the information you need, from
restaurant listings to mining the
local knowledge ether by reading
the latest local tweets. A variety
of apps specialize in bringing you
similar destination information, but
none are as all-encompassing—this
app guides you by applying layers
of digital reality to your smartphone’s screen.
Of course, the future of AR
exists only in the minds of those
creative enough to see the possibilities and bounce between the
realities. (Still confused? See Page
76 for much more on AR.) It’s now
time to add Augmented Reality
Manager to the ever-growing list
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of meeting professionals’ titles
and skill sets.
In the current economy, not
everyone you’d like at your next
meeting or event will be able to
physically attend—and without
audiovisual budget to spare, the
Ustream Broadcaster
offers a free, simple alternative.
Stream live audio and video from
your smartphone to a specified
URL shared with virtual attendees—this can also be recorded
for sharing online and later viewing. Yes, this is one-way communication, but it’s also free and
can prove valuable when used
appropriately.
Exchanging details with new
contacts is as simple as trading business cards—but you can
leave an event with handfuls of
these valuable, printed pieces of
connection data. Transforming
this into digitally manageable
contact content can be a chore,
even with many of the numerous
business card scanner apps
available.
Skip the middleman and put
your new connections directly
into your digital data realm.
Bump (free) does this with
a simple fist bump.
Certainly there are hundreds
of apps about which meeting
professionals absolutely must
learn! Well, what are you waiting
for? Visit www.mpiweb.org and
share your app knowledge—and
tweet this story to your colleagues. The most important
thing is to just get the word out.
Apps will fuel the future of business innovation—and will only
grow in importance for meeting
professionals.
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A BUSINESS MODEL
FOR P
As head of
the world’s first
rst
Israeli/PalestinianIsraeli/Pales
stinianowned company,
comp
pany,
Zvi Schreibe
Schreiber
er
is overcomin
overcoming
ng
social borders
and computing
paradigms.
Story by Lara Dunston
Photos by Terry Carter
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PEACE
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ZVI SCHREIBER may be the only CEO in the
world who is not permitted to set foot in his
own company’s headquarters.
Founder of cloud computing firm G.ho.st,
42-year-old Schreiber is also working
hard to establish a business model for
peace.
“I’m a member of the silent majority,”
Schreiber says when we meet at his home
in Givat Masua, a modest, hilly, middleclass Jerusalem suburb of cookie-cutter
cream-stone townhouse complexes.
Givat Masua is not the kind of
neighborhood where you expect a
millionaire to live. And the interior of
Schreiber’s home is equally modest—a
cozy, comfortable, cluttered kind of place
you expect for a relaxed, loving family
with four kids.
Greeting me with a warm smile,
Schreiber, dressed casually in blue shirt
and chinos, shows me to his office, a
partly shaded terrace with spectacular
views. I’m admiring the panoramic vistas
that sweep across a forested valley when
he appears with a plate of biscuits, coffee
mugs and an energetic puppy the family
is training as a guide dog for the blind.
“That’s a settlement over there,”
Schreiber says, pointing out row upon
row of modern townhouses, which spill
down the hillside opposite. “That’s the
pre-1967 [border], and that’s Jerusalem
Zoo,” he continues, gesturing to some
giraffes and zebras grazing below.
Beyond, vehicles are backed up at a
military checkpoint.
“On top of that hill, behind the
transmission tower and the Separation
Wall is Everest Hotel, where the G.ho.st
staff get together every now and again.
We met there around eight weeks ago.
The team doesn’t like it—it’s a long drive
for them—but it’s a neutral area.”
Schreiber, an Israeli citizen, is not
allowed to enter the West Bank due to
security concerns, and most of G.ho.st’s
20 Palestinian staff cannot get permits
to travel to Israel. The Ramallah-based
company is located only 7.5 miles from
Schreiber’s Jerusalem home, yet he has
96
one+
never visited it. Instead, he and his staff
use technology to virtually pass through
the Separation Wall—mobility one would
expect from a ghost—communicating
almost entirely by phone, e-mail, Skype
and videoconference.
Citizen of the Ether
reveals. Schreiber himself is responsible
for some 20 patents.
After
speaking
with
venture
capitalists and following industry trends,
he established Tradeum, a company
that pioneered the concept of businessto-business e-commerce exchanges, in
1998.
“They were fun years,” Schreiber
reflects. “It was all go-go-go…people
started trading online, business-tobusiness trading, and it was really crazy.
After a year I moved to San Francisco.
Investors were chasing us. It was lots
of fun. We were trying to compete with
companies who were giving away BMWs
to hire the best software engineers. But
then the bubble burst in 2000, and I sold
the business and returned to Israel.”
Born in London, Schreiber and his family
moved to Israel when he was 8 years old
(and already writing small computer
programs). His education in Jerusalem
continued partially through high school,
concluding in the U.K., where he went
on to study mathematics at Cambridge
University. Little wonder that Schreiber
considers himself British and Israeli—a
fact he says doesn’t really matter.
After getting his first degree, Schreiber
became a software engineer
for
Data
Connection
(which had clients such
as IBM and HewlettPackard) while working
on his Ph.D. in theoretical
computer science at the
Imperial College of Science,
YOUR COMPUTER IS JUST A POINT FROM
London.
WHICH TO ACCESS DATA that is housed
“I also took a year off
and studied theoretical
in the Internet’s ether. Get online with any
physics, thinking I would
computing device (even your mobile phone)
become a physicist. I was
and your virtual desktop opens, beckoning
pretty good, but I didn’t
you to run applications, store and share
have the patience to become
data and collaborate with others. This
an academic,” Schreiber
isn’t a remote connection to your primary
admits. “So I moved back
computer desktop. In fact, you don’t even
to Israel in 1994 and
need a primary computer. Feed globally
started a consulting firm.
distributed servers your data and free
“The move made sense.
yourself from a single computer.
There were a huge number
THAT’S THE CLOUD-COMPUTING DREAM
of high-tech start-ups
GLOBAL HOSTED OPERATING SYSTEM
here—only Silicon Valley
and Boston had more. It’s a
(G.ho.st) is chasing, albeit with greater
very successful sector now.
chutzpah than Blinky, Pinky, Inky and
Israel has more high-tech
Clyde going after Pac-Man 30 years ago.
companies than Europe and
Log on to your virtual desktop and cloud
an extraordinary number
computing at www.g.ho.st.
of patents written,” he
COMPUTING
IN CLOUDS
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A year later, Schreiber started Unicorn
Solutions, a company that delivered
enterprise information management
solutions to the IT departments of
Global 100 companies and the U.S.
government. He sold Unicorn to IBM
in 2006 and established Global Hosted
Operating SysTem (G.ho.st)—the
world’s first true Web-based operating
system.
Creating a G.ho.st
“I had a tech idea, and I had a social
idea, so I decided to combine them,”
Schreiber explains. “People were
starting to do everything on the Web in
2006…and I wanted people to be able
to walk up to any computer desktop
anywhere in the world and be able to
access all their stuff.
“I also had it in the back of my mind
to do something for the society here
in this messed up part of the world.
At the time, I had never heard of any
Palestinian software companies or even
any engineers—I’d never even met any
Palestinians before—but it made sense
to find some.”
During his search, Schreiber
discovered countless talented software
engineers in Palestine. Thus, starting
a company that employed Palestinian
staff made a lot of sense—from a
business perspective and for social and
moral imperatives.
“Importing and exporting is really
tough for Palestinians. There are some
companies importing Israeli products,
but it’s challenging…there is a lot of
red tape…it’s not easy for drivers to
get permits and there are delays at the
borders. This limits business potential
and is one reason why the Palestinian
territories are really very poor—and it’s
very tragic,” he sighs.
“Software businesses, on the other
hand, have the least trouble setting up,
because they don’t need factories built
or equipment imported. Developing
the IT sector in Palestine made perfect
sense,” Schreiber says.
He doesn’t pretend to be the only
Israeli working with Palestinian
engineers, but, Schreiber explains
proudly, G.ho.st’s Palestinian staff
members are given stock options—
they’re clearly not contract labor.
“As shareholders, they invest more
of themselves into the company—
because they stand to profit from its
success,” he says.
Dissuading critics, Schreiber admits
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“There is a shortage
of talent in Israel, so
many companies are
sourcing engineers
from India—they’d
rather recruit all the
way from India than
hire a Palestinian.
I believe IT’S
BETTER TO HIRE
PALESTINIANS,”
Schreiber says. “We
need to help their
economy. They are our
future peace partners,
after all.”
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that Palestinian engineers are cheaper to
hire than Israeli engineers but demands
that’s not the reason behind G.ho.st’s
practices.
“There is a shortage of talent in Israel,
so many companies are sourcing engineers
from India—they’d rather recruit all the way
from India than hire a Palestinian. I believe
it’s better to hire Palestinians,” Schreiber
says. “We need to
help their economy.
They are our future
peace partners, after
all.”
Ten minutes later,
Schreiber is focused
intently on his Mac
screen as Montasser
Abdellatif, G.ho.st’s
marketing manager,
provides project updates via Skype. He
has his headset on so I
don’t hear Montasser,
only Schreiber’s responses: “Virtualization
has been around a lot longer than cloud
computing…” “The ad campaign has
gone live? How’s it going?” “I’m not sure
if we should have a presence at the event
or not…” It’s apparent that Schreiber is a
hands-on manager with a keen attention to
detail and care.
The Other Half
The next morning, in Arab East Jerusalem,
Montasser picks me up in his car. He wears
earphones so he can listen in on a meeting
under way between Schreiber and the team.
He keeps one ear free, muting the speaker
occasionally to speak with me.
As we pass through our first checkpoint,
young Israeli soldiers, rifles over their
shoulders, take a cursory glance at us.
Plain-clothed Israeli security guys, machine
guns causally swinging from their backs,
mechanically pass mirrors beneath vehicles
to check for explosives.
“It was fast this morning,” Montasser
says, as he drives on. “Sometimes it can
take forever.”
On Schreiber’s side of Jerusalem the
mountains are blanketed with pine forests.
On Montasser’s, the camel-colored hills are
barren and rocky. Stubby trunks of hacked
olive trees suggest that until recently the hills
were more fertile. Deep dramatic valleys
are dotted with corrugated iron shacks and
makeshift animal pens. A boy skips along
in our direction by the side of the highway.
I ask Montasser why his Palestinian
colleagues can’t visit Schreiber in Israel,
yet he is able to travel daily from his East
Jerusalem home to Ramallah.
“I have an ‘Arab 48’ permit, [which
was] given to families who became IsraeliArabs in 1948,” he reveals.
But it’s complicated—Israel classifies
East Jerusalem residents as JordanianPalestinian, he says, but they are identified
as Palestinian-born and living in Palestine
in their Jordanian passports.
As we drive along Ramallah’s once
famously leafy (but now a tad dilapidated)
main road, I ask what it’s like working for
Schreiber.
“Zvi is a very great man,” Montasser
says with sincerity. “We like him as a
person. We really like him. We forget
that he is Israeli. Sure it was hard in the
beginning, but we communicate with him
on a daily basis and when you spend time
with someone like that, it doesn’t matter
what culture or country he’s from.
“We nearly always talk business,”
he clarifies. “When political tensions are
high we don’t talk about politics. We are
a business after all. We ask each other how
we are, of course, how our families are
doing, but we focus on the agenda. What’s
most important about this company is that
we are helping the Palestinian economy
by pushing the IT sector, [which is] really
the only area where real progress can be
made. And we are the only ones who can
really make it—the only ones with a good
model.”
Straight Outta Ramallah
At G.ho.st’s modern low-rise office building,
shared with two other high-tech companies
in a newly developed area of hilly Ramallah,
we join the videoconference meeting in
which Montasser has been participating
on the drive over. We say hello to Schreiber,
whose face fills the screen.
Later, the meeting over, I meet Elias
Khalil, G.ho.st’s director of research and
development, and Adel Hazboun, director
of product management.
“Zvi is not a typical CEO,” Elias says.
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“He has a strong technical background, and
he’s a good information architect so we can
go to him for design advice and we get him
involved—Zvi gets deeply involved—and we
respect his opinion.”
And communicating with Schreiber
almost exclusively via Skype, video and
e-mail isn’t as difficult or problematic as one
might suspect.
“We can still tell when he’s happy
and when he’s not—by his voice and his
facial expressions,” Elias says. It helps that
Schreiber is simply very good at what he
does.
“But it’s important to understand that
regardless of Zvi, we are not an Israeli
company,” Adel says firmly. “We don’t use
Hebrew or Arabic, we use English. We’re
a Palestinian/Israeli company; our CEO is
Israeli but most of the management and staff
are Palestinian, so it’s very equal.”
Seeing a growing number of Palestinians
graduating from domestic and international
university computer engineering programs,
G.ho.st is creating an infrastructure, not
merely jobs.
And the G.ho.st staff is in it for the long
haul. The company is investing in future
Palestinian talent, offering work placement
opportunities, developing projects with
students, participating in the assessment of
graduation projects, recruiting staff from
local universities and—through the nonprofit G.ho.st. Peace Foundation—donating
computers and infrastructure to poor
Palestinian and Israeli villages.
Just as Schreiber had never met a
Palestinian before starting G.ho.st, none
of the company’s staff, save three living in
Jerusalem, had previously met an Israeli—
aside from soldiers at checkpoints.
Elias says Palestinians now ask him what
it’s like to work with an Israeli and vice
versa—two very different, although very
similar populations becoming increasingly
curious about each other.
“Before, Palestinians went abroad to
work—to Germany, the U.S., the Gulf—
because they didn’t realize it would be
possible to find a job here,” Elias says.
“Now there are many IT jobs in Ramallah.
And [we] have Zvi and G.ho.st to thank for
that.”
After a tour of G.ho.st’s fairly rudimentary
offices of striking red walls and high dividers
creating snug cubicles, I stop by the office
of G.ho.st’s general manager and chief
operating officer, Khaled Ayyash. He lived in
the U.S. for 16 years, receiving an MBA and
citizenship and held senior financial positions
before returning to Palestine.
“Here at G.ho.st, we don’t look at each
other as Israelis or Palestinians, but as
people, as business partners,” Khaled says.
“We’re not politicians, but this is a step in
the right direction, if we’re going to have
normal, stable relations.
“[We] just want respect—dignity, no war,
no walls. G.ho.st demonstrates that with
dignity and respect for each other, Israelis and
Palestinians can work together.”
LARA DUNSTON and TERRY CARTER
are a globetrotting travel journalist team currently based in the United Arab Emirates.
mpiweb.org
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Meet Where?
S UB HEAD ?
CONTEST!
Correctly identify this venue and its location and you could win an iPod
Shuffle. One winner will be randomly selected from all eligible entries.
Submit entries to jhensel@mpiweb.org by April 1, and find out the
answer and winner online at www.mpiweb.org/pluspoint.
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