If you need me tomorrow, I’ll be under my desk

10/20/2011 at 10:20am is The Great British Columbia ShakeOut – the largest earthquake drill in Canadian history! I have just registered, and am looking forward to crawling under my desk tomorrow morning at the appointed time.

Last year’s earthquake in Japan had a profound impact on our 7 year old’s social awareness (he wrote a song about it, at the bottom of this post), and he has been very interested in making sure that we are prepared in case one happens here. As well, having recently completed a chapter on risk management for our upcoming book, the topic of emergency preparedness is top of mind, and I thought I’d share with you what my plans are for getting ready for tomorrow’s ShakeOut.

1. Prepare my shelter: I have a Superman desk: the thing is actually made of steel and it doubles as a pretty decent earthquake shelter. While it may be sturdy, truth be told, it’s also a wee bit dirty under there, so in preparation for tomorrow, I plan to clean it out later today.
2. Prepare my provisions: I also plan on hiding a bottle of water and a protein bar under my desk. The way I see it, if that’s the most likely place where I could get stuck in case of an earthquake, I should probably have some food and water close at hand.
3. Prepare my communication plan: In case of an earthquake, I have no idea what type of communication might be available. I also think it’s probably a good idea to not tie up phone lines if they are working, so I’ve configured my phone so that I can send tweet via text message. That way, I’ll be able to communicate to a large number of people instantly with very little phone line time taken up. It took just a few text messages to set up, and the information is easy to find on twitter help. One caveat: you need to do it before the emergency happens, so you might as well set it up now. And, in the spirit of full disclosure, I’ve been known to send texts to the wrong person, so hopefully I won’t accidentally ask everyone I know on twitter to please pick up some milk on the way home. Instead, I’ll try to tweet #ImOKBCShakeOut to let friends and family know about my status.
4. Prepare for my physical and mental health: While I can probably go a few days without my Omega 3-6-9s, in case of an earthquake and being stuck under my desk, having my inhaler if dust is everywhere would probably be a good idea. It’s going under the desk as well. For my mental health, I figure I might as well have some positive mind-food, so, assuming I’ll have some light available to read, I’m stuffing “Today We Are Rich” by Tim Sanders under my desk. My favorite part about this book is that it gets me thinking about the positive influences in my life. And, if I am stuck under my desk in an earthquake, that seems like a pretty good thing to do. It actually took me a really long time to read the first time because of the amount of reflecting it inspired. I found myself reading a few pages, and then pacing through my house thinking about people who have made a difference in my life, then picking up the phone and calling them.
5. Prepare my walking routes: I have two main walking routes to daycare/school. One involves a tunnel and the other a bridge. Assuming that these might be inaccessible, I’ve also planned a longer route that would allow me to get to the wee ones as quickly as possible.

And… here is the promised video of the little guy’s Song for Japan. (One of his other songs, Sometimes the World Needs a Little Hand, follows half way through the video).

What’s on your list of emergency preparedness?

Meetings/Events Need an Innovation Centre

I got the opportunity during my time in Minneapolis/St. Paul (for Event Camp Twin Cities) to visit the 3M Innovation Center.  Part of a sprawling campus, it is where 3M showcases highlights of their history, recent innovations and how those innovations evolved from former products or from collaboration between their different technology units.  For example, a display that is very thin coated with glass beads was a product of collaboration between their dental technology department and their lighting technologists.  It got me thinking about possibilities for the events industry, so here’s a bit of a brain dump.

I got to see some very cool things that could have a positive impact on sustainability in the events industry, particularly in the area of lighting but also – possibly – noise reduction. There is a piece of adhesive material which, when attached to the back of a cymbal, completely deadens the sound when it is struck.  Its primary use is in reducing vehicle road noise, while still enabling them to be made of lighter materials (reducing the weight of the car and, consequently, fuel use).  But I was thinking about those moveable walls so endemic in convention centres and other meeting facilities.  Their problem is noise bleed.  What if there was an easy-to-apply fix in the way of an adhesive covering that reduced or eliminated sound bleed?

I am of course not sure if this can be done, but what a fabulous thing if it could.  There are few things more annoying to attendees and presenters than having noise bleed in from surrounding rooms and presenters.

The coatings they produce that diffuse light more effectively also help to reduce energy use.  I saw a TV that used half as many watts as a regular TV because the light was intensified by interior coatings.  It also operates with far less loss of heat energy.  Coatings like this in AV and other tech apps not only reduce the amount of energy the appliances use, they reduce the need to cool the facility due to heat produced.  Because the appliances are lighter, it costs less (and takes less energy) to ship them, and because they are simpler, they are easier to repair.

I appreciated the opportunity to see the facility.  Just being in an innovation facility seemed to produce more questions and generate possible linkages.  Maybe instead of the plethora of conferences, the meetings industry should create an innovation center like this to share information, cool stuff, and generate possibilities.  It would have to involve companies outside of the industry, to bring new ideas to how we can sustainably move forward with cool, energy-saving technology and other new innovations in communication and collaboration.

Companies or organizations would simply post challenges that they are dealing with.  People could come together to help solve those challenges.  The beauty of this is that it could be done either live or virtually, or a combination of both – a hybrid innovation centre focused on meetings and events.

 

Old Hardware, New Operating System

This is like double-dipping, a bit:  re-posting a story from another site.  But it’s mine and it’s been getting some good reviews, so here’s the link to it on Meetings:review:  http://meetingsreview.com/news/2011/08/19/technology/Old_hardware%2C_new_operating_system

Game ON! at Event Camp Twin Cities

I am psyched to be facilitating a learning session for all the creative, connected event types at Event Camp Twin Cities in Minneapolis, August 25-26!  My focus is the GMIC Game ON! case study of the unique gamified (like “rarified”, only a lot more fun) Sustainable Meetings Conference that took place in Portland, Oregon in February 2011 and all the new cool adjustments we are making for the 2012 version in Montreal (April 22 – 25, 2012).

City of Angels: A Citizen’s Guide to More Sustainable Air Travel

Think about this:  at any given time, there are about 360,000 people in flight over the United States at one time.  That’s a small city in the air, a virtual city of angels.

And that is just over the United States.  There are several small cities in the air at any given time over the world; if one takes the worldwide airport passenger numbers (Airports Council International) for 2009, which was 4.796 billion passengers, and divide that by 365 days, we get an average of just over 13 million passengers per day.  Not all of those will be in the air at the same time, but think about it:  that is as if the entire populations of Orlando, St. Louis, Cleveland, Sacramento and Tampa were airborne.  At the same time.  In Canada, that would be the populations of Calgary, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.  Or maybe the populations of either London or Rio de Janeiro suddenly sprouted wings?

Transportation is, by far, the most significant contributor to carbon emissions for meetings and events.  Travelers become temporary citizens of the City of Angels regularly as they attend meetings and events around the world.

To become more sustainable, what we want is to make citizenship in the City of Angels:

1. Less frequent.  By choosing other means of transportation when possible, we can reduce our carbon footprint; a carbon footprint that has a greater impact because it is emitted so high in the atmosphere (for more information, see this link for a short explanation of radiative forcing).  Don’t be silly here; obviously things such as cost, time and availability of other options must also be considered.  Event organizers can plan events close to the majority of participants, increasing our transportation options.
2. Shorter.  By choosing direct flights, we cut down on emissions, save time, and frequently, save lots of frustration because of lost baggage and missed connections.  Event organizers can ensure that the cities they choose, especially for large events, are hubs offering lots of direct flights.
3. Less expensive.  Choosing economy seats is less expensive than business class, and it is also more economical in terms of emissions.  This is because the seats take up less room, enabling more people to fly.
4. Lighter.  Of course, lighter luggage helps, because airlines can fit other stuff on board to reduce overall flights. But personal luggage is a tiny part of it.  To make a bigger impact around your event, if you are the organizer, reduce overall freight and shipments by sourcing and buying locally on arrival or simply reducing “stuff”.
5. Certified.  Consider getting certified through carbon offsets, to help counteract the impact of your travel through reductions elsewhere. Think of it as a passport to the City of Angels.

Beyond F2F: Keeping Faith with Serendipity

Beyond Face-to-Face:  Keeping Faith with Serendipity

(Conferences, Randomness and Small World Connections)

You’ve heard the face-to-face argument for attending conferences before; it is so common, people simply write F2F and everyone knows what it means.  F2F facilitates more effective human communications, through the building of trust, interpretation of body language (which is up to 93% of all human communication) and even simple eye contact.  All of this is true, and there is a lot of research to back it up.

But here’s another reason conferences/meetings are important.  They reduce the degree of separation between people, facilitating the mobility of ideas globally.  This idea based on Small World Theory; even if you don’t know it by this name, chances are you’ve heard of or played Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.  This game ties people to actor Kevin Bacon in 6 people or less; Small World Theory holds that most people are connected to other people by about 6 connections.

If you were connected closely to 50 people but no others, the degree of separation between you and others you don’t know is about 60 million (Buchanan, Nexus:  Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks).  If, however, you insert very few random links, the degree of separation can be reduced dramatically to around 5 (Urry, Mobilities).

So here’s my take on the research:  conferences/meetings can act to clump possible random connections together, increasing individuals’ personal connectivity and reducing the degree of separation between them and others.  Social media tools serve to increase the power of these random connections, but chances are, you will connect to someone using social media only after meeting them in person first.

By increasing connectivity, you increase the chances that you will be successful in things like business or finding a job.

Conferences help people “keep faith with serendipity” (I wish I’d made this up, but it was a guy called Roger Collis) by increasing randomness and making our worlds smaller.

What Sustainability Can Learn from Quality: Part 3

In celebration of Parts 1 and 2 being featured on Engage365 this week, here is the long-promised Part 3.

Way back in November 2010 I wrote What Sustainability Can Learn from Quality, Part 2. At the time I promised Part 3, on Philip Crosby’s view of cost and quality. While nine months does seem unreasonably long between Parts 2 and 3, I did want to find and read his book “Quality is Free” before venturing into the promised sequel.

What I found was a book, though somewhat dated (it begins with a preface about the need to carry a portable typewriter and lamenting that they are not built to survive the rigours of air travel) that resonated strongly, and would probably be the topic of more than one blog post (no promises through…that nine month delay is making me cautious!). I found myself once again substituting “sustainability” for “quality” in sentences, and finding this substitution fit naturally. Crosby set out to create a “cultural revolution” in his companies pertaining to quality; I believe that this is where many of us are in regard to sustainability.

Here are some quotes just within the first chapter:

Quality would have to be recognized as a true “first among equals”

Quality is an achievable, measurable, profitable entity that can be installed once you have commitment and understanding, and are prepared for hard work

I had a great many long and earnest talks with sincere people who were clear that there was no way to attain true quality through prevention: ”The engineers won’t cooperate.” The salesmen are unattainable as well as a little shifty”. “Top management cannot be reached with such concepts”. “The quality professionals themselves do not believe it”.

Crosby proposed an integrity system to be supported by four legs, or pillars. These are:
1. Management participation and attitude. Crosby makes the point that this is not management “support”, but management participation. When it came to quality, management needed to get their hands dirty implementing it. It wasn’t enough for some vague notion of support. The same is absolutely true for sustainability.
2. Professional quality management. Crosby complains about his early days in quality, where he alone was held accountable for reaching quality targets. It was only when everyone got involved that it worked. The need for professional quality management was to provide the backbone for enterprise-wide programs. I have had the same experience in sustainability, where I alone was held accountable for reaching sustainability goals because the enterprise did not understand it and how to incorporate it in their activity. Sustainability professionals are the backbone, to support internal programs and help measure and report.
3. Original programs. Crosby argues that departments even in the same organization might have different programs and that this is necessary because of differences in the unit and department levels. Developing departmental key performance indicators (KPIs) for sustainability are crucial for the same reason. On a broader scale, Porter and Kramer’s idea of shared value or their idea of strategic CSR comes into play; this is the idea that an enterprise’s CSR program should align with it’s vision and mission, and that of any organizations it is supporting through the program.
4. Recognition. Everyone likes to be recognized. Crosby was a huge proponent of peer-nominated quality awards; he and his team would not consider the applications of subordinates who nominated their bosses, but only those who nominated those on the same “level” in the organization as themselves. Recognizing sustainability efforts will promote better results.

While “Quality is free” became the most famous quote, it is actually only part of a longer statement, which goes:

“Quality is free. It’s not a gift, but it is free”.

Sustainability is not a gift, either, but it is free to those who recognize its potential to improve profits through efficiency, communities through alignment of skills and mission, reputation – and therefore profit – through better citizenship, and the environment through greater awareness of impact.

Meeting Change Goes to Orlando

Meeting Change is heading to Orlando!  Although we don’t rule out a little sightseeing at DisneyWorld or some butterbeer at the Harry Potter attraction at Universal, our main reason for going is to share some of our unique expertise in pricing, sustainability and standards with the attendees of the MPI World Education Congress (WEC).

Mariela sometimes describes herself as an “accidental economist”, because many of the courses she took during her MBA were determined by the schedules of her children, and many of those courses were on economics.  Pricing strategies for events was therefore born, and she will share this expertise with the events industry at this conference.  The session, on Monday, July 25,  from 1:30 – 2:30, is Innovative Pricing Strategies, to increase revenue, reduce risk and better match cash flow to expenses.

We are co-presenting two sessions on Tuesday, July 26^th.  The first, from 10:30 – 11:30 is a cheeky look at sustainable event standards.  Come join us for The Full Monty:  Standards Exposed to learn about what they are, what they are intended to do and get an idea about when you might want to use them in your own events.

The second session on Tuesday, from 3:00 – 4:00 (last session of the conference!) is Decarbonating Your Events (we debated calling it Why on Earth are Venus and Mars at My Meeting?, but maybe next time).  Come see as we don lab coats and goggles and demonstrate how easy it is to produce carbon dioxide, and how you can minimize the carbon footprint of your events.  We will give you a VERY short science class and bust some common myths.  A great , non-drowsy way to spend your last educational hour!

If you will be at this event and have some specific questions you’d like us to cover at these sessions, contact us at Elizabeth@meetingchange.com or mariela@meetingchange.com.  See you in Orlando!

Meetings and Myth in the Age of Cassandra Parts 1 & 2

I am taking the opportunity to re-post a previous personal blog, Meeting and Myth in the Age of Cassandra (parts 1 & 2), with the intention of adding a Part 3 shortly.

Meeting & Myth in the Age of Cassandra Part 1 (Originally posted May 11, 2010)

On April 18, 2010, Adam Cohen authored an opinion column in The New York Times called Cassandra, the Ignored Prophet of Doom, is a Woman for Our Times. For those of you not familiar with classical mythology,Cassandra was a beautiful woman upon whom Apollo bestowed the gift of prophecy. But because she rejected his advances, he also ensured that no-one would believe her prophecies. Many environmental practitioners would agree that this could be called The Age of Cassandra, a time when those people speaking up for the environment (and for sustainability in general) have been generally derided or dismissed as expensive opponents of profits. The meetings industry has not been an exception to this trend.

This is not to say that there have not been Cassandras among us, quietly or not-so-quietly telling the industry about change and then doing something about it. CSR is, after all, a business “mega-trend” , like globalization, according to The Sustainability Imperative, a paper in the Harvard Business Review by David Lubin and Daniel Esty. Daniel Esty is the co-author ofGreen to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage.

So here are some Cassandras in the meetings/events industry that you should watch for best practices (in no particular order):

1. MeetGreen. This company, headed by Amy Spatrisano and Nancy Wilson, was a pioneer in environmentally sustainable meetings.
2. The Olympics: The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver (led by Ann Duffy) and the London 2012 Games (led by Phil Cummings) are examples of the world’s most high-profile sporting events with sustainability top of mind.
3. Sustainable Events Ltd is run by Fiona Pelham, the driving force behind British Standard 8901 soon to become ISO 20121
4. COP 15. The climate meeting of our times produced the Copenhagen Sustainable Meetings Protocol, in partnership with MCI under GuyBigwood
5. Global Reporting Initiative. This well-respected global organization is producing an event sector supplement to assist sustainability reporting in the industry.
6. APEX/ASTM/EPA. This group is collaborating on a set of green meetings standards
7. Live Earth. This well-known concert event has a how-to guide for sustainable events
8. Fairmont Hotels. The greening began in 1990, well before “green meetings” became a catch phrase in the industry

Myth & Meetings in The Age of Cassandra: Part 2 (Originally posted May 12, 2010)

So back to the Age of Cassandra, the prophetess whose warnings were true but never heeded. Today I explore more myths about sustainable meetings.

1. Achieving BS 8901 certification means that the meeting/event is sustainable. FALSE. British Standard 8901 is a great tool that creates a sustainable management system for events. It makes it POSSIBLE to have a sustainable event that integrates environmental, social and economic sustainability. However, the people behind the implementation must ensure that their scope, values and objectives support sustainability, or the event simply has a management system with no sustainable results.
2. Sustainable meetings are all about “green”. FALSE. Admittedly, in these days of oil spills and global climate change, environmentally sustainable meetings are top of mind. And should be. But true sustainability means more than that; it integrates the community and the economy with the environment. After last year’s TARP scare in the US coupled with the AIG effect, economic sustainability of meetings should mean that not only are you meeting your budgetary goals, but that the meeting/event you execute helps achieve the strategic objectives of your organization, helping economic sustainability in the long term. Events that identify and engage community stakeholders build goodwill and reinforce economic sustainability for the future.
3. Sustainable meetings cost more. FALSE. While it is true that some elements of creating a sustainable meeting do cost more, it is also true that other elements reduce costs. It’s all about balance and identifying your priorities. For example, reducing or eliminating bottled water at an event will save money. Holding an event closer to the majority of delegates will save money, as will reducing or eliminating things like trinkets and registration bags. It is also about long-term and short term organizational goals. If you spend money developing community projects in the short term, your investment in the community builds goodwill and more dedicated consumers in the long term.
4. Sustainable meetings/events start with values, leadership commitment and policy. TRUE. It starts at the top. What are the values of the organization? Does it have any? Do those values include sustainability in any form? The commitment of leadership should be evident in statements and in the creation and application of formal policy in the areas of environmental impact, community involvement, human rights and anti-corruption.

Gamification Case Study

In February 2011, I chaired the Green Meeting Industry Council (GMIC) conference, Game ON!  Here is the case study of the event, focusing on the unique application of gamification concepts to the event.  While the case study will be posted to this site shortly, here is a link to where it is housed on the GMIC website at http://library.constantcontact.com/download/get/file/1102363540859-209/Game+ON+case+study+FINAL+June+7_2011.pdf