Layla Bellows
Apps for faith-based planners, pop-up airport terminals and 2011 meeting projections [...] Read more
New resources for meeting planners are always cropping up. Here are 10 useful websites for planners that Jim Spellos, technology expert and founder of Meeting U., shared during Collaborate Marketplace.
meetingapps.com: This comprehensive website lists apps available to meeting planners on iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry. The site categorizes the apps by topic, such as meeting management, careers, conferences, food and wine, and cool tools.
uniquevenues.com: If a planner wants to go beyond the standard hotel or convention [...] Read more
At Collaborate Marketplace, Kimberly Douglas, president of FireFly Facilitation and an expert on building effective teams, spoke about building a business case for innovation. She said organizations and companies should embrace the idea of brainstorming and creative collaboration, which creates stronger teams and better results. Douglas identified three steps to make innovation within an organization more of a team sport:
Prepare: A team needs to take a few practical steps toward identifying the problem, for instance, cutting [...] Read more
Major cities along the Mississippi River are dealing with a historic rise in water levels, but they are still open for business. Kevin Kane, president of the Memphis CVB, says, “Just to set the record straight, 98 percent of our community is dry, water-free and open for business.” All hotels, restaurants and attractions are open, and most flooding is confined to floodplains just outside the riverbanks. Water has flown into three downtown parks and has [...] Read more
Legislation passed last week enabling Visit Florida, the state’s tourism marketing organization, to remain independent. An earlier bill proposed bundling all the state’s economic development entities, including Florida Sports Foundation and Space Florida, under one umbrella called Jobs Florida. But tourism companies across the state protested and threatened to stop contributing to Visit Florida’s co-op marketing and advertising, citing that the organization’s finances would be run by an inexperienced board with Gov. Rick Scott as [...] Read more
After a competitive bid process, Chicago’s Metropolitan Pier and Exhibition Authority, the municipal corporation that owns McCormick Place, chose SMG, a convention and arena management company, to manage the convention center. The authority is handing over operations to the private company as part of a series of reforms put in place by the Illinois General Assembly last year to cut costs at the center. David Causton, the current general manger, will remain in the position under [...] Read more
The giant blue bear peering into the windows at the Colorado Convention Center in downtown Denver has become a landmark in the city. Now the subject of artist Lawrence Argent’s “I See What You Mean” sculpture greets meeting planners on Denver’s new meetings website, denver.org/conventions. Planners can learn more about the convention center, find hotels and other meeting venues, find out about the city’s green meetings efforts and see a list CVB convention contacts. [...] Read more
