Happy New Year and millennium! This coming decade with its
renaissance of scientific, technology and medical discoveries should prove to be one of the most interesting
times that people have ever lived.
There are several articles and other items highlighted in this issue with two new articles specifically dealing
with the issue of technology change. If you have questions, comments or suggestions for future articles, I would love to
hear from you.
Corbin
IN THIS ISSUE:
* New Article: The Revolution -- Looking Into the Digital Future of Meetings
* New Excel Spreadsheet Posted: Site Selection Ranking
* Favorites File Updates: 3 Hot New Additions
* New Article: Coping With Technology Change
* Corbin's Speaking Calendar
* The Ultimate Meeting Professionals Software Guide is now available!
* --- and more!
SPONSOR Thanks to Trade Show Central (www.tscentral.com)
for helping to sponsor this issue.
NEW ARTICLE: The Revolution -- Looking Into
the Digital Future of Meetings
We are in a revolution that will profoundly change our lives. We have barely just begun, but, when fully adopted,
it will transform society as surely and profoundly as did the printing press or the invention of the wheel.
Fasten your seat belts, however. The industrial revolution took about 200 years to work its way into society. This new
revolution, the "digital revolution" fueled by the tremendous information and networking power of the
Internet, will take no more than 20 years.
We are very early in this adoption curve, however. Half of 377 million global Internet users have come on line only in
the past two years. Most of us are still just trying to figure things out! We still are on "square one" but, once
society figures it out, and once we fully digitize the business and communication process, whole new worlds open
up.
As we start this new millennium, it is a good time to speculate on some of the changes we will see in this coming
decade. This article will dust off the crystal ball and look into the future of business and meetings. The Jetsons
(from the futuristic cartoon TV series of the 60's), in many ways, are not as far off as we think.
NEW EXCEL SPREADSHEET FOR MEETING PROFESSIONALS
POSTED
Site Selection Rating Sheet (19Kb)
Submitted by Marcia Neu.
This decision-making aid for a site selection assists in
comparing multiple sites. It allows for the decision-making factors and the weighting to be tailored to a
particular meeting's priorities and needs. The weighting of factors is should be set before the property review, so
that a personal bias for or against a particular property won't show up in the weighting. After reviewing properties
in detail or doing site inspections, you assign each property a number and rate it on a Likert scale.
This brings the total number of free Excel tools available to 13. Stop by and check them out! Here is what a meeting
planner recently said about them (permission was given to quote):
"Corbin, I just wanted to thank you for the Excel tools you have posted on your website. I am using two of them and was
very excited about them. They are also teaching me things about Excel that I didn't know about, so that has been
helpful as well. I just wanted to thank you for their use -- they are really helpful."
ITASoftware (www.itasoftware.com)
Laura Kath Fraser, President, Mariah Marketing and also a member of the Southern California Chapter of MPI responded
to my last post about www.qixo.com (the metasearch site to
air ticketing). She prefers a similar site: www.itasoftware.com, I have checked it out and it is also an
excellent site!
I would recommend checking them both out if you want to easily check multiple ticketing web sites in one or two quick
stops. Thanks for the tip, Laura Kath!
-------------
LifeFX (www.lifefx.com)
Imagine that your emails could smile and talk. LifeFXtm Facemail enables you to create emails with LifeFX Stand-In Virtual People that will speak the messages you send
and receive with life-like, photo-realistic facial expressions! Try it out for fun.
---------------
Official Meeting Facility Guide - OMFG (www.omfg.com)
Another site selection site has entered into the fray. This one is from Cahner Travel Group, the publishers of the
paper-based guide of the same name. Although the data is not as robust as MPoint
(www.mpoint.com) or EventSource (www.eventsource.com), the interface is clean and easy to
use.
This is a great example of how the Web has changed information distribution. For example, the Encyclopedia
Britannica, which was one of the preeminent reference works around, now has ceased distribution of is paper product and
puts much of information online for free at: www.britannica.com. In a similar way, the OMFG was the
major source of facility information for meeting planners, but at a subscription cost. Now richer sources are
available 24/7 online for free.
NEW ARTICLE: Coping With Technology Change
When laptops first appeared, computer manufactures called them "freedom machines" with ads showing smiling users
inputting at the poolside and the beach. We don't see these ads anymore as people are becoming increasingly aware that
technology isn't increasing our leisure time -- we are
working harder than ever! With voice messaging, email, pagers, palm devices, laptops, and more, we have become
very adept at multitasking, but it has been at a significant price the price of our leisure time. We are
becoming time-starved as a nation of workers.
We are, at the same time, experiencing an explosion of new information to the point of overload. According to a recent
research paper by Cyveillance, there are more than 2.1 billion unique pages with 7.3 million pages added daily.
Some of these pages are extremely useful tools for meeting
professionals. However, the vast, sprawling nature of the Web has been compared to drinking out of a fire hose and
not being sure of the source of the water. Where do you even start?
So, here is the challenge: How do you adapt and, yes, even embrace, technology to improve productivity and save time,
when you are time-starved and information overloaded?
There is hope out there, however. I offer my suggestions of where to start.
UPDATED 2ND EDITION OF SOFTWARE BOOK IS NOW AVAILABLE!
The completely revised and updated 2nd edition of Corbin's book, The Ultimate Meeting Professional's Software Guide, is the most comprehensive book ever written on
meeting and event planning software. It is now available and covers 267 software and Web products from
172 companies with more than 280 listings divided into 18 categories (372 pages). The book is published by Meeting Professionals International and sponsored by Starwood
Lodging.
CORBIN'S SPEAKING SCHEDULE My speaking schedule is filling rapidly for 2001. Bookings in January through March are bringing me to: Richmond,
Miami, Boston, New Orleans, St. Louis, Chicago, Columbus, Houston, Kenya, and Tanzania.
However, I would love to come to your city as well so please contact me.
SPONSORSHIP: Are you interested in helping to sponsor Corbin's Tech Talk
Newsletter with more than 2,900 targeted subscribers interested in meetings technology? E-mail me at: corbin@corbinball.com
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