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SEPT. 9: Attendee- Acquisition Lessons From Zipcar  A recent Fast Company blog post (http://bit.ly/ qlG2Ju) about how Zipcar, the web-based car-rental company, has zoomed past its competitors by paying laser-like attention to cus- tomers’ needs hit me where I live. I was struck by the decision by CEO Scott Griffith to focus on the company’s business design rather than relying solely on advertising or other promotions to help it grow. It reminded me of the pro-


fessionals I spoke to for our September cover story on attendee acquisition, “Perfect Attendance” (http://bit .ly/pwQvvv). One after another, they told me that “attendee promotion” means more than just spreading the word about their meetings. —Barbara Palmer


AUG. 31: You’ve Never Seen Team-Building Like This Last week, a former col- league sent me a link to this bizarre yet hilarious Groupon blog post (http:// gr.pn/rlEZI7) about, um, clearly made-up team-build- ing activities? Team-building activities are beneficial, writes the Groupon blogger, because they “simultane- ously [build] camaraderie and the opposite of cama- raderie, loathing.” Here are a couple of suggestions: “Bike toWorkWeek:


Over the course of three days, all of which must be within the same week, two companies compete to see


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SEPT. 6: Dog Days


My 11-year-old cockapoo, Cocoa, rarely barks and is a calm, gentle dog. That is, until there’s a thunderstorm. Recently, we found an online ad for a “Thundershirt”— a garment that gets velcroed around the dog’s torso, applying constant, gentle pressure — and bought one. I can’t say it’s a miracle suit, but it has taken the edge off. It’s likely that the inspiration for this garment is


Temple Grandin, the autistic animal scientist, whom we interviewed twoyears ago(http://bit.ly/r1W9LH). So what’s this got todowith meeting planning? It demon- strates how you can borrow from one field to benefit another, which is what we try to do—providing real-life examples of innovation in different areas of endeavor that can be applied to meetings and conventions. — Michelle Russell


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which can convince more employees to claim that they rode their bikes to the office. The winning company keeps the other company’s bikes. “Blood Drive: After


donating blood, representa- tives from two companies race to consume the cookie they were given in exchange for their vital fluids. If both finish the cookie at the same time, they must give another quart of blood to earn a second cookie and race again.” —Hunter R. Slaton


AUG. 29: Unmitigated Disasters, Mitigated What a week we had here on the East Coast. It started with an earthquake and ended with a hurricane, and if both phenomena weren’t nearly as bad as they could have been, they were plenty bad enough. And if any further proof is needed about the extent to which social media has insinuated itself into our lives, how’s this: After the earthquake, the only way I could let my wife know that I was safe was via Facebook, because land- lines and cell phones were either overwhelmed or incapacitated. And during the hurricane, I stayed in touch with friends and fam- ily and monitored Irene’s march up the seaboard mostly through Facebook and Twitter. If a disaster were to strike


one of your meetings, would Facebook or Twitter or even YouTube be a part of your response? Should they? —Christopher Durso


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