I recently performed a fairly impromptu musical performance at a colleague’s going away party. By the time lunch was over another colleague who had recorded it on her iPhone had uploaded it online and sent an email to everybody at the table with the link so they could watch it later.

Thankfully, because I was having a laugh at a few choice employers and employees, it wasn’t put on YouTube. But it very well could have been. Had I done the same thing at a conference someone with an iPhone or another recording device could have recorded my performance and put it online for everybody to see.

The thing is, at our work lunch party I didn’t think about what I was doing could be recorded. I was too busy trying not to stuff up my lines to think about much of anything else. Even when you hear and see about people’s privacy being non-existent anymore you still don’t think about your own personal circumstances until it really is too late.

On the flipside, some companies seem to go to the absolute extreme to ensure what they do remains a secret. Take the winner of our Readers’ Choice Awards as a good example. Somebody entered our competition, their name was drawn out, they won an iPad, and we can’t say who it is to protect their privacy. It’s company policy.

It’s like those companies who run these spectacular events but they won’t say anything about them for fear of some sort of public backlash that they’re out there spending lavish amounts of money. As we have said many times before, if the event format didn’t work – didn’t give them a return on their investment – then they wouldn’t be doing them.

Maybe they should read our story on page 9 about the new PricewaterhouseCoopers study out of the U.S. that shows in dollar terms the value of meetings to the U.S. economy, and the benefits of meetings. “The meetings serve as vehicles for job training and education, generating sales revenue, linking domestic and foreign buyers and developing lasting relationships in personal environments that build trust and unity.”
And maybe I should stop living in a bubble!

brad@mice.net.au
 

P.S. We have dedicated this edition’s front cover to Queensland following some of the worst weather in living memory and many misconceptions that much of the state has been closed for business. That notion can’t be further from the truth. We hope that many planners consider Queensland for their upcoming events to assist in the state’s recovery.









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