Conference follow-up

Conference follow-up is as rigorous as anything else for a meeting planner! When the convention is over, in addition to addressing hundreds of details, you scamper back onto the plane or into your car and head home.

You still have tasks to fulfill or requests to honor. There are items to box up and ship back. Checks need dispensing to vendors, service providers, speakers, rental companies, and the meeting facility. Notes need to be typed up and reports written, updates made, membership categories modified, and next year's convention plans altered.

Realistically, however, there will be time for the post-meeting tasks even if you take a day or two off. So for now, let the meeting be over. You're proud of your accomplishment, but you're worn to a frazzle. What steps can you take to ensure you'll get the rest and relaxation you deserve?

Rather than trying to take care of all your paperwork on the fly, pack up at the speed of sound, and drive or fly back to your office along with the rest of the participants, why not plan your next meeting so that you can spend an extra day or two resting and recuperating before heading back?

Allow for More Networking Time

At San Jose University in San Jose, California, researchers Charles Darrah, J. A. English-Lueck and James Freeman have observed “that constant ‘life-on-the-go’ can make people feel a lack of control over their lives.” At conferences and convention, perhaps it’s better to allow more time between sessions; chances are participants might feel more in control!

Addressing a Group's Anxiety

John Kenneth Galbraith once said, "All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership."

In the context of speaking to a group, what can you do to address their major anxiety and give them a path, or hope, so as to raise the value and impact of your presentation?

A Frequent Conference Query

In seminars and workshops I offer on having more Breathing Space, invariably someone poses a personal dilemma: "No matter how conscious I am of saving time throughout the day, I still find myself racing the clock. What, if anything, am I doing wrong?"

My answer, consider that any one-hour activity you undertake in the course of the day, each day, will consume one solid year out of the next 24 years of your life. One hour is to 24 hours as one year is to 24 years. With this realization, consider the cumulative effects of reading junk
mail for only 30 minutes a day or spending 15 minutes a day in line at the bank -- both of which could and should be avoided if you used mail, phone, or email services.

Cell-phone Free Meetings

All the more reason to have cell-phone free conferences and retreats:

Study: Cell phones tied to family tension

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- The round-the-clock availability that cell phones and pagers have brought to people's lives may be taking a toll on family life, a new study suggests.

The study, which followed more than 1,300 adults over 2 years, found that those who consistently used a mobile phone or pager throughout the study period were more likely to report negative "spillover" between work and home life -- and, in turn, less satisfaction with their family life.