As a tourism academic with a social science background, I have had an interest in meetings and conferences for some time now, but I have always felt I was pressured into rather economic, market research-type studies. I always felt my social science interests could give the research area an exciting added dimension, but I was not sure how to go about it.

I guess Maarten Vanneste was way ahead of me, and when I read his book, the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Meeting content has to be a key research area co-existing with the more organisational and market research studies in the future if the field is ever to be taken seriously. The wealth of research areas and topics this offers is impressive, and to me, as a researcher, very exciting.

Exciting news for all of us!!!  Dear Meeting Support Institute friends, A great project to start the year! With the MSI we plan to bid for a research project about Virtual Meetings funded by MPI. I believe many of our community, including you could be part of it; as a subject matter expert, researcher, editor or with a meeting that can be our case to research.

Openness is the mega-trend for innovation in the 21st century, and it remains the topic du jour for businesses of all kinds. Granted, it has been on the agenda of every executive ever since Henry Chesbrough’s seminal Open Innovation came out in 2003.

Synopsis Forget everything you thought you knew about how to motivate people--at work, at school, at home. It's wrong. As Daniel H. Pink explains in his new and paradigm-shattering book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, the secret to high performance and satisfaction in today's world is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

Story telling is a powerful tool for presentations but underdeveloped and not enough used in the meetings industry. Are there specialists? Is there a book about storytelling? Do you know a storytelling association or Institute? Who is PhD in storytelling? Researching, listing, analyzing and classifying the existing storytelling components aimed at presentations in meetings, events, conferences, etc. has not been done.

MEETINGNEWS THIS WEEK - Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2010 In the wake of one of the meeting industry's most challenging years, nine industry associations have collaborated in order to launch a new grassroots marketing campaign—"Face Time. It Matters."—to promote the economic benefits of face-to-face meetings and events. Spearheaded by the Convention Industry Council (CIC), the campaign will position face-to-face meetings as tools that businesses can use to: 1. Build trust and relationships

(Re.: article of M&IT April 2008) What is the effect of smell at conferences? can we measure an increase in the number of networking contacts with certain smells? Do people behave more extravert of more open to networking with certain smells? What neurological / biological / sociological processes lie at the base of any increase?

Use natural light. Whenever possible, try to arrange for meetings (or breakout sessions) outside the classic four-wall meeting room. Windows that let in natural light keep people energized and contribute to mental stimulus. "Windows make a huge difference in our ability to think big and be open-minded" .

It is my impression that going to the same conference of the same organisation for five years starts a decrease in the amount of useful contacts, also known as networking.

What difference makes staging, organizing and facilitating networking ? How much better can the average networking become for meeting participants?