One + January 2011 - (Page 25)

DO YOU LIKE WEBSITES? FOCUS Michael Lyons, DMCP, WHERE WILL YOU GO? Missing Chatroulette? At eb. Global Genie (http://web. ww/ mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/ atisfy globegenie), you can satisfy omthose cravings for randomness. This time, though, it’s li k h “ l ” butwith locations and not faces. Just click on the “teleport” b ton, and you’re transported to anywhere in the world with a Google street view. Most places we visited via the website were barren ﬁelds and empty roads, almost as if the zombie apocalypse had already happened. LONG LIVE LONG-FORM Sorry Attention Deﬁcient Disorder—we’re not going down without a ﬁght. And one website leading the charge is Longreads.com. The site posts links to new stories every day that include long-form journalism, magazine stories, short stories, interview transcripts and historical documents. One of the site’s best options is the ability to select your reading time (e.g., select a story that will take you under 15 minutes to read or one that may take you more than an hour, depending on your reading speed). ARE YOU EXPERIENCED? There’s a new, unique way for people to shop for experiences! Skyara.com offers experiences such as ﬁtness training with an Army Ranger (for US$20!), working as a barista at a coffee house (also only $20!) and bike, kayak and walk tours around Northern California. If you’re seeking an experience not offered on Skyara, post it on the site’s request page. Skyara only offers experiences in Northern California at the moment, but there are plans to expand. Hey, it just launched, give ’em some time. is the star of the longest-running Advil commercial to date. to a transaction fee system, but agents learned a valuable lesson in the interim. “There are factors that are simply out of human control. You cannot write a three-year plan and think that nothing will change during that time,” he says. “Even the best plans need backups.” Lyons is the current executive vice president for AMR Meetings & Incentives—a joint venture between Apple Vacations and the Rosso Group—before which he served as CEO and co-founder of destination management company GEP Philly. And with nearly four decades in the travel and meeting business, Lyons has come to understand that there is no going back, only acceptance of every new normal. For meetings, he says that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. “It’s an exciting time for us. We are becoming known as legitimate members of the professional community, starting with the Meetings Mean Business campaign two years ago, which forced our industry organizations to work together,” Lyons says. “I tell people I’m a meeting planner, and they know what I mean. A few years ago, there were no resources or tools. Those have come with the growth and maturity of our business.” — J.S. mpiweb.org 25 > He was Rex in serial soap All My Children and Visitor No. 6 in The Sixth Ch Sense Se . This March, you will see him on the big screen as Wall Street Trader in The Dark Fields. But despite these cinematic successes, acting is Lyons’ second love. What he really likes to do is plan events, a career he started 37 years ago when his boss tasked him with arranging the company’s annual sales meeting just two months before its scheduled start. Now, Lyons is all about planning ahead— advice he gives to anyone who asks for it (and some who don’t). “In this industry, as with any other, you have to be ahead of the curve,” he says. “We all want to plan that seminal event, that big wow, to leave our mark. But things change—terrorist attacks and ash clouds—and we discover our vulnerability. Few could have predicted the ferocity of the ﬁnancial crisis. For these reasons we must step back, have our wits about us and always have a contingency plan in place.” (See Page 76) Lyons is well aware of the perils of modern business. He worked at Carlson when travel agent airline commissions crashed in the mid-1990s. Eventually the industry’s pricing mechanism changed http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie http://www.Longreads.com http://www.Skyara.com http://www.mpiweb.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of One + January 2011

One + January 2011
Contents
Energy of Many
Impressions
The Future is Sharing
Agenda
Overheard
Thoughts+Leaders
Focus
Strategic View
Fans, Dry Ice and a $600 Extension Cord
Top Spots
Connections
Irrelevant
Job Resolution
The Laws of Attraction
How Bazaar
What’s Cooking in 2011
Another World at Our Feet
Middle East Central
More Than Amusement
The Future Looks Brilliant
How to Develop a Virtual Event
Disaster!
Tales of Adventure for the Newly Independent Planner
Idea Man
Your Community
Making a Diffrence
Until We Meet Again

One + January 2011