Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

Where do forest rangers go to get away from it all?

If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes?

I went to a book store and asked the saleswoman, “Where’s the self-help section?” She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.

If a parsley farmer is sued, can they garnish his wages?

Can vegetarians eat animal crackers?

If the police arrest a mime, do they tell him he has the right to remain silent?

How do they get deer to cross the road only at those yellow road signs?

What was the best thing before sliced bread?

How is it possible to have a civil war?

If you ate both pasta and antipasto, would you still be hungry?

Is there another word for synonym?

If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?

In the first half of 2010, several destinations have been faced with challenges, underscoring the influence that the travel industry has on communities both large and small. However, destinations have also found ways to deal with those challenges. In our annual supplement produced in conjunction with Destination Marketing Association International titled, “Why Travel Matters,” several DMO executives cite examples of challenges they have encountered, and provide insights other DMO executives may find helpful.

Keep It Real—The April 20 explosion of the BP oil rig and subsequent oil spill in the Gulf proved to be a challenge for DMOs in the region. “Our biggest problem from Day One was separating the perception from reality as it related to Florida,” said Chris Thompson, president and CEO of Visit Florida. To solve that problem, Visit Florida focused its advertising on providing up-to-date information about the situation, as opposed to its regular image branding.

Key takeaway: When disaster strikes, temporarily abandon your regular image branding and provide credible, up-to-date information on the situation.

Explain the Value—Following the Arizona State Legislature’s adoption of a controversial law aimed at sparking immigration reform in late April, politicians, citizens and organizations around the country began calling for a boycott of travel to the state. Steve Moore, president and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Convention & Visitors Bureau, said the convention bureau has used the situation to communicate the overall importance of the travel industry in terms of jobs and the local economy. “It’s an ongoing dialogue the bureau intends to have with future visitors and business groups,” Moore said.

Key takeaway: When politics interfere with destination marketing, remind constituents of the importance of the travel industry to the local economy.

Ask for Help—This spring, extensive flooding in Nashville, Tennessee, shut down the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center for six months. City officials huddled with hotel managers in the greater Nashville area to relocate nearly 200,000 room nights that had been booked. Although some groups have opted to look elsewhere while the city recovers, Nashville has managed to find other locations in the city for several big conventions that had been planned at the Gaylord Opryland.

Key takeaway:When a natural disaster shuts down facilities, rally the community to help you find alternatives that will keep groups from canceling events.

Spread the Word—In 2008, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, suffered a devastating flood that submerged more than 10 square miles of the city, affecting nearly every downtown business and most public buildings. To help get the message out about the needs of Cedar Rapids—and its recovery— the city’s leading civic organizations joined forces to launch a website, cedarrapidsfloodstory.com, to spread the message. The city also took advantage of its gradual progress, making big community-wide events out of attractions that reopen.

Key takeaway: When rebuilding after a natural disaster, get the word out every time a venue, hotel or public facility reopens for business.

Keep Them Happy—When an Icelandic volcano unexpectedly erupted in April, it wreaked havoc on international air carriers and had a profound negative impact on New York City’s airports. With flights to and from much of Western Europe initially grounded, NYC & Company officials convinced 40 area hotels and transportation providers to offer discounts to stranded travelers and nearly 20 museums and cultural institutions agreed to offer free admission for stranded travelers as well.

Key takeaway: If travelers find themselves stranded in your destination by no choice of their own, find ways to turn them into happy tourists.

Change the Rules—At Chicago’s McCormick Place, the rising costs for groups to do business caused several organizations to cancel their dates—with the chance that many more would soon follow. As a result, convention bureau and convention center officials turned to the state legislature for help to change labor rules at the facility. State lawmakers passed legislation that made sweeping changes to the way the center does business, thus lowering potential costs to groups and tradeshow attendees.

Key takeaway: If circumstances beyond your control threaten your business, ask local and state political leaders for help.

Take the Lead—With more unforeseen challenges no doubt looming for destinations, the importance of spreading the word about travel’s impact on communities cannot be emphasized enough. When challenges for the travel industry arise, savvy DMOs should be prepared to step forward as part of their community’s leadership to convert those difficulties into opportunities.

For a complimentary copy of “Why Travel Matters,” produced in conjunction with Destination Marketing Association International—e-mail me at tim.schneider@schneiderpublishing.com. Or, view “Why Travel Matters” as a digital edition.

Tim Schneider
Schneider Publishing Company

About age 5 I fell and broke my collar bone. That’s how they discovered I had very poor eyesight.

Remember, this was a time when babies and toddlers did not have every inch of their bodies examined and evaluated by parents or the family doctor. Today they would have discovered my poor vision much sooner.

At any rate, I was fitted with geeky glasses and soldiered on. Of course, I proceeded to break at least one pair per year, to the escalating frustration of my parents.

Growing up in that era in one of the five boroughs of New York, about 30 minutes by subway from Manhattan, there weren’t any after-school community programs to organize and schedule activities for kids. There was no Little League or Pop Warner, no Boys & Girls Clubs or YMCAs. We, the kids, had to organize whatever sports or activities we wanted to do.

So, somewhere around age 12, my group—we weren’t a gang!—decided we wanted to play organized baseball. We tired of the hastily arranged pick-up games that always seem to be a few players short. Because my eyesight meant I could hardly see the baseball, I became the “manager”. We recruited enough for a team and then cleaned a vacant weed- and rock-strewn lot, ran raffles to buy equipment and uniforms. We were the Spades. Couldn’t we have been the Kings or the Chiefs? Anything a little more macho than the Spades?

We won some, lost some and had a great time all spring and early summer for a few years. With this success fresh on our resume, we decided to expand and start a football program.

There was a group of older guys who had carved out another better vacant lot and even had some makeshift bleachers for spectators. Since they were the Dukes, with their blessing we became the Junior Dukes.

We rented a garage across the street to use as a locker room and between some hand-me-down equipment from the Dukes and raising some money of our own we got ourselve jerseys, and were ready to roll.

As with the Spades, I was the manager, and in charge of all the non-playing activities. On a few occasions when too few players showed up for a game I was recruited. I played on the line as a guard. On offense I just had to block the guy in front of me. That was okay without my glasses, but on defense it was hard for me to discern who had the ball and who to try and tackle.

I’ll never forget on one series of plays they told me to play in the backfield. Okay, I thought, I’ll just try to block anyone coming into the backfield.

Then the quarterback called a pass play and told me I was to be the receiver. I said: “What, are you crazy? I can’t see a thing!”

He was insistent, and there wasn’t time to argue. The play went off and I was saved from embarrassment when the defensive back batted the ball down before it got to me. I was glad he could see it. At that point, I was delighted to go back to being the manager.

Looking back, I can see this was the beginning of learning and developing organizational skills. If it hadn’t been for my poor eyesight I would have been at best a mediocre player. It was never my dream or plan to get into association and event management but, looking back, I can see those early boyhood experiences helped pave the way.

They say necessity is the mother of invention. In my case, adversity was as well.

How did you get your start?

Amber Brown has joined the staff of Schneider Publishing as the trade-show operations manager for TEAMS ’10. She will also be responsible for the company’s industry relations and its participation in the dozens of trade shows, conventions and conferences that Schneider Publishing sponsors and supports each year.

Amber most recently was marketing events manager at the Boston Convention Marketing Center, where she was responsible for marketing efforts for the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center and the John B. Hynes Convention Center. Before her work in Boston, Amber accumulated deep experience in the events field, including production and management of a number of corporate events and trade shows. She can be reached by e-mail at Amber.Brown@SchneiderPublishing.com or toll-free at (877) 577-3700.

In his new book, “The Core Values Compass: Moving From Cynicism to a Core Values Culture,” author Dennis Haley makes the case that to be healthy and effective in the long term, organizations must be guided by a set of core values. Haley suggests five steps for arriving at your organization’s core values:

• Ask yourself, key staff and volunteer leaders, “What do you want this organization to look like?”
• Narrow down this list of expectations.
• Translate the values identified into organizational behaviors.
• Figure out where a course change is in order.
• Settle in for the long haul.

Whether you run a sports organization, a professional society, a trade association or a destination marketing organization, these five steps can help steer your organization back in line with its core values and help ensure your long-term success. For more information on “The Core Values Compass,” please click here.

Tim Schneider
Schneider Publishing Company

In mid-April, I attended a gathering of convention bureau chief executives organized by Destination Marketing Association International. I am pleased to report that an attitude of optimism regarding the near-term prospects for the travel industry pervaded my conversations with these CEOs. But as several events that have occurred in the past month show—from the political firestorm in Arizona to the Gulf Coast oil spill—the health of the travel industry cannot be assured until there is a greater appreciation of its importance on the part of everyone who benefits when the travel sector is strong.

To that end, I am pleased to announce an upcoming special editorial section titled, “Why Travel Matters: Going Places Fuels the World’s Economic Engine.” Produced in conjunction with DMAI and included in the July issues of both Association News and SportsTravel, this special section will examine the critical role meetings, conventions, trade shows and live events will play in the economic recovery. To be a part of this special publication, please click here or call us toll-free at (877) 577-3700.

Tim Schneider
Schneider Publishing Company

1. Read more. Read lots of books, magazines, Read more; anything and everything.

2. Understand you need to know something about grammar, but writing is not a separate formal language with a whole set of different rules.

3. Most important: Writing is telling a story on paper. Try writing like you would talk to someone to tell a story. Try dictating into a tape recorder or get voice recognition software for your computer. Or, think to yourself: “What would I say if I were speaking?”

4. You can always add the grammar when you edit your first draft.

5. You have to be an editor. It’s tough, but you have to go back over what you have written and polish it.

6. Before you start, organize your thoughts. Make notes or have an agenda for what you want to write.

7. Remember what you write has to have a beginning (an opening), a middle (the content) and an ending. The same is essentially true for each sentence.

8. Write often; write a lot. The more you write, the better you will get. Write notes, letters, reports.

What do you think?

A million years ago I got my first job in association management. I was the assistant to Dick Reucker, the executive director of the Valley of the Sun (Phoenix) Electric League. He was a great guy and a terrific mentor.

We had many spirited discussions about what to do and how to do it. The debate was always about ideas, never about personalities. There was often a lot of heat in these conversations and the other people in the office, as well as outside consultants, were often alarmed we were about to come to blows.

When these debates went on for awhile, Dick would say, “Why do you keep arguing so much?” I would usually point to a sign on his wall, which read, “When two men in a business always agree, one of them is unnecessary!”

With a sigh of exasperation, he would then make a decision and we would move on. After all, as he often reminded me, he was the boss. This was an innovating and exciting part of the job and proved to be a great learning experience.

On one occasion, his college-age son was working for me making deliveries for a promotion we were about to run. Unfortunately, he wasn’t keeping to the agreed schedule and then I caught him being less than forthright about what he’d done. After several warnings, I fired him. His mother was upset with me, but Dick backed me up 100 percent.

At another point down the road, Dick did get somewhat upset with me. Someone who we both knew inquired as to whether I would be interested in changing jobs. I didn’t take the conversation all that seriously and I was fairly convinced I wouldn’t like working for that person, but Dick found out about it.

Dick told me in no uncertain terms that if anyone offered me a job or I sought out another job, he wanted to know about it directly from me, not from a third party. If I agreed to that, he said, as long as I stayed there, he would work my tail off, teach me everything he could and when the time came he would help me find a better job.

He lived up to his commitment and I lived up to mine. In fact, he recommended me for my next job at the local TV station and again a few years later when he was approached to take over a large association in Los Angeles. He told them he wasn’t interested, but that I was the right person for the job.

I was a bit reluctant to pursue either one of these new opportunities; I felt being Dick’s assistant was the best job in the world. Even though the compensation was limited, I wasn’t sure I could function as effectively on my own.

Looking back, I now realize that without the experience of working for Dick Reucker, I could never have made it on my own.

What do you think?

The travel and hospitality industries were given a reason for optimism with the enactment in early March of the Travel Promotion Act. The Travel Promotion Act will levy a fee on international visitors for the purpose of funding marketing efforts to promote the U.S. The fees are expected to amount to $8 million per month, which will fund the formation of the Corporation for Travel Promotion. As a result, the Travel Promotion Act is expected to have a positive budgetary impact and will actually help reduce the federal deficit.

The U.S. Travel Association has also announced its support of an additional piece of legislation designed to increase domestic travel and tourism. The Travel Regional Investment Partnership (TRIP) Act (H.R. 4676) would create a matching grant program to be administered by the U.S. Department of Commerce that would promote domestic tourism through local and regional partnerships. Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, said the TRIP Act will be “a great vehicle to take advantage of travel’s enormous power to stimulate the economy and create jobs in our local communities.”

For more details on the Travel Promotion Act and the TRIP Act, please visit the U.S. Travel Association’s website.

Tim Schneider
Schneider Publishing Company