The Way We Meet, The Way We Travel When Technology and Guilt Collide

1
The Way We Meet, The Way We Travel When
Technology and Guilt Collide

• Anthony Judge
• Union of Imaginative Associationswww.un-imagine.o
  rg
• Presentation in a session on the Future Consumer
• Wired in Travel in AsiaSingapore, 29-30
  November 2007

2
Background biases

• Information systems for international meeting
  organization (1970-2005)
• Missionary for computer conferencing
  (1975-1985)
• UIA Associate Members meetings (1980-2005)
• International meeting statistics
• Bid for management of .ORG web domain (2002)
• Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human
  Potential
• Global Strategies Project
• Ecoylnx environment (1997-2000)
• Futurist, notably focusing on future of dialogue
  (1975 gt)
• International Congress on Congress Organization
  (Copenhagen 1967, Barcelona 1970, Kyoto 1975)
• Meeting participation at a wide variety of events

3
Discussion framework

• Vital role of meetings and travel
• Pressures for change
• Implications
• Guilt? Shame? Conscience? Denial?
• Market implications
• Strategic postures defensive vs proactive
• Stage I Palliative strategies
• Stage II Proactive strategies
• Stage III Reframing the challenge
• travel business -- typewriter problem
• dematerialization
• substitutes
• Wired Travel we are our own metaphor

4
Pressures for change

• Energy shortages Oil prices / Fuel prices
• Environmental impacts
• Pressure groups campaigns
• Public relations image
• Corporate response (Greenwashing?)
• Political uptake (Legislative directives?)
• Pressures on meeting organizers
  (Justification?)
• Market reconfigruation
• Individual conscience (Guilt? Shame?)

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Conscience? Guilt? Shame?

• My travel
• The kinds of people who travel to conferences are
  not the kinds of people who suffer a guilty
  conscience with regard to their prsonal behaviour
• development set poem
• steak and starvation
• But they are subject to PR presures
• problem of image for the organizers
• expesnive/guilty vacances
• guilt for some lots of guilt-free enthusiasts to
  replace them
• brown water coming out of taps

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Guilt factor vs Blame factor

• institutions intergovernmental and diplomatic
• business and prestige (Davos)
• nongovernmental (Porto Alegre)
• academic
• ethical investment model
• ecological models oil industry
• hotel industry

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Stages of denial

• Existential denial
• Problem does not really exist
• Consequential denial
• Problem exists but does not really matter
• Necessary (palliative) adjustments can be made
• Fatalistic denial
• It may be serious, but we cannot do anything
  effective about it
• Business as usual
• Thomas Homer-Dixon The Upside of Down

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Credibility Guilt management

• whose story about damage
• vulnerability to skilled reframing / damaging PR
  slogans
• negatively reframed by ecologists junkets
• "warm-ups"
• reframed by specialists paid by?
• positively reframed by travel industry
• SUVs as a metaphor for travel guilt (Ferrari,
  Rolls, travel, etc)

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???????
LowEnergy-Emission
????
???
IndividualTravel
Collective Travel
Ferrari
Private air plane
Air travel
Summit meeting
High Energy-Emission
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Conscience sensitivity
Conscience-based behaviour
Denial-based behaviour
Diffusion of innovation theory Everett Rogers
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Caracterization of evolution of meeting
participant behavioursCombination of two
separate tables developed by Nadia McLaren and
Peter Harper
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Caracterization of evolution of policy options
indicatorsCombination of two separate tables
developed by Nadia McLaren and Peter Harper
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Principles of the Conscientized International
Meeting Participantpolitical correctness in
international initiativeshttp//www.laetusinpraes
ens.org/musings/prinexp.php

• 17. Resource conservation I will only
  participate in meetings or projects which make
  deliberate efforts to counter the wastage of
  natural resources normally associated with such
  activities.
• 18. Meeting budget I will only participate in
  meetings or projects in which the total budget
  for the preparatory meetings (including travel,
  accommodation, and cost of work lost) does not
  exceed a reasonable percentage (say 33 ) of the
  total annual operational budget (i.e. excluding
  administrative overheads) of the project.
• 19. Smoking I will only participate in meetings
  or projects in which smoking in any form is not
  tolerated.
• 20. Alcohol consumption I will only participate
  in meetings or projects enlivened by receptions,
  banquets or entertainment in which alcoholic
  beverages are not tolerated.
• 21. Meat consumption I will only participate in
  meetings or projects in which the meals provided,
  available or recommended, do not involve
  consumption of animal flesh.
• 22. Energy use I will not participate in
  meetings or projects in which the use of energy
  (for air conditioning, central heating, lighting,
  etc.) is inconsistent with the internationally
  recognised need to conserve energy resources.

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Post-conscience challenges

• surprises / shocks / disruptions / instabilities
• security (bioterrorism, etc)
• health
• hassle
• risk scheduling / ticketing

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Market impact areas

• blame / finger-pointing / negative public
  relations
• eccentric venue locations (costly aggregate
  travel)
• reduced attendance
• switch to more virtual
• focus on essential travel accompanying person(s)
• joy riding / junkets
• incentive travel / junkets

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Probable negative framing of PR slogans

• Meat world vs Virtuous world?
• Meetings framed as Meatings
• Meating Participant?
• Meatings Industry?
• MICE Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and
  Events
• MICE consuming non-renewable resources?
• KL reframing
• Meating Organizer ?
• Old-style meetings (for the elderly)?

17
Types of events especially vulnerable to critical
PR

• Davos
• Porto Alegre
• Summits (UN, G8, etc)
• Olympic Games
• Large scale (Rotary, etc)

18
Meating substitution trends?-- loss of
conventional travel-meeting market
Future
Future
Eminent / Prestige meetings
Present
Mass membership meetings
Present
Past
Past
Past
Social networking meetings
Expert / Specialist meetings
Past
Present
Present
Future
Future
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Strategic posturesdefensive vs proactive

• Stage I Damage limitation palliative defensive
  strategies
• Competitive greenwashing?
• Will the challenges be contained?
• Will the problems get worse and be more
  damaging to business?
• Will the travel industry be bypassed by
  alternative meeting modest ?
• Stage II Proactive reframing leadership vs
  followership
• creative development of alternative models?
• offering possible eco-sensitive options to
  clients
• Stage III Proactive reframing more fruitful
  attractors
• reframing the travel-meeting concept

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Stage I Palliative strategiesToken adaptation?

• Challenge to vital purpose of travel
• Replacement market
• Limited high conscience market goes virtual?
• Mass low conscience market continues to meat
• Token reframing
• Squirrel story
• ecoPR -- oil, human energy

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Competitive analysis

• energy/emission budget calculation travel
• hotel (heating, etc)
• convention centre (heating, etc)
• local travel
• offsetting recycling
• hotel policies

• tree-planting PR
• energy sensitivityh toursim packages ecotourism
• WWOOF
• carbon/energy credits
• strategic topics
• other stratregies (below)

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Competitive ratings positioning

• Carbon footprint
• of a participant
• of organizer -- succession of meetings
• of venue
• Eco-rating / Star system (5-star, etc)
• meeting facilities venue greenery (atrium, etc)
• carrier long-distance
• hotel
• tourism

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Competitive presentation

• venue (Singapore, etc)
• meeting type (subnational, national, regional,
  international)
• type of vehicle (Airbus, etc)
• catchment mielage
• energy cost
• carbon cost
• Index of meeting
• cost/participant
• cost/organization

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Stage II Adaptive new models

• competitive advantage of
• proactive early reframing of business model (cf
  oil industry)
• promoting creative mix of virtual and
  face-to-face participation)
• proposing eco-sensitive portfolio of a range of
  formulae (as with risk-sensitive investment
  portfolios)
• up front symbols aggressive atrium greenery
• Carbon Disclosure Project

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Indicative strategic models

• oil industry greenwashing models
• corporate social responsibility models
• hotel industry responsiveness
• EU CAP paying farmers not to grow
• models associated with carbon credits
• mileage
• car pooling in response to car guilt (and
  commuting costs)
• ethical investment model
• proposing eco-sensitive portfolio of a range of
  formulae (as with risk-sensitive investment
  portfolios)

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Models of policy options -- including extreme
variants

• "one child policy" -- "one trip policy"
• institutional commitments corporations, NGOs,
  individuals, etc
• travel/convention industry emission offset fund

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Carbon credits trading

• "air" miles speaking
• e-mission
• airtime
• airline mileage model gtgt carbon credit model
• trading in travel-related carbon credits
• conversion mileage ltgt carbon credits
• emission credit sharing (as with costs)
  bursary/discount(ed) travel (reframe subsidies as
  ecosubsidies)
• contribute discounted "mileage" to a pool

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"Banking" energy-emission credits

• thru other activity at meeting
• at home base
• thru cycling meetings thru expensive and cheaper
  locations
• by meeting on an energy saving topic (post
  meeting strategy)

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Carbon credits

• Accumulating carbon credits
• forfeiting travel to accumulate credits for later
  use
• model of farmers paid not to grow
• Funding carbon credits
• by venue
• by carrier
• by venue country, region, city

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Travel related carbon emissions

• assessment (by whom) mileage/emission costs
• competitive assessments
• carbon costing of meetings
• examples cost of Joburg, Davos, etc G8, EU
  shuttle
• expensive vs cheaper locations competitive
  advantage of "lower cost" meetings
• competitive promotion of eco-senstive locations
  (branding, etc)
• "eccentric" vs "central" locations

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Cost reduction strategies

• fewer meetings
• optimizing travel scheduling chains/tours of
  different events
• optimization software/databases
• cost sharing between venues
• longer events
• clustered events / multi-meetings
• maximizing opportunities in venue vicinity

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Carbon emission compensation strategies

• travel related ecotourism tree planting
• WWOOF
• car pooling model share representation
• alternating f-t-f and virtual
• "low carbon travel" ?
• no accompanying person(s) gtgt get credits

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Stage III Proactive reframing of the challenge

• Travel
• Meetings
• Contacts
• Productivity

• Viability
• Quality
• Marketing
• Relevance

IBMs typewriter problem?
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Market reconfigurationvirtualization
dematerialization

• Conference industry lost business
• New business
• Not investing in
• Proactive
• Social networking

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Meeting virtualization substitution surrogates

• recognize the extent to which meetings have
• avatars
• meeting market statistics
• second life
• social networking
• "meat world"? -- eco-glutton world

36
Enhancing value of meatings

• Cultural preferences
• Psychological preferences
• Age-related sensitivities
• Security
• Low key networking
• Other senses

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Meeting innovation

• Carbon-based replacement
• Silicon-based meetings
• Second Life (Wired)
• Tele-presence
• Reframe meatings to increase their value
• Feng shui
• Recontextualizing face-to-face
• Hybridization
• Face-to-face AND Virtual, rather than OR
• Transformations between both

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Anticipating future meeting styleswhat are we
failing to recognize?

• What will this meeting look like in
• 10 years?
• 30 years?
• 50 years?
• 100 years?
• 500 years?
• 1000 years?
• And why should we care?

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(No Transcript)
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Teleconferencing why? why not?
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Future of Meeting?

• Open Handset Alliance ?
• 33 large corporations convened by Google
• Mobile devices
• as primary means of accessing information
• migrate the information to other screens such as
  our televisions, automobiles or displays in our
  workplaces.
• Open Social platform social network computing
• unite applications on the web into a social
  operating system
• emphasis on organizing and developing
  relationships instead of just managing
  information.

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Fundamental challenge

• Enhancing the value of meeting
• New forms of
• Integrative understanding for global initiatives
• Management of diversity and disagreement
• Not
• Physical vs virtual
• Error simplistic virtual replication of physical
• Ultimate environmental irony
• more effective (communication) environments
• more sustainable (communication) environments
• higher quality (communication) environments

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Enhancing meetings as strange attractorsVital
expectation of meeting participation

• Emergent / Enabling / Fruitful
• Insight
• Opportunities / Priorities
• Order / Organization
• Resources
• Contacts
• Reframing / Recontextualizing
• Re-creation

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Meeting alternatives and willingness to risk
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Conferencing and risk
Order
Congress session
Caucasing
High Participation
Low participation
Spontaneity (corridor)
Crowd
Disorder
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Stakes and risk
(High stakes)
Caucasing
Average congress
High stakes / Low risk
High stakes / High risk
Low stakes / High risk
Low stakes / Low risk
Spontaneity (corridor)
Crowd
(Low stakes)
Low risk
High risk
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We are our own metaphorWired in Travel

• Travel geographical vs intersectoral
• Generating business from other forms of travel
• Risk of core business being contextually reframed
• Carpet pulled from under the feet
• Wired hard-wired vs soft-wired
• Connectivity wiring  pattern that connects 
• Cultivating songlines of the noosphere
• Re-wiring?
• ???

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Conference mind-mapping
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Representation of wired in travel in a global
society?
Syntegration? Cultivating the Songlines of the
noosphere?
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Collective self-consciousness in
meetingsindividual-collective interface
Introduction of a self-reflexive dimension(cf
Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach I Am a
Strange Loop)
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Reframing through new metaphors

• Influence of new thinking on meetings
• New problems
• New strategies
• New technologies
• New theories
• Non-western cultures
• New generations
• . and ensuring their relationship to the old

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Meeting metaphors from new technologies?
Reframing the energy challenge -- in psychosocial
terms Lessons from nuclear fusion as the hope
for a technological response to the carbon-based
energy crisis (cf ITER a joint international
research and development project that aims to
demonstrate the scientific and technical
feasibility of fusion power) Cognitive fusion
as a new way of thinking about the essential
psychosocial role and operation of meetings? (cf
Cognitive Fusion Reactor (ITER-8) Imaginal
Transformation of Energy Resourcing) Meetings
as generators of human energy
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Meeting Metaphors-- based on long-lasting
cultural metaphors?
Towards Another Order of Conferencing Insights
from the Chinese Book of Changeshttp//www.laetus
inpraesens.org/docs/ching/achngcot.php New Asian
Meeting Metaphors?
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Anthony Judge Union of Imaginative
Associationshttp//www.un-imagine.organthony.jud
ge_at_gmail.com This presentation Tiny URL
???? Other documents relating to meeting
http//www.laetusinpraesens.org/themes/azdialo.php

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4 Participant Content Organizers
2 Podium CommunicationOrganizers
5 PerfectCongressOrganizers
3 Participant CommunicationOrganizers
1 Professional CongressOrganizers
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Relevance and challenge

• Irony that travel should be subject to constraint
• Future framing of
• present constraints and opportunities?
• current imaginative deficiency?
• Cultivating
• the pattern that connects
• The songlines of the noosphere
• Clues We are our own metaphor

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Varieties of meeting

• Agreement
• Disagreement
• Value Celebration
• Business
• Recreation
• Guilt management
• Incentive