A guest post by Calum Maclean on plannerwire.net offers examples of simple ways events can change lives. In clear, simple steps Maclean outlines actions that he says are affordable, personal, accountable and have “a massive and immediate impact.” He also promises that they “will instill in your attendees a level of pride in your company or organization that is usually extremely difficult or expensive.”

When former ambassador Andrew Young spoke at our Marketplace conferences a few years ago, he called planners ambassadors to the world. He urged the audience to be proud of their roles as messengers of common human values that rise above ethnic, religious and political differences. He also encouraged them to include giveback activities in all of their events.

The pay it forward possibilities in every meeting you plan is huge. Watch the videos accompanying Maclean’s post and you’ll be moved by what you can do.

Read “Protecting Our Children” for another simple step you can add to your site selection process that might help save a child.

I had the pleasure of experiencing remarkable service last week at The Masters. Held every year at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga., the legendary golf tournament is a “tradition like no other” because of the lingering effect it has on attendees long after it ends. They broadcast their love of the event on social media (afterwards because no cell phones are allowed on property) and talk about the opportunity with friends and family for years to come.

#TheMasters are everything they say they are and more. Amazing day.

— Lauren Dyer (@laurenelizadyer) April 4, 2012

I understood why after attending a practice session days before the official tournament. I found amazing service and amenties at the club. From the perfectly manicured grounds to the attendants in the bathroom, every detail is covered. The exclusive club sells pimento cheese sandwiches for only $1.50, embraces a culture of Southern hospitality where attendees stay in homes rather than hotels, and welcomes attendees with friendly, smiling volunteers.

Sports events can take attendees for granted, assuming they come for the love of the game or to support a favorite player or loved one. Tournaments that go the extra mile, however, have the opportunity to turn fans of a sport into fans of their events. Teams come back year after year, families tag along and everyone spreads the word.

The Masters is one of more than 40 tournaments on the PGA Tour, but it stands out above the rest. What details could you pay attention to that would blow your attendees away? How can you turn attendees into fans?

Read more about planning sports events from horseshoes to table tennis to sumo wrestling to football in the May/June issue of Connect.

More than 500,000 apps are available in the Apple store and 250,000 in the Android Marketplace. More will continue to be built everyday, but we might be approaching a bubble. How many more can we possibly need? The proliferation of apps has caused the best ones to rise to the top. A Nielson study shows that 43 percent of the time Android users spend using apps is on the 10 most popular ones.

Many apps are created to make up for something a commonly used app lacks. Developers then improve the original, making it more popular. Before Twitter’s recent update, you had to use a third-party application like Twitvid to post videos in your status. The December update to the Twitter app solved that and added functionality users requested such as auto-shortening links and retweeting options once only available through third-party apps. Advanced smartphones have removed the need for many one-off apps, too. No need to download a group texting app when the iPhone has that capability, and we’re just getting started with everything Siri has made obsolete. Then there’s HTML5, which might get rid of the need for apps altogether.

In the meantime, there’s one app a meeting planner has to have: a custom event app. Nowhere in the mobile world can attendees get your speaker information, schedule and event alerts. Attendees don’t need hundreds of niche apps, but they do need your app when they’re at your event.

Think about your attendees when designing your app. What do they want and how will they use it? Should you offer social media functionality if users prefer using Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare directly? Should your app link to Google Maps, one of the top 10 most used apps on every mobile device? Should gaming—the No. 1 most popular mobile activity—be a feature of your app?

Does your event have a custom app? What features are most used by participants?

This was originally published on Liz King Events blog. See more blogs by Jennifer Garrett on the industry blog here.

The complications beyond the immediate emergency are widespread. With my husband skirting around the tornado watches as he drove from job sites around Kentucky back to Louisville, I first worried about his safety. He was fine, but days later he returned to an apartment complex his crew was scheduled to begin work on only to find it leveled. There were injuries among some residents but, fortunately, no deaths. He moved his crew to another job a few towns away, untouched by the tornados, but they were forced to drive a long distance to find rooms for the night. People made homeless by the storms filled hotels for miles.

Businesses and people in the damaged communities will be dealing with reconstructing their lives for months and maybe years—some only after they’ve buried their dead, said prayers for the living, cleaned up the immediate damage, filed insurance claims and rebuilt.

We are tracking how the aftermath of this series of storms is affecting meetings, especially those scheduled in areas that were hard-hit, like Branson, Mo., a popular destination for groups. We’ll talk to planners who were forced to cancel meetings and others who might be scrambling to change venues and rearrange travel plans. We’ll write about risk management and emergency planning.

For now, however, our thoughts and prayers are with our industry associates, their families and their communities in Branson and other areas who are in the midst of the chaos.

One of our partners from the Branson Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce shared a blog and photos, covering events leading up to the night the storms hit and after checking on the damage the next day, as well as the response and messages of concern from people around the country during the following days.

Read an update on Branson’s recovery progress here.

Not surprisingly, major cities regularly top the list, with New York in first place this year, displacing three-time champion Los Angeles. Other cities in the top 10 are Miami, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Boston, Dallas/Fort Worth, Atlanta, Phoenix/Scottsdale, Baltimore and Orlando. The reader ratings are highly subjective, however. Big Apple manners expert Thomas P. Farley, who writes the blog What Manners Most, came to the defense of his city. “People in New York are constantly in a rush,” he said. “Certainly, they don’t linger on corners smiling, waving, and waiting to help people. But once you’ve stopped a New Yorker and asked them for directions, they’re usually more than helpful.”

Our “Cool” feature focuses on noteworthy places and ideas our readers and editors recommend. Some of the featured places are on T&L’s rudest list, proving that those rankings certainly aren’t true for everyone. We’d like to hear from you, too. What’s on your “best of” or “worst of” list related to meetings?

I was reminded of these basics when I attended the Social Media Week conference in New York City, Feb. 13-17. As an attendee, it was exciting and stimulating to experience different spaces and setups, different tracks (business and innovation, education and learning, social and environmental changes, technology, marketing and more), various formats and diverse groups.

I eagerly embrace the free-flowing agenda of an interdisciplinary program that leaves you free to decide how and when you want to interact with an event and other participants. At the same time, I want to know what to expect, especially when it comes to my own personal comfort.

Some of the conference venues required identification beyond the registration badges; I was surprised that I had to be photographed before I could get into one office building where a session was being held. Since there was no information about where, when or if food and beverages would be available, I’d arrive at a venue having eaten between sessions only to find a nice spread in the reception area. At others where I assumed there would be food, I arrived hungry to find nothing.

“Hyper-personalization” of an event like Social Media Week is a nice concept. All the same, participants still require background information and support. Schedules are important, too, as is sticking to schedules, including starting and ending on time.

All and all, I enjoyed the conference and learned a lot. More on that to come.

Maybe it was the 6-month-old strapped to my chest in the baby carrier, but the service I encountered while traveling was unexpectedly above par. It was so good, in fact, that my husband, who’s not a comment card kind of guy, actually filled out a feedback form when the airline sent the request to his email. We even had a slight delay, and it still didn’t matter, because the desk agents, flight attendants and other people we encountered on our trip left us feeling very positive.

Customer service is the practice of treating people as individuals with different needs. As meeting planners, you are providers and your attendees are your customers. By focusing on them as individuals, you may be able to plan better events. In our first issue of 2012, we’re focusing on trends in meetings in the coming year, and one of them is focusing on your customers, not yourself. It’s time to make it about them.

We want to know what changes you’re making to your meetings and events in 2012. Comment here, or email your ideas to me at lhoppe@collinsonmedia.com.

The co-founder and CEO (he defines his title as chief executive optimist) of the Life is Good Co. pushed his message about the power of optimism to a packed room at the San Diego Convention Center, Jan. 11. “It’s not just what you have, where you are, what your title is, what kind of car you drive, or anything else—it’s the way you view your world,” Jacobs said. “When we see what’s right with the world rather than what’s wrong with the world, possibilities open up.”

It’s a welcome message, especially as the national media hammers away at negative news coming from the Republican primaries and continued reports about a stagnant economy. Even more heartening was Jacob’s call to find a cause and weave it into your work every day. “Selfishly, it puts a bounce in your step,” he said. “It’s the reason I want to work—because you can do something meaningful.”

Jacobs started the company with his brother, John, in Boston in 1994 with $78 in the bank, building it to the $100 million privately held business it is today, by promoting an optimistic message on T-shirts, hats and other products.

Meeting planners are an optimistic lot. (Actually, it would seem to be a requirement for a job that involves juggling many tasks while dealing with sometimes disgruntled or difficult people.) They have been in the forefront of the movement to involve event participants in activities that benefit the needy in host cities. Today, planners regularly incorporate programs or align with groups to raise money or support for worldwide causes as part of every meeting. These efforts contribute a broader meaning to the Meetings Mean Business campaign created by the industry a few years ago. What began as a marketing message to focus attention on the positive contributions of events to the economy and jobs has almost been co-opted by planners and their attendees, who have taken their events to a higher level that delivers rewards to them as well as the groups they adopt.

Looking for more optimism and inspiration to kick off your planning year? Our first-ever Cool Issue is chock-full of the wonderful, weird, exciting, creative concepts, places and trends from our meeting world in the January/February 2012 edition of Connect magazine.

Beyond my personal property, I should also protect myself. I recently read about a hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark, that conducted a study group, and half of the “influential and well-traveled Danish women” responding said they’d prefer to stay on a women-only floor because it provides both a sense of security and it feels more hygienic. The Bella Sky Comwell hotel opened in May and it features a women-only floor with a slight upcharge for rooms.

A few hotels in the U.S. also have all-female floors, including the Premier Hotel in New York City, Ellis Hotel in Atlanta, and Crowne Plaza properties in Washington, D.C., and Bloomington, Minn. The rooms have amenities you don’t find in most rooms, including flat irons, curling irons, yoga mats and kiss cams to say hello to family back home. As planners, you’re always trying to figure out what will make your attendees’ stay—or your own—more pleasant. Offering female attendees the safety, security and amenities of a women-only floor is an interesting thought.

What they haven’t done is change the age-old structure of meetings, something pointed out in a couple of recent meeting industry blogs.

The same almost sacrilegious thought struck me while looking through some photos from TEDGlobal2011 in Edinburgh, Scotland, in July. There are the talking heads on stage; there are the people in their seats, clapping on cue: top speakers, time limits, intriguing subjects, but still top down. They’re lecturing to their subjects.

Instead of planning the production of meetings, we need to start with the involvement of the participants. (Change the language from “attendees” and consider the impact.) How do our colleagues, associates, clients feel about traveling to a gathering? What is their emotional connection? How do they want to engage with others? How can you involve them?

Rethinking meetings means ground-up work. You might be asking why: Your meetings might still be producing results that you and your organization want. Will they two or five or more years from now?

Innovation has almost become a tired word, but it does not mean simply refining or upgrading or improving something that already exists. Innovation means a truly new idea. That is something that is rare and difficult—and worth thinking about and discussing.

Our new special series, “Rethinking Meetings,” explores these questions, presenting ideas from inside and outside the meetings industry, beginning in the January 2012 issue of Connect.