“Gary was a kind and hard-working man for meetings and tourism,” said Newt Collinson III, founder of Collinson Media and Events. “Our industry will miss him. He led Orlando, empowered his staff, and he made a positive difference for the entire hospitality business.

“On a personal level, I lost a friend,” added Collinson. “Gary was always quick to give suggestions on our Marketplace events and compliment our magazines and editors.”

Visit Orlando Chairman and Hyatt Regency Cypress Gardens General Manager Paul Tang said in a statement, “Gary was a loving son, husband and father. Our thoughts go out to the people he most cherished, Gary’s mother Elizabeth Sain, wife Pam and daughters Vanessa Sain-Dieguez (Luis) and Olivia.”

Memorial Information from Visit Florida:

A public viewing will take place from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, May 11 at Baldwin-Fairchild Funeral Home, and a celebration of his life and funeral will take place Saturday, May 12, at 11 a.m. at Northland Church. In lieu of flowers, the family asks for consideration of a donation to one of two scholarship funds established in Gary’s name:

UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management
An endowed scholarship has been established in memory of Gary C. Sain at the Rosen College of Hospitality Management for students majoring in Event Management with an emphasis in Destination Management. Gary spent his entire career in the hospitality industry and was passionate about supporting students desiring the same career path. He often spoke at the College and was a member of the Dean’s advisory board.

Destination & Travel Foundation
As an expression of remembrance and sympathy, the family requests contributions to the Destination and Travel Foundation in the name of Gary Sain. A memorial fund has been established to honor Gary’s leadership and legacy in the destination marketing industry. Destination and Travel Foundation. 2025 M St. NW Ste. 500, Washington, DC 20036.

Layout Changes
The changes mostly affect the organization of elements on the platforms. Some are minor (a simple name change) and others can throw users off (the profile box and news feed swapped sides on the web platform).

The new tabs at the top of the desktop site and on the bottom of the mobile site basically rename existing features, group some elements together and add functions.

Home–This tab is your news feed, or the tweets of everyone you are following. In some ways, the changes within the feed make the site more like Facebook: Photos or videos in a tweet now drop down directly below the tweet instead of opening in a new page or column. Replies, retweets and favorites are displayed with a tweet like comments and likes on a Facebook post. Before, retweets were good for your brand because they sent your message to more people, and now it’s even more beneficial because followers can see all the attention a tweet receives in one place.

Connect–Any activity about you appears on this page: replies, mentions, follows and list additions. The search field located at the top of the page is specifically to find and connect with other users. This tab is helpful to track activity about your account in one place.

Discover–This is the most enhanced section of the site, and possibly the most obvious section for Twitter to place promoted and paid content. The search field at the top is for people, keywords and hashtags. Stories, hashtags, people to follow and other search categories related to your account populate this page. This is where attendees can follow a hashtag for your event.

Me­–Your Twitter profile is much easier to access from the mobile site now since it has its own tab. It has the same functions, but in a cleaner, easier-to-find layout. Direct messages are also in this area, though it would probably make more sense to be on the Connect page. The web layout is not much different than the previous version.

New Features
Two new functions enhance Twitter’s presence on your website. Embeddable tweets allow you to post interactive tweets to your website. The live tweet has the same capability as it does on Twitter, which means viewers can reply, retweet, favorite or click on links within the post. Enhanced Twitter buttons added to your site allows users to share content and connect with others with one click. The new hashtag button auto-populates a tweet with the hashtag, ensuring followers are using the hashtag you want them to use to talk about you or join a conversation.

Enhanced profile pages are another way Twitter is taking on Facebook. The pages have only been rolled out for certain clients right now, but eventually brands will be able to customize their profiles. See examples of enlarged promoted tweets at the top of pages and custom headers at @AmericanExpress and @McDonalds.

Read other reviews and helpful hints about the new Twitter on Event Manager Blog, Fast Company and Mashable.

Don’t get too comfortable. Rumor has it that more changes are ahead, especially as the company continues to look for ways to monetize.

1. You’re now in charge of meetings and convention sales efforts in Austin, Texas. What ideas do you have to bring more events to town?
As I learn about Austin, I’m finding out it’s extremely successful. It runs the highest occupancy rate of all the Texas markets, has a strong convention base and strong leisure base. People come here to enjoy entertainment and the variety of festivals. In addition to the convention center and the product currently here, there’s going to be a 1,000-plus room Marriott that’s going to continue to lure larger conventions. One of the main reasons why Austin is one of the few cities in the country to get such a large hotel is because the case has been made that the convention industry is strong and has a bright future.

2. What else is new in town?
There’s also the Formula One series, which draws an incredible international crowd and tourists. The track being built is going to be multipurpose and have a motorcycle event as well. Overall, that will help visitors come to town. And South By Southwest is growing by leaps and bounds, has an international presence and makes Austin a great location for the latest in cutting-edge technology.

3. What’s exciting to you about Austin as a destination?
The new [Marriott] is going to be a tremendous opportunity to provide convention planners a new destination. Austin is a vibrant, cool, hip, livable city. Many people immediately congratulated me [when I accepted the position] and said, ‘That’s such a cool city,’ and they hadn’t event been here. There’s curiosity about the town and that’s something to draw meeting planners here. Every association is looking to attract more members under 35, and I believe cities like Austin provide a great niche for that demographic. It’s going to help those associations who want to grow their attendance.

4. You call Austin a “new destination.” What do you mean by that?
There’s a curiosity and pent-up demand for Austin because of national and international accolades, but there’s a certain size of conventions that require a certain number of hotels. The new Marriott is going to parlay us into a whole new level of convention planners that will be looking at us for the first time. We have all the key logistical aspects they’re looking for such as hotels, a convention center and great airport access. Once downtown, you can walk everywhere. It’s safe; it’s vibrant. Now, with the large national associations and corporate groups, we can accommodate them.

5. What advice do you have for planners working with CVB representatives?
Be very direct and honest in asking those questions that are so vital to their decisions. We know the city, we qualify the needs of their conference very thoroughly and we can save them time.

Planning and holding a green meeting is about to get easier thanks to a progressive, corporate-wide greening program from SMG Worldwide, one of the nation’s largest event and convention facility management company. It recently launched SMG Green Impact, a proactive, comprehensive greening program designed to help SMG-managed facilities initiate or advance their sustainable practices in the areas of waste, energy, water and air quality. SMG Green Impact (an acronym for innovation, mindfulness, participation, accountability, consistency and transparency) will be available to all of the company’s 225 venues, including 68 convention centers in North America.

“One of the areas of focus will be making sure all facilities are measuring the same thing and have the same best practices in place, so if an SMG facility says it has recycling, there’s a consistent way they’ll approach and track it,” says Lindsay Arell, sustainability director of the Colorado Convention Center who designed SMG Green Impact, about the program’s emphasis on practicing consistency and uniformity across all participating venues. “It’s nice to see [SMG] taking a proactive approach to create that consistency and name recognition, so when a planner goes into an SMG facility and recognizes the SMG Green Impact program, [he or she] will have an understanding of how comprehensive that sustainability program really is.”

The voluntary program is flexible, allowing individual properties to implement the program at whatever level suits their needs. Arell was inspired to create an in-house, convention-focused sustainability program after witnessing a disconnect between many SMG venues in terms of green practices.

“I was seeing a lot of facilities either going for LEED certification or not doing anything at all,” she says. “I think there can be something in-between. This can set the foundation for facilities that want to go for LEED while giving them a way to implement sustainable practices without focusing solely on the price tag associated with LEED.”

Besides LEED prerequisites, Arell also based the program’s best practices on the soon-to-be-released CIC/APEX green initiative to prevent any conflicts or contradictions for facilities planning to attain environmental certifications. But the goal is have every SMG-managed facility participating and carrying out its own customized efforts, large or small, according to Michael Godoy, SMG executive director of operations.

So far, two SMG convention centers—the Palm Springs (Calif.) Convention Center and the Cox Convention Center in Oklahoma City—have been selected to serve as pilot facilities for the program, which was fully in place at the end of September. James Canfield, executive director of the SMG Palm Springs Convention Center and Bureau of Tourism, says the new program is a great complement to his facility and to the desert city’s own progressive sustainability initiatives.

Arell hopes SMG becomes a leader in implementing sustainable practices. “They’re really distinguishing themselves within the hospitality industry by taking such a bold stance on sustainability. I think [SMG Green Impact] has the potential to really influence a lot of policy that could make a big difference for the industry.”

As of press time, both parties were still trying to iron out a year’s worth of differences and reach a funding agreement, per CVB executive director Bobbie Patterson. But their financial dilemma, while unique for a variety of local reasons, points to what remains a broader, ongoing challenge for CVBs around the country in finding enough money to pay their bills and employees and still promote the benefits of their destinations.

“Currently destination marketing organization (DMO) budgets have stabilized from 2010 but have not recovered to their peak in 2008,” says Victoria Isley, executive VP and COO of Destination Marketing Association International (DMAI). “While we’ve seen terrible examples of doing away with DMOs in places like Washington State, where they closed the state tourism office, there are also bright spots of policy makers actually ‘getting’ the value of investing in destination marketing.”

Specifically, Isley points to Visit Florida, the Sunshine State’s official DMO, which veered from almost losing its independent identity and funding (i.e., being merged into a broader state economic development agency) to instead remaining intact and getting a 31 percent budget boost this year. “When legislatures are really looking at either reduced spending or revenue opportunities they can use DMOs as a solution to their problems,” she says. “DMOs have independent research on how every dollar they invest returns more than that to tax coffers. What happened in Florida this spring wasn’t the perfect example but certainly the right result.”

What happened in Boise over the past year was neither perfect, nor in Patterson’s mind, remotely close to being right. As first reported in Connect a year ago, the GBAD, which runs the Boise Centre convention center and for decades had helped finance the city’s CVB (about $1.3 million annually, raised through room taxes, which paid for staff, rent and utility bills), passed a resolution to discontinue funding the non-profit bureau legal as of Sept. 1, 2010. The board, which cited legal questions about how the funds should be spent, instead opted to form its own marketing division as an arm of the Boise Centre itself. “They took five members from the existing CVB to hire a new sales and marketing staff for the convention center,” says Patterson. And since the GBAD owned the CVB’s office space, she adds, “they evicted us earlier this year so that they could use the space for their own new staff.” The remaining bureau staffers were paid through January 2011 and, as the CVB’s outgoing voice mail attests, “the staff is now volunteering time to continue to provide some level of service to those interested in visiting or meeting in Boise.”

Moreover, Patterson’s concern about striking a new deal soon with the GBAD goes beyond whatever amount that board alone will fund her CVB with. “We also receive between $650,000 and $750,000 each year in grant money from the state of Idaho,” she says, with the caveat that it does not go towards salaries and operating costs. However, minus a signed deal with the GBAD, that grant money for 2012 could be in jeopardy, as the CVB would need to provide proof that it has a working staff capable of administering any state funding award.

When pressed about business lost due to the CVB’ s funding problems, Patterson says, “It’s hard to guess what we could have booked if fully staffed.” The issue still could be resolved sometime this month [September], according to an ever-hopeful Patterson. “I am diseased with optimism always,” she says. “One way or another we will continue to promote Boise.”

1. Simple sugars should be avoided in the afternoon. Skip the cookies and opt instead for fruits and nuts, which fight off mental fatigue. If sweets are a must, go for dark chocolate, what Sullivan calls a “power food” that improves short-term cognitive functioning for one to two hours.

2. Serve light meals. Lunches with heavy red meat entrees result in afternoon fatigue.

3. Go local. Foods grown locally—especially fruits and vegetables—have higher nutrient content, which counteracts fatigue and increases memory and oxygen to the brain.

Best Food for the Brain
➔ Water
➔ Granola
➔ Nuts
➔ Blueberries
➔ Yogurt
➔ Mangoes
➔ Bananas
➔ Spinach
➔ Broccoli
➔ Whole-grain breads
➔ Hard-boiled eggs
➔ Peanut butter
➔ Dark chocolate
➔ Energy bars

Better Bottled Water
If you have to serve bottled water at your next event, pick one of these five, which are better for the earth or for the community than their alternatives.

1. Evian: The company revamped its bottles to be 11 percent lighter and contain 50 percent recycled materials.

2. Aquafina: The half-liter Eco-Fino bottle weighing 10.9 ounces is the lightest American bottled water brand.

3. Hope Springs Water: This water is bottled and sold in Texas and all profits help communities in Nicaragua and Uganda build clean drinking-water facilities.

4. Re:newal: Springwater from around the U.S. is packaged in plant-material bottles, which are compostable and biodegradable.

5. Biota: Water is sourced from a Colorado spring and is bottled in a plastic-resin, compostable bottle made from corn.

Source: Food Republic

Who: Founded by Stacey Mehalik and Susie Perelman of Pittsburgh-based Mosaic event planning company

When: Established in March 2011

Why: Mehalik and Perelman want to bring together all the talents and services of event industry professionals to give back to communities. “Our initial outreach to the event industry netted better results than we could have ever hoped for,” Perelman says.

Now: Operation Outreach’s first give-back project is July 16-19. The organization is partnering with St. Bernard Project in New Orleans to rebuild two homes that were destroyed during Hurricane Katrina. Participating organizations are donating furnishings, rugs, window treatments, and more to outfit the houses and make them feel like homes.

More: op-outreach.org

By Lindy Dreyer and Maddie Grant, CAE

“An association is a group of people bonded around an organization, so that means they’ll collaborate and talk about that organization,” says co-author Maddie Grant, CAE. “Nowadays, that’s happening more and more online.” Grant and Lindy Dreyer, who co-run the association consulting firm Social Fish, wrote “Open Community,” the “little book of big ideas for associations navigating the social web” to give association leaders simple concepts to make a big difference in building that online community.

Return on Impact: Leadership Strategies in the Social Media Age

By David Nour

Another guide through the complexities of social media for association leaders, this upcoming book from Association Management Press, the publishing arm of ASAE, has strategies for leaders to engage organization members by encouraging participation and commitment online. The strategies will be based on surveys and interviews of ASAE members.

The Thank You Economy

By Gary Vaynerchuk

The Internet and social media have changed the way businesses need to interact with consumers. This book looks at how organizations can change their mindsets and revert back to mom-and-pop-style customer service in order to reach their audience. Author Guy Vaynerchuk suggests that even though the approach has changed because of social media, human nature has not. Good manners and old-fashioned business strategies are still important in this digital age.