Veni, vidi, venue

The choice of venue is central to the planning of any event. For some conferences it's simply a matter of finding the right sort of hotel, located with easy motorway access from most parts of the country. For others it has to be an international venue that has good connections globally and offers a touch of glamour - like Budapest, which is featured in the picture above.
Most conferences require overnight accommodation, so organisers are generally looking at hotels with a 4+star rating, but the challenge then is that conference hotels are all very much of a muchness. The event can end up in a conventional ballroom, with a standard platform, looking like the venue for a concert or some sort of rally. The result is predictable: the delegates march in to the soothing tones of "walk-in muzak" and take their seats in the role of audience, to be entertained by the show on the stage - or motivated by the political messages from the platform.
It's more imaginative to use the hotel for what it's best at - a place for dinner, bed and breakfast. Then choose an alternative venue for the conference, somewhere that can serve as a blank canvas for the creativity of the internal communications department and event producers. Premises that become a stimulating location for interaction and debate. Conferences are not about being in an audience, politely listening and then applauding: conferences are a dynamic communication tool that can change the mindset of the delegates, getting them to think and act differently once they return back to base. Conferences belong to the delegates, not the platform, because the delegates are the ones who make it all happen, whether they are employed by the people on the platform, or are the distribution channels that move the company's products.
This isn't anarchy and it's certainly not communism, but for many organisations it will come as something of a revolution. For years Budapest suffered under "management" that told the people what to do. It didn't work, and once the power returned to the people the country rediscovered its identity and dignity. Companies and organisations that think this way are the ones that will thrive in the 21st century: it's all about belonging to something that you believe in.
Caesar may have come to Britain, seen and conquered, but leadership today is more about involvement and less about control - and that takes both foresight and courage.

What do they teach kids today?

When I first went to school (no, don't laugh!) we learned to read and write. Learning to read was all phonics-based and writing started with pencils and then progressed to dipper- pens.
In secondary school we were allowed fountain pens, which had to be Osmiroid italic pens, and we were rigorously taught in our Art classes how to write aesthetically as well as legibly. This was a skill that was considered essential if one was to survive in the New Elizabethan era, (as it was ambitiously referred to after the Coronation in '53.) Ball-points were, of course, outlawed, and the role of "ink-monitor" - filling the inkwells in the school desks survived well into my teenage years.
One would have thought, logically, that modern Primary education would teach the appropriate written communication skills today, but with one or two isolated exceptions, like Whinstone Primary School, we are raising a generation - generations - in fact, who are totally keyboard illiterate. Just about every executive uses a keyboard on an hourly basis, and the overwhelming majority peer down and tap away with two fingers.
The technical illiteracy continues with the arrival of PowerPoint, which is almost universally used as an alternative speaker-prompt rather than as an illustration to support the spoken word. But, happily, there are exceptions as this simple but highly informative High School video from the States demonstrates.Yes, it's very amateurish, but I can think of a dozen senior executives who would do well to follow its basic teaching.

Find more videos like this on TeacherLibrarianNetwork

Last night I received the galley proofs of my book on the subject: Tork & Grunt's guide to Great Presentations. In the section on PowerPoint, I reiterate what Garr Reynolds, Guy Kawsaki, Professor Edward Tufte and other voices in the wilderness are preaching. You need 3 documents for any presentation. You need your notes; you need (optional) some visual support to help illustrate your story, and you probably want to have a hand-out that can be circulated after the presentation. They are not one and the same document, because if a PowerPoint document is properly designed, you'll need the script to follow the story. Please, join the revolution. Inoculate the world against Death by PowerPoint.
The book's published by Marshall-Cavendish, with a prequel on Negotiations. Most of the UK web-based booksellers are taking pre-orders, and if you log on to the Tork and Grunt website in September, you can also purchase a 40minute audio CD that encapsulates the key points of my arguments.
Now I'll get back to proof-reading and corrections - and enjoy reading the book with all the cartoons in the final layout. After four long years, it's great to see it all coming together.