BuiltEnvironment

Conference rates ≠ best rates!

In the last few weeks, I have developed a few new presentations, and prepared and submitted proposals to speak at more than a half-dozen A/E/C industry conferences in 2013, ranging from the AIA and SDA national conferences to a number of SMPS regional conferences. A few of these conferences actually pay their speakers a fee, rather than just giving them a free conference registration, so I had to project my expenses -- airfare, ground transportation, airport parking, hotels, etc. -- for inclusion in the speaker proposal.

As I sent off the last proposal, I was reminded of the many conferences I've attended where the airfare quoted by the "approved conference airline" or the "approved conference travel agent" could be improved upon significantly at Expedia, Travelocity or Orbitz. Or where you could go online to Hotels.com or the hotel's own website and find a cheaper room rate at the conference hotel than the "official conference rate."

This brought me up short. I thought to myself, "aren't these organizations trying to give us the best possible prices in order to encourage our attendance at conferences?"

Apparently not!

The conference sponsor, of course, needs its staff members in attendance to run the registration tables, introduce the session speakers, remind people to fill out speaker evaluation forms, hand out certificates for continuing education units, answer questions, give directions, etc. So here's what I think is happening: I think that, in calculating conference airfares and hotel room rates, the airlines and hotels are taking into consideration the number of free plane tickets and/or rooms they will have to provide to the conference sponsor.

And the sponsor organizations don't want to have to pay for all those plane tickets and hotel rooms. So WE subsidize them through "official conference airfares" and "official conference room rates" that are higher than what we could find on our own.

I have more than once gone to Hotels.com and found a room in the conference hotel for the night(s) I wanted at $20-40 per night less than the conference rate. I have found airfares that were 10-15% lower than those quoted by the official conference airline or the official travel agent, with greater schedule flexibility than the official sources were offering.

Don't get me wrong -- using the official resources for travel arrangements definitely has an upside -- measured in convenience. But the downside is that you pay more for that convenience. Just like you pay more for most of the products you buy in convenience stores than you do at the supermarket. We all recognize that as the cost of convenience.

However, if you like to take the time, look for yourself, make your own arrangements and save some money, the convenient way is not always the best.

 

"Gilded Lily"

(Austin downtown art-cow collection)

Asked, answered and "still thinking"

I am reading "Great by Choice" by Jim Collins ("Good to Great") and Morten T. Hansen ("Collaboration"), and came across a sentence on page 111 that made me stop and think:

"The primary difficulty lies not in answering the question but in having the presence of mind to ask the question."

I think this is often the case. I know that, in my own participation in the CPSM Listserve hosted by SMPS, I often respond to a post by phone rather than by email, thinking that I only want to share my knowledge on that particular issue with the person who was smart enough to ask the question.

Indeed, some of my best professional relationships were started that way -- with me making a phone call instead of sending an email, having a conversation that often lasted 20-30 minutes and included other related subjects of concern to either or both of us.

When the shoe is on the other foot, when I'm the one seeking information, I have also taken to heart something my mother used to tell me all the time. She would say:

"You'll never know until you open your big mouth and ask someone, so find the right person, open your big mouth and ask!"

And she was right. But sometimes you have to ask a few wrong people before you find the right person.

Over the years, I have learned to have great respect for any person who is confident enough to ask a question to obtain information. I have similarly great respect for any person who can admit to not knowing the answer to my question, rather than giving me the run-around with a quick but incorrect answer. Some of these "runners" had egos that just wouldn't allow them to say "I don't know;" others were afraid they might lose their job, authority or credibility if they admitted to a gap in their knowledge.

When I would think back at some of the amazing wrong answers I have received over the years, many from folks who were very earnest about their answers, who absolutely believed that their clearly inaccurate information must be correct, I used to shake my head and wonder, "what were they thinking?"

I have since learned that this is the wrong question. Instead of "what were they thinking?" I should drop the first word and simply ask "were they thinking?"

The answer to that question is frequently "NO!"

So I have tried to cultivate the habit of figuring out who is ASKING the questions, and then sitting by them, developing business or personal relationships with them, and learning what I could by listening to the answers they got and their reactions to those answers. Further conversations with these folks then helped me to learn even more, to catalog the new information in my brain for integration with other knowledge and retrieval when I needed it, and to help further build and strengthen these relationships.

I also learned to have the courage to ask the questions myself, and to distinguish when I was being given real and useful information as opposed to just a stream of noise with no value at all.

 

"Capitol Cow"

(Austin downtown art-cow collection)