There are pros and cons to corporate social responsibility. Donations to a local organization after a conference can boost employee morale and stir some marketing buzz in the host city while contributing to the local community. However, I’m knee deep in personal reading material about the negative consequences charity and service trips can have.
For a long time, I didn’t care why ABC Fortune 500 company gave. It still was going to a good cause. It didn’t matter if the leaders’ intentions were purely promotional because the local shelter needed the money. I’m beginning to realize it’s not that black and white.
This is on my mind because I’m also in the middle of writing about one of the best CSR projects I’ve seen in a while. Crowdsourcing allows attendees to choose a personal cause for the group to help rather than the typical impersonal giant check presented to a local children’s hospital (more on that in the next Collaborate magazine).
This week, I interviewed 16-year-old Delaney Melaven, who planned a 5K race to raise $2,000 to plant a church in India.
After attending PlannerTech last month, I was impressed by the customization and accessibility of event technology that offers planners easy, mostly free tools to plan events from start to finish online. At Collinson Media’s upcoming 
Change—as Collinson Media’s Editor-in-Chief Christine Born 
Last month, comedian and “Saturday Night Live” head writer Seth Meyers performed at Connect Marketplace, Collinson Media’s convention for professional, specialty and sports association meeting planners. I’ve heard a lot of big-name speakers at our events and other industry events, and Meyers did something few high-profile speakers do: He tweaked his routine for our audience. (It’s not easy to do. Connect Marketplace is a meeting for meeting planners, a concept not easily digestible to many). A routine he’s done before probably could have sufficed because he’s so funny and entertaining, but he chose to incorporate travel, jokes using CVB-type namesand the concept behind our conference in his routine, and he delivered a few one-liners that we’re still repeating in the office a few weeks later.
Most meeting professionals probably agree with Patrick Lencioni, author of “Death by Meeting,” who says that a table is still the most important piece of technology for groups of people who want to get things done. “There is simply no substitute for the basic idea of people sitting down together around a table to resolve the critical issues around their business,” the mission statement of Lencioni’s consulting firm The Table Group says.
Meeting planners’ are in the relationship business. Their ultimate goal is making connections. They create face-to-face experiences. They use social media to what seems like the nth degree. Yet somehow, the efforts can all fall flat if relationships are purely transactional.
