Conference Bags
Governments, big companies and special interest groups still feel that there is merit in having conferences in convention centers or hotels, where employees or members can meet and share information, despite its availability online.
Conferences reinforce the human aspect where we can finally attach a face to people we have known for quite some time through the phone, email or social media. Great! It is even greater if they are featured speakers.
The downside of all this is how we treat printed information in our conference bags: colourful conference agendas, posters, booklets about featured speakers with nice photos and their career path, bookmarks, business cards, pens, t-shirts and other items.
We usually keep the t-shirts because we might be under an obligation to wear them for the duration of the conference, but the printed material?
We leave it behind in hotels or airports. I still groan when I think of valuable information we left in Bangkok because the luggage was over the allowed limit. Just threw all those booklets in airport bins. Ouch!
It is even worse now because of the internet. No problem. We’ll retrieve the information online, unless the website or video has been removed. Retrieve is the key word, I suppose. We can easily retrieve that information at home or the office if we keep conference bags in some order or special place.
We don’t know when we would need it. Your filing cabinet is pretty empty now because you send attachments or use cloud computing. Shred the files and make room for your conference bags. It’s up to you really. Do you think the printed information in conference bags is information or junk?
By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.
Conferences reinforce the human aspect where we can finally attach a face to people we have known for quite some time through the phone, email or social media. Great! It is even greater if they are featured speakers.
The downside of all this is how we treat printed information in our conference bags: colourful conference agendas, posters, booklets about featured speakers with nice photos and their career path, bookmarks, business cards, pens, t-shirts and other items.
We usually keep the t-shirts because we might be under an obligation to wear them for the duration of the conference, but the printed material?
We leave it behind in hotels or airports. I still groan when I think of valuable information we left in Bangkok because the luggage was over the allowed limit. Just threw all those booklets in airport bins. Ouch!
It is even worse now because of the internet. No problem. We’ll retrieve the information online, unless the website or video has been removed. Retrieve is the key word, I suppose. We can easily retrieve that information at home or the office if we keep conference bags in some order or special place.
We don’t know when we would need it. Your filing cabinet is pretty empty now because you send attachments or use cloud computing. Shred the files and make room for your conference bags. It’s up to you really. Do you think the printed information in conference bags is information or junk?
By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.
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