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I am 100% supportive of more telecommuting options for employees. I already live in a high population area- DC- and remotely working at home will save me money and my employer time. workplaces should also consider shuttling people to and from the office.

We did some research eons ago that suggested price elasticity for conferences was approximately 1.0 when one takes into account what an attendee thinks of as the full cost of the conference including reg fees, housing, travel, adult entertainment--basically everything except lost productivity due to time away from the office. This meant if you pick a more expensive hotel/location that raises costs 5%, expect 5% fewer attendees than you'd have in the lower cost location from the year before. Ditto for flight costs.

If Rubin's right (and most of the logic seems sound as developing economies um, develop and lose their edge in productivity cost) in the states we'll have less purchasing power, slightly more jobs, higher prices, and many more conferences at the O'Hare Best Western ...

It's just me, but I've always thought of conferences as a luxury good; if I'm right there will always be a small cluster of faithful attendees who'll come anywhere, but meetings will grow cozier and probably less profitable for us to run as a service that helps a progressively smaller proportion of our membership.

Suzanne - I'm certainly with you on the telecommute option - organizations that do it well are going to have a significant advantage in the future. I'm less sure of how workplace shuttling might work, unless you mean shuttling to/fro a mass transit center for a company that is not near one. Seems like people are too far flung to make door-to-door viable.

Kevin - Thank you for the very thoughtful reply. Obviously some of what you're talking about will be dictated by customer -- I don't think the Four Seasons will be going out of business, and if you have "Four Seasons" members, you probably lose more than gain by downgrading to a Marriott, forget the BW! I think you're right, though, I see a bigger split in the haves vs. have nots. High-paying professions -- docs, lawyers, business execs, finance, etc -- those meetings continue. I wonder what happens to upper middle and middle class jobs: nurses, teachers, small business, mid-management. If the total cost of sending someone to a conference goes from $3000 to $6000, does it become even more the realm of the privileged few? (And Kevin, "adult entertainment"? Makes me wonder what kind of conferences you've been attending. Just kidding! Thanks for weighing in.)

Actually Scott, I debated including that in my post, but in several staff positions, one of my roles was to be sure VIPs made it back from their interesting choices of evening activities; and I remember when we were in a city such as New Orleans that offers its unique temptations, we also were 'on call' to pitch in if anyone was arrested for drunk/disorderly, public urination, etc.

I'm sure these folks (who were a small minority of all attendees of course) were not representative of the remainder, but I bet if you asked the general public to randomly associate the word "convention" with images and adjectives we would hear a lot of terms related more to fun than the terms such as learning, networking, or business development we mention in our brochures.

I am generalizing from a small sample, but I know my local friends outside the industry are always envious when they hear I'm attending yet another conference somewhere nice. The have/have not connotation has always been there to some degree, and it may grow stronger if costs of attendance and company budgets/support move in the direction we think they will. If conferences are positioned in the minds of our peers & bosses as I think they are--part perk and part business/professional necessity--internal financial & time off support for destination travel could exacerbate ongoing declines in attendance for regional & national events.

Great post, Scott -- right on the money, as are Kevin's comments.

I'd add that those professional folks who will be the ones able to continue to pay what could become pretty exhorbitant fees to attend face-to-face association events will also come under increasing scrutiny about how they're spending money.

Let's just take medicine. Joe and Jane AverageAmerican are seeing their medical benefits being cut all of the time and they're having to cover more costs from a shrinking income; many of Joe and Jane's friends and relatives are uninsured. Yet everyone has medical needs. They struggle to pay for their visits to the doctor, dentist, optomitrist... among others, which are no longer covered or the co-pay is so high they might as well out-of-pocket it anyway.

Now they find out they can't get an appointment when needed because Dr. I-Can-Afford-It is at some luxury hotel in some city on the coast for "a convention" and -- well, you get the picture.

The bottom line is that we're *also* living in a time when people are demanding greater transparency. All it takes is a Wikileaks type of exposure for an association's annual convention -- if not properly managed -- to become it's biggest PR nightmare.

Yes, there's a place and time and a way to conduct face-to-face (FTF) events for the maximum benefit of everyone -- including Joe and Jane, indirectly.

Balancing those FTF events with a well-planned online educational curriculum can help as well -- not just for providing the educational content, but for bridging the financial gap that could open up as transportation and other live event costs continue to rise.

So I beg to differ, Scott: there is something we can -- and should -- be doing. No one in the hotel/conference industry wants to talk about it, but the reality for associations and other membership organizations is that online options MUST be pursued. It's the association's responsibility to its members to do that. It's action we can take -- NOW -- against what could otherwise be a frightening and threatening future.

And doing so is more than a dash of hope -- it's a guaranteed win: our members benefit from an online alternative; our members' customers benefit; we benefit. Best of all, it's not an either-or choice. Online learning and FTF events can *and should* co-exist within an organization's curriculum.

It's not doom and gloom. It's an opportunity :)

Thank you for the great comment Ellen.

I know I for one would prefer to go to doctor who is out from time to time at a conference, fancy locale or not. There's the education justification, of course, but as all of us in the association sector, there's an even more important part: peer-to-peer interaction. So the more unstructured time, time with receptions and what have you, the worse it would seem to the public, but the better it is. So when I'm having an issue that my doc hasn't come across before and doesn't seem to match anything in the literature, I'd like him or her to have a few colleagues he or she can turn to -- and the more conferences he or she goes to, the more far-reaching his or her peer network is likely to be.

And I agree 100% that associations need to be firmly entrenched in providing online training & education and networking opportunities. I think most associations see that. Doing so well is obviously tough, some do it very well, others still struggle, with most of us somewhere in between. A factor to consider in this area, however, is the pressure of and competition with the price of free. A few years ago, ASAE could charge a little bit for webinars and offer good distance education and get a small profit back. But that model is all but dead to us right now, as others have discovered how to give a webinar cheaply, so they offer it for free because they value they get is the potential future relationship. I believe the online education world is going to continue to change rapidly, and I fear that the association sector in general is not particularly well-suited to adapt. We might get that way, but I don't think we are yet -- and all of that is perhaps best saved for a future post.

Scott:

Thanks for sharing this information! Did Jeff Rubin give his thoughts on a timeline for when some of this might happen?

I am so there with what you wrote about Jeff and the comments. It's worth considering for sure.

What strikes me as odd is that ASAE would showcase this man in the Invitational Forum on Leadership & Management and not at ASAE's Annual Meeting.

Seems to me that Jeff Rubin has more credibility, knowledge and insight than TV anchors Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough (ASAE 2011 Annual Meeting opening general session speakers). Rubin's message, as you've presented it, has more provocative thought, depth and insight than TV anchors who deliver sound-bites with coffee. I want to hear more from Rubin and people like him at ASAE annual meeting!

Thanks again for sharing for those of us who didn't attend the Invitational Forum! Good stuff for all association leaders and meeting professionals for sure.

Thanks Jeff - I'll make sure the meetings folks see your #ASAE11 feedback.

As for Rubin & timing: He says we're already experiencing it. His theory is that people think the recession we're trying to pull out of was caused by a real estate balloon and financial institution issues, but in reality, it was oil prices and how demand and supply of the commodity are stressing the economy -- and that's why we're having such a hard time pulling out of it. In previous economic cycles, it took a long time for oil prices to climb; this time it spiked right back up -- and that's the economic reality we have to learn to deal with. He says triple digit oil prices are either here to stay, or will be very soon. And the supply/demand economics will only introduce more stress. He says the Mideast is already pumping just about all the oil it can pump. The only places where oil production is growing are Russia, China, Brazil -- and these countries have a demand that is growing even faster than their production, so no new oil will actually make it to market for net importers of oil.

It all sounds very catastrophic. And Rubin didn't sugarcoat it: he says we're in for a very rude, tough awakening, but he's also very optimistic that we'll make the necessary adaptations.

For more details on the theory, I'd refer you to his book (though I haven't read it): Your World Is About to Get A Whole Lot Smaller.