Am I the only one who finds this offensive?

In their October 2009 issue, Meetings & Conventions magazine ran a News Analysis on the new name of SITE. They had interviewed Brenda Anderson, CEO SITE, who stated proudly,

“When SITE, formerly known as The Society of Incentive & Travel Executives, changed it’s name in January it deliberately ‘moved away from the word incentive in the rebrand’ "

Am I the only one who finds that offensive?

What follows is my email to Lisa Grimaldi, the M&C reporter who wrote the story.

Hi Lisa:
After reading your “Is ‘Incentive’ Passé?” in the current issue of Meetings & Conventions – I have a problem. Not with you but with some of the words from Brenda Anderson of SITE.

Article Excerpt : “The change is the most public example of how the once-ubiquitous word is being replaced in some circles of the industry, in favor of terms like "motivation" or "engagement."
1. Some circles of the industry, indeed. Other than the table at which the SITE board meets what industry circles have disowned the word? Has any member of SITE changed the name of his or her company? Have all the folks with “Incentive” in their title ordered new business cards? Will our trade magazines – I can think of four or five with “Incentive” in their name – have to change their name? (Luckily, Lisa, Meetings & Conventions is safe.) Has GOOGLE been notified?

Article Excerpt: Among the reasons for Site's switch, according to Anderson, is that "incentive" has long been synonymous with "boondoggle" in Europe...”
2. In all my travels to Europe I have never heard a European voice such a thought. However the CEO of a customer – Smith-Corona – once told me he thought the travel incentive program I proposed to his managers was a boondoggle. That didn’t stop his managers from running the boondoggle incentive, and didn’t bully me into selling “Motivational Engagements”.

Article Excerpt” “... and this year in the United States, incentives "got twisted with executive excess."
3. Please could we not react so dramatically to fleeting fashions. Don’t we all remember “Freedom Fries?”

I wish that Brenda and the Board of SITE had the members, or at least the ex-presidents of the society vote on the name change. I think they would have saved themselves embarrassment. This unsupported acronym will prove – in a very short time – an embarrassment to the members of the society.
4. Anyone out there agree with me? Or am I simply barking at the moon?

Bob Guerriero
President & Executive Director of The Journeymasters

Complete Meetings & Conventions article at: http://www.meetings-conventions.com/article_ektid29206.aspx

OK, so you don’t have the budget – now what?

It was September 28, 1970. John Wilkinson, founder of the London DMC (called a “ground operator” in those days) Wilkintours, and I were sitting in the mezzanine of the Expositions Room in London’s Royal Festival Hall.

We were there because I had a seven back-to-back charter group coming to London in February 1971. The quote was tight and after intense negotiation with the hotel we were faced with what we euphemistically called a “serious budget shortfall.” We could not afford lunch in the hotel for Day 3, but ... after a truly diligent search, we found that we could rent the Expositions Room, cater the lunch and still be within budget. Problem solved, right?

Ha. The world should be so easy. Today was our first inspection of the Expositions Room which was designed, as its name suggests, for large industrial exhibitions. The lovely hardwood floor, polished and shining, was at least as large as a basketball court and the only seating was on the rather narrow mezzanine that circled the room. In our favor was that the Royal Festival Hall had been recently renovated and was getting nice press and word of mouth. It sounded like an attractive lunch venue.

Sounded like that is ... until the guests were seated.

“This isn’t gonna work, John” I declared brilliantly.

“You’re right, Bob,” John replied just as brightly. “We must fill up the floor somehow.”

“With what?” I asked losing none of my dazzle.

“Well,” John suggested this time completing a Hail Mary, “maybe we can rent one of the Coldstream Guard boxes from in front of Buckin’em.”

Not to be outdone I suggested, “And maybe we could hire one of the guardsmen in his red dress uniform and big bearskin cap to stand at attention in front of the box , then perform a long about-face, or some military movement, every 10 minutes or so?”

Off we went to Whitehall Street and the headquarters of the Coldstream Guards. Because I was an American and Yank tourists were still relatively rare in London, we eventually got an audience with Major Trevor Sharp (a name right out of Hollywood but a real name and a real British Major ... right out of Hollywood), Commandant of Her Majesty’s Coldstream Guards Band. After explaining our budget predicament, the basketball floor impediment, the seven plane loads of Yanks who were coming and submitting our request for a Guard Box and a single Guardsman, Major Trevor Sharpe asked, “Why don’t you hire her Majesty’s Coldstream Guards Band?”

“We had no idea the Coldstream Guard ...” I don’t remember if we said it out loud or just shrieked it in our heads, “were for hire!” But we did recap our budget pickle.

We must have said it out loud as the Major replied, “Well, they never have been (hired), but I see no reason why we can’t work something out to please the Yanks. After all they did do us a service in the last few wars.”

In conclusion, Major Trevor Sharpe “rented” the Coldstream Guards Band to us for (the equivalent of ) $600 U.S. per performance.

We created a staple highlight of every proper incentive trip to London for the last 40, and the next 40, years. Because we were out of budget.

OK, so now tell me you don’t have the budget ...

The Power of Travel as a Motivation Tool

In my younger years, it was a long time ago, I was a department store buyer and experienced the power of a travel incentive personally.

Sitting at home one night I received a call about 10:30 PM from a salesman I had little respect for, or dealings with. I had ordered him, in an angry moment, to never talk to me again, to deal only with one of my assistants. Yet that night at 10:30 PM he called me!

“Bob, you have to help me, please!”
“Don, why would I help you? I don’t like you, I don’t even like to talk to you.”
“Bob, $6,700, just a clock order for $6,700 and Judy and I will win the contest and a week in Maui this February. It’s only $6,700, you won’t even notice it on your open-to-buy! It’s a week with Judy in Maui, Bob, you can’t say no. You can’t.”

He was right. I couldn’t, and I didn’t. And he and Judy went to Maui in February.

In my younger years I was, I admit, abrasive and unkind. In fact, if I met that young Bob Guerriero today, I wouldn’t like him much. In my defense I was young ... and I was scared. I hadn’t accomplished much to that point in time, and that frightening dread – will I ever? – was always, it seems, at the forefront of my consciousness.

I digress, it isn’t important, why I was so rude. What is important is the question: What power could compel a man to brace a hostile force; in it’s own sanctuary, in it’s private and personal time?

The answer: The power of travel as a motivation tool. I never forgot. And it is why, as a client, I ran one of the first major distributor incentives to Rome, Italy in 1964. And why I started The Journeymasters in 1968.

Bob Guerriero
Founder & President of The Journeymasters