Ever attend a meeting and think to yourself...”That ought to be banned for life...”?

Well here’s your chance. If we’re going to change the way we meet, we’ve not only got to start doing things differently, we’ve got to STOP doing things we’ve always done.

Why are we still doing some of these things? ‘We’ve always done it that way’ is perhaps the most common excuse. Laziness might be another. Are we really to busy to bother or did we simply stop caring?

Regardless, let’s start a list of things which should be banned from meetings and events. Feel free to add context or justification or just blurt it out!

I’ll fire the opening salvo.

At IEG’s Unbound Conference held in Chicago this week, I attended a roundtable discussion with Michael Fiur of Fiur Productions. He spoke on experience design, based on his years at Radio City Music Hall in NYC and producing five Super Bowl half-time shows. I had to ask him about this year’s Super Bowl half-time show featuring The Who (which he wasn’t responsible for). Now don’t get me wrong. I grew up with The Who and am happy to see them still breathing. It gives me hope. But from an event perspective, it made me want to ban for life...

    Musical acts where at least one of the original members died of natural causes.

I realize this might exclude a fair number of ‘legend’ acts, in Super Bowl parlance. And I realize that they’re just trying to please their (not insignificant) viewing audience. And the age demographic makes a certain sense.

But for a show like the Super Bowl, which is more known for it’s commercials than the teams involved, and certainly the musical acts (excluding wardrobe malfunctions), isn’t it time to broaden the appeal, not narrow-cast it to middle-age guys like me? Doesn’t this present an opportunity to build community among new demographic groups?

So, there’s my beef. What’s yours? What would you ban for life from meetings?