Strange Visitor from another Planet.

Meetings, meetings, and more bloody meetings.

No. It's not corporate America having meetings, meetings, and more meetings. They're on a diet...

Faster than a stimulus package. More powerful than a bank stress test. Able to create debt with a single pen stroke.

Funnier than an HBO comedy special. It's government. It's Congress. It's the White House!

Yes, it's President Obama, first President of Color, who came to this office with a vision far beyond those of other candidates. Obama, who can change the course of the country, bend the economy with his bare hands; and who disguised as President, government rethinker and speaker to greater metropolitan newspapers, fights a never ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way...

If you have any funny in you at all, you've got to admit President Obama rocked at The White House Correspondents' Dinner the other night. He even pushed the envelope with the material, and without jeopardizing the office.

Here's the only issue I have: He still hasn't cleared the path for corporate America to meet freely, yet it must have taken 99 meetings to put that dinner together. There were planning meetings, site inspections, meetings with writers, secret service meetings, meetings to change seating arrangements (couldn't you just tell that Demi Moore pushed to be at that table in that seat).

Meetings are good! That meeting was valuable. Wanda Sykes was an asset, and no, you can't calculate the ROI she brings, and trying too has contributed to why corporate meetings are in the mess they're in now!

All I'd like to see is the gloves taken off for corporate America - just a word of support given by President Obama - so they can get back to the focus of meetings and off of the focus on meeting.

And in case you weren't sure and needed clarification, The Washington Hilton isn't a budget hotel! Some might even describe it as a luxury property. And no, a sleeveless First Lady, doesn't save enough to justify it.


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Now is the time for ...CVB's to act. Now is the time for Leadership!

Leadership is a word thrown around easily. The fact is leadership is tough. Leadership is being the first to move into an unknown area, doing something never done before, and taking a chance because all the data shows it's the right thing to do. Leadership is taking a solid step forward in a sea of conflicting opinions.

Government is suppose to do the things private enterprise can't or shouldn't, and national government is suppose to do the things state government can't or shouldn't, and so on down the line.

Alexander Hamilton realized the best way to bond the states was by assuming state debts as part of the U.S. Congress. Abraham Lincoln realized that expenditures for growth, even during an expensive civil war, with Pacific Railway Act of 1862 to aid construction of the railroad, telegraph and postal routes from Missouri to the Pacific was the right thing to do. FDR understood the necessity for governments role, even after a misstep with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, with his New Deal during the depression, as does President Obama with his stimulus package.

In the meeting and travel world, CVB's (City Convention and Visitor Bureaus) should be proactive right now. They should be investing in their marketing, sales, and operations. They should be using their inventory to bring in new business at their expense!

So why aren't they? Because they are caught in a political squeeze between spending money to support their members during a time when their main source of funding (hotel revenues) is dramatically reduced. This means standing up in front of city council and demanding to run an aggressive costly campaign that could (or will) put them in the red. This means putting their very political job on the line because it's the right thing to do.

And why should they do this? Because for a city, this economy isn't just affecting 2009, it's affecting 2010 and 2011 even more. If they play it safe, they will lose millions of dollars for their cities, cost hundreds of jobs, and put private enterprise further behind.

Which CVB leaders are willing to make the right call and make the investments necessary for their cities? Who knows?

For most, it's why even try, because city council, who are interested in their positions as well, will just reject it.

The one good thing about this is - the leaders will identify themselves. In times of crisis, leaders ask for the unreasonable and find a way to get it.