I remember going to events years ago and coming home smelling like cigarette smoke. Now, I only smell like my natural body odor because most places ban smoking inside. And a reaction to that ban—along with a growing concern for a healthier lifestyle—has seen the rise of the electronic cigarette (e-cig).

If you’re not familiar with an e-cig, it’s a device that simulates smoking a real cigarette by vaporizing a liquid solution. Some solutions have nicotine in them, while others are just flavored (e.g., cherry, coffee, mint, etc.). The solution’s ingredients are a concern for some non-smokers. The fear is that they are or can be just as harmful to the body as regular cigarette smoke.

This debate has created some great conversations about managing e-cig use in venues.

“Venues should allow e-cigs to be used inside. E-cigs are the future, and the future is now,” said Carl Rasmussen, a Dallas-based supporter of e-cigs. “Companies should encourage safe alternatives to traditional cigarette consumption for their attendees by openly accepting more people for profits while minding their choice to be healthier. It’s a win-win.”

For the Allen Event Center in Texas, e-cigs were initially not allowed under its non-smoking policy.

“As we received push back, we began to look into it and stated that the current no e-cig policy was a temporary policy as we researched the e-cigs, reviewed the FDA’s opinion, and internally reviewed if they fell under any current city ordinances,” said IAVM member David Angeles, interim general manager at the center, on VenueNet. “That bought us time, but in the end our attorney let us know that current ordinances don’t prohibit them. We were told the city could look to create an ordinance, but in our opinion, it was premature to do so since they are so new and the FDA and the e-cig companies are still jockeying in the courts (at least they were earlier in 2013). Creating a building policy allowing or prohibiting was up to us.”

Angeles said that the center chose to allow them to show its openness.

“And [we] began to document complaints about e-cig use that we could potentially use as support if we saw a need to create a building policy to not allow the e-cigs,” Angeles said. “Surprisingly, we have had little to no complaints regarding them, and the number of actual users are small.”

For most venues, e-cig policies may not even matter when it comes to attracting guests.

“E-cig policies wouldn’t stray my decision to attend a particular venue,” Rasmussen said. “I still have a strong vaping etiquette from my cigarette days, and I’m fine with going outside with the others to take a vape.”

What’s your opinion on e-cigs? How should venues police their use? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

(photo credit: pixelblume via photopin cc)

Are you getting enough sleep every night?

For individuals in the sales industry, ensuring clients hear what you are saying (selling) is a critical component for success—but the proverbial sales pitch can feel like a 90-mph fastball as you rush through your presentation in the usual limited meeting time.

Yet, the art of selling might be more about the art of listening rather than speaking. Building a loyal customer is like building a relationship. It’s a two-way conversation of hearing what the client needs and providing solutions they can trust and use.

Populous, one of the world leaders in innovative architecture has mastered the art of listening by building a large-scale brainstorming event gathering clients from various sectors. These collaborations, called “Imagine That,” give attendees and the company a more comprehensive understanding of trends shaping their industry, while the meaningful design workshops will certainly be used to impact Populous’ approach to design in the future.

Don’t have the resources to gather clients for a big brainstorming session? Try one of these alternatives:

• At your next client meeting, try to start by engaging in a broader conversation about the goals, trends, and business challenges the client faces in the coming months.
• Can’t fly your team in? Introduce your company’s research experts through a short teleconference or on FaceTime or Google Hangout
• Send a quick note and share relevant research that your team recently published.
• Develop a short online survey clients can take. There are some simple online survey tools you can use to create and gather data.
• Join in on social media sites to post pictures of happy clients, new products, and show customers what your team is up to with photo essays.
• Check out online feedback and message boards. Joining IAVM gives Allied Members access to VenueNet, IAVM’s online community. VenueNet is a great place to get the industry pulse and suggest solutions to questions posted on discussion boards.

Listening can act as a powerful tool to encourage innovation. By listening to your client you may be the first person in your organization to realize it’s time for a change in products.

One of the best events to hear what venue managers are saying about the industry is  VenueConnect, IAVM’s annual conference and trade show. This year’s event will be in Portland, Or., July 26-29. The conference brings in venue professionals from around the world and many are the decision makers for their venues.

Make sure your company reserves a trade show booth and signs up to get connected one-on-one with venue buyers through the association’s new hosted buyer program, IAVM DirectConnect, where venue’s tell us what they plan to buy and how much they plan to spend and you set up a series of short meetings during the conference to help them accomplish their buying needs!

(photo credit: dalbera via photopin cc)

Tony Hsieh doesn’t want to be CEO of Zappos anymore. Okay, that’s not quite true. In reality, he doesn’t want the title “CEO.”

In a move that some outlets are already touting as the hot, new management trend of 2014, Hsieh will flatten his organization and implement a Holacracy.

Hola what? Yeah, a Holacracy (it’s capitalized because it’s a brand, folks), which is “a distributed authority system—a set of ‘rules of the game’ that bake empowerment into the core of the organization,” as defined by HolacracyOnce LLC. “Unlike conventional top-down or progressive bottom-up approaches, it integrates the benefits of both without relying on parental heroic leaders. Everyone becomes a leader of their roles and a follower of others’, processing tensions with real authority and real responsibility, through dynamic governance and transparent operations.”

For Zappos, about 10 percent of the company currently operates under a Holacracy. By the end of year, all 1,500 employees will operate under the system.

However, Alison Griswold, a reporter for Business Insider, says it won’t work. She says that the fundamental issue is that people don’t self-regulate or discipline themselves that well. Another reason is attrition.

“Companies bled talent as successful managers jumped ship instead of losing their titles,” she wrote. “At the same time, poor and mediocre managers that the companies hoped to effectively demote continued to be seen as de facto leaders.”

Over on Medium.com, Alexis Bowers with HolacracyOne addresses some of the common myths surrounding the operating system.

“Holacracy specifies how to decide, not what to decide,” Bowers wrote. “There are principles an organization can align with when designing systems like compensation that will align well with Holacracy, but there’s no one prescribed answer.”

And it’s not a cure-all, either.

“It is simply a technology that specifies how an organization can build its bones and structure itself,” Bowers wrote. “It probably doesn’t do all of the magical things that folks think it will do, but it can be pretty transformative. Holacracy will not make unicorns pop out of cupcakes, but if practiced regularly, there is increased transparency, efficiency, and more distribution of power and authority.”

Back up there. It won’t make unicorns pop out of cupcakes? Well, then, maybe it’s not for me. Maybe it’s for you, though. How would you imagine your organization operating under a Holacracy? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

(Image from the HolacracyOne Facebook page)

Here are the answers to the crossword puzzle featured in the October/November issue of Facility Manager magazine. As a reminder, any IAVM member that sends in a photo/scan of completed puzzles from the next issue will be entered into a drawing for a complimentary registration to VenueConnect 2014 in Portland, Oregon! (Submissions must be received by the deadline printed with each puzzle.)