A Golden Calf Is Born

You may remember the Bible story the worship of the Golden Calf (Exodus 32). The golden calf represents the BLIND adoration of money - a sort of money fever. This fever broke out definitively 5 years ago in the worldwide Meetings Industry, which has become a multimillion dollar industry. Then the international associations were discovered. The association executives - who are the decision makers of big conventions - were spotted by the organisers of workshops, fairs, magazines and sales meetings. But this kind of blind adoration can have some painful consequences. For example last week (April 2nd and 3rd) there was another (expensive) worship ritual in Brussels. The altar was set up nicely in a hotel and the participants had paid a lot of money for one candle on the altar. Like the deeply religious worshippers we are, we all had big expectations, but we all went home, way too early, with tears in our eyes. The Golden Calf wasn't there. I think we have to start paying attention. Associations have developed into professional enterprises with their own decision making structure, which often is different than ours, and not commercial at all! We will have to learn to discover them in another way and respect them, because otherwise things will turn out badly in the meetings industry!