Last Minute Meetings

Rating:
Summary: A Wealth of Information Packed into This Book!
Review: Fern Dickey has written a top-notch book on meeting planning. The small consulting company I work for was planning an out of state seminar with a few speakers. Although the engagement was cancelled, we had already made many of the arrangements. After reading Dickey's book I realize all of the details we left out: travel details, hotel contract details, and speaker contract details, just to name a few. (If we even had contracts!?) Her book offers a wealth of knowledge on how to run an efficient, effective meeting, and protect your budget. The book is well organized ; you can easily jump to the section you're most interested in and her style of writing is casual. Fern Dickey is like your friend giving advice and sharing knowledge over a glass of wine. She includes numerous web sites and contact numbers for more information to help you plan your meeting. Whether it's a last minute meeting or not, I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Read!
Review: Let's get one thing out of the way: This is not a book about how to conduct last-minute meetings. It is a book about organizing conferences, conventions and other off-site gatherings that involve extensive planning - and preferably not at the last minute. That said, it's a useful book. Fern Dickey provides exactly the kinds of hands-on details that a virgin conference organizer would need, from online resources to relevant organizations, contact information, and sample charts that you can use for record keeping, budgeting and planning. There's nothing groundbreaking here, and there are no secret tactics revealed. Instead, Dickey has produced a thorough working reference that we [...] recommend to anyone new to the dizzying world of conference planning.