Her enigmatic smile has intrigued viewers for centuries. What was she thinking? What secret knowledge did she possess that Leonardo da Vinci managed to capture on canvas? Wonder no more. A recent article in The Associated Press reveals that scientists from the University of Amsterdam subjected the Mona Lisa to cutting-edge emotion recognition software, developed in collaboration with the University of Illinois. The result? Researchers said the masterpiece's famous subject was 83 percent happy, 9 percent disgusted, 6 percent fearful, and 2 percent angry.

Now that technology has determined the precise emotional makeup of the Mona Lisa smile, will fewer people make the trip to the Louvre to stand mesmerized before her image? Will that face no longer inspire artists, writers, musicians?

I think biometrics expert Larry Hornak, director of the Center for Identification Technology Research at West Virginia University, put the scientific findings in perspective when he told The Associated Press, It's always fun to apply technology to areas of public interest, and sometimes you can come up with results that are very illuminating.?

It seems to me that the meetings industry has come to a similar place with technology. As Mary Power, president of the Convention Industry Council, told Convene recently when we interviewed her for her perspective on PCMA's 50-year history: The horror that turned out not to be, that hung over us for so long, was that technology would mean the end of everything [for the meetings industry]. The biggest issue that proved to be true was a constant need for adult learning, a constant need to improve our professionalism. We were told everything was going to be via satellite, and almost the opposite has proven to be true. As we become more technologically advanced, the need to get together is even more important, not less.?

This point was brought home to me as PCMA wrapped up one of the best attended annual meetings ever last month in Philadelphia. It was an opportunity to showcase several technologies that augment not replace meetings and conventions. At one session, Powerful Technologies for Successful Meetings,attendees were given a chance to test out RFID (radio frequency identification), attendance tracking, messaging, matchmaking, and wireless technologies. This was part of PCMA's Meeting Xperiments initiative. Look for reviews of the experiments along with attendee feedback in each issue of Convene, starting this month on page 66.

To echo Mr. Hornak, we hope you will find the results illuminating.