Risk adverse. That's an apt description for many associations. But it's not a modus operandi that makes much sense in the current meeting and trade show environment. At the Exhibition and Convention Executives Forum held last month at the Washington Convention Center, several speakers described their frustration as they assumed leadership positions at established associations, only to find out how events or practices that no longer worked were still being cycled through their organizations. Michael Pusateri, who joined the 67-year-old Travel Industry Association of America (TIA) fairly recently as chief operating officer, told the group that it was obvious when he came on board that one of TIA's events was not working. Before the dinner event was quashed, he questioned long-time employees and learned that it hadn't been successful in five years - but was still being held the same way. When President & CEO Barbara Tulipane took the helm, the Electronic Retailing Association was in poor financial shape and represented an industry with a shoddy reputation. To engineer the organization's turnaround - and change the industry - she takes risks that "fail faster" so she can move on to the really good ideas.

When Convene Managing Editor Peggy Swisher attended the World Innovation Forum in New York City in May, she heard a recurring theme: Create an organizational culture that permits smart risk-taking and rewards creativity without punishing failure. It's telling that only 2 percent of attendees to that forum were from the hospitality industry.

Often it's just a lack of time and resources that stand in the way of developing really innovative ideas (see Jeffrey Cufaude's Leading Learning column on page 20). But perhaps the greater challenge is that many of us do work for risk adverse organizations, where unconventional approaches to the business of meetings are not encouraged. And maybe that's because the nature of this work is so public. If a new idea tried out at a major conference tanks, it's hardly going to go unnoticed.

Yet that was the premise behind PCMA's Meetings Xperiments, conducted during the 50th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia in January: Get out there with something different and let people weigh in. (There will be new Meetings Xperiments at PCMA's 2007 Annual Meeting in Toronto.) Some experiments worked, and some didn't, as you'll see in this issue (page 68). But I'm proud to work for an association that believes that's OK, and allows me to publish the results, warts and all.