Things That Don't Exist, But Would Be Cool If They Did: The Conference Room Edition

It's that time of year again. Yes, there are parties. But there are also the last rounds of budget meetings, media plans for the soon to start New Year, meetings to tighten up editorial calendars. And, of course, the conference calls to plan the next round of ...conference calls?

Out in the world of circulation, that high intensity drumbeat you hear is actually the collective hearts of circulation and audience development teams beating at +180/minute as they wonder if there's enough last-minute circ to meet the oddly high rate base guarantees the ad team made to their customers a year ago. Will we make it? Will AAM or BPA accept it?

Last week a colleague from the newsstand world called to wonder out loud why her December prematures were so high and POS numbers so low. Were the Christmas displays actually put up in the King Soopers in Denver? And why did the Ad Manager laugh so much when she mentioned the Buehler Supermarket chain in Ohio? "It's not even spelled the same way and Ferris was from Chicago," she pointed out.

October's post "Things That Don't Exist, But Would Be Cool If They Did (Especially If We Could Bring Them To Our Next Meeting) was inspired by a few stories I had recently heard about some wonderfully failed presentations.

With that in mind, I polled some colleagues in the magazine circulation side of the business to see if they had any creative things they'd want to bring with them to their next conference room meeting to discuss end of the year circulation numbers. Here's what they suggested would make their time in the swivel seat more enjoyable:

When senior management invites you into the 21st floor conference room to discuss end of the year numbers, what do you want to bring with you?