IBTTA

IBTTA in Rome

IBTTA the tollsters trade group had a magnificent annual conference in Rome. What a splendid idea for industry people to be able to spend a few days together in this magic city with the spirited Romans at a wonderful time of the year. The conference like every conference had good papers and bad, excellent speakers and not so good. There was a huge exchange of paper and information, again some valuable, some not so. But the formal stuff is only a fraction of any conference, which is mostly about meeting colleagues and gaining information and ideas from chatting in a relaxed setting. We write this because another trade publication sneered at the Rome conference as "junketeering." Worse at least one large U.S. toll agency kept people from attending for fear of their Rome trip being "exposed" by the local media or political opponents. What smallminded nonsense. The toll agencies that spent money to send their executives to Rome got their money's worth and in many cases much more. What they spent on the trip was infinitesimally small in the accounts of these agencies and the potential gains enormous. I know of one informal users group that resulted from several executives of different agencies meeting for the first time at the Rome conference that could save their agencies several millions of dollars from not buying problem-ridden equipment, and I would guess that among the 600 or so attendees there were many other such productive relationships formed that I know nothing about. But heck, of course it was fun too. Why on earth shouldn't people get out and have a good time, eat and drink, and sightsee and so forth in a wonderful place like Rome? Why not mix business and pleasure? It's stimulating, refreshing and just great. The critics spend too much time stuck at their computer screens. Or else they are boring killjoys, miserable wowsers whose pathetic carpings, reflecting childish stunted personalities, don't deserve a moment of attention from grownups.