Thursday, November 21, 2013

An open letter to hotel room designers

Common sense is very uncommon.
 - Horace Greeley

I'm not a road warrior, but I'm in and out of hotels often enough to understand how most people generally use a hotel room. There's a bed, a bathroom, and electricity. For the most part, those are the important parts.

With that in mind, I would like to share some helpful tips for hotel designers.

1) The bed. Thanks for upgrading almost all of the hotel beds to be heavenly or signature or whatever. That's great! I really don't need decorative pillows that I'm going to throw in the floor. They look pretty, but they take housekeeping an extra 2 minutes to arrange, and I just push them off the bed anyway. Ditch that, please.

2) The bathroom. Sometimes I travel on business alone. Sometimes I travel on business with a colleague. Sometimes I travel with my husband. In all situations, I do not want a pretty sliding door with frosted glass. Or even no door at all. I want a door. A real door. One that I can close and that will keep in the noises that happen in bathrooms. If you are so inclined to provide me with a non-noise-barring solution to my bathroom, PLEASE at least consider adding a ventilation fan. I would like to have some option of masking those bathroom noises without having to turn on the TV and crank the volume. This can't be too much to ask, can it?

While I'm on the topic of bathrooms, I believe that the next revolution in bathrooms should be the bath sheet. Bath towels are teensy and I really like to fold a nice bath sheet around me when I get out of the shower. But if I had to choose a door or a bath sheet, please give me the door.

3) The electricity. I have a laptop, a phone, and a tablet. I need to plug them in. Please don't make me crawl under the desk or unplug the lamp to locate an outlet. Seriously. When you're designing your sleek, modern little built-in for the TV, just think about putting some plugs in a reasonable, reachable location.

Thank you for your consideration.

Liz


Friday, May 24, 2013

Getting re-inspired

Families are the compass that guide us. They are the inspiration to reach great heights, and our comfort when we occasionally falter.
 - Brad Henry

I disappeared off the map last year as planning for my company's 6,000-person user conference kicked into high gear.

Then I disappeared "for good" for 3 months as I had a new little baby girl in February!

So now I'm back at work and back exploring event trends and technologies and trying to reignite my inspiration. It may take me a little more exploring to find that right inspirational moment, but I have no doubt it will hit me soon and I'll be back on track with my regular posts.