How the event selection process can make or break your next meeting. Plus: five online tips to make you more productive.

You spend months considering and choosing the right venues for your organization’s events. What factors weigh into that decision? Making the right choice, and more, in today’s Lunchtime Links.

Choose wisely: Event planning is tricky business. Timing is always an issue. So is food and entertainment. And scheduling. The number of decisions seems infinite. But none of them stands to impact the success of your event more than your selection of venue, writes Julius Solaris, editor of the Event Manager Blog. He cites research that uncovers the most important factors in the venue selection process, and some of the results might surprise you. Number one: personal interaction, or word of mouth. Solaris says speaking with members, attendees, and other stakeholders is the best way for planners to gauge interest in certain locations or venues. OK, so that seems pretty obvious. But here’s one maybe you didn’t know: Apparently, meeting room information is the most important factor in the final decision, “more than the cost of facility, attractions, exhibit space, food service, previous experience, sleeping rooms capacity and tech support,” he writes. What factors play into your venue selection process?

Smart browsing: By now, web browsing seems intuitive. Select your browser from the application menu on your desktop, click or double-click, and start surfing, right? Well, yeah. But, like that fancy laptop or tablet you work on, today’s browsers have an array of useful features, many of which you probably never knew existed, writes Forbes contributor Steve Cooper. So, what have you been missing? Cooper suggests several modern web-browsing features that could improve your productivity. If you work on a Mac and use the Safari web browser, you can see what links your friends and colleagues are sharing by turning on a sidebar feature. From the menu bar at the top of your screen, just click View, then Shared Links Sidebar. No matter what browser you use, you can sync your browsing preferences in the cloud so you can enjoy the same features and browser configuration, including open tabs and bookmarks, from any device, wherever you are. And those are just a few of Cooper’s tips. Read his full list.

Ultimate motivation: Most of your members, and probably many of your employees, came to you because they felt passionate about your mission. But there’s a difference between getting people excited and keeping them enthused. Writing for Inc.com, Nick Woodman, founder and CEO of the GoPro camera company, shares his tips for creating a positive culture. Start by taking a hard look at your mission. You know what your association does. But just explaining its goals in functional terms won’t get people excited. Think about your mission in the context of the world at large and how the work you do improves lives. Woodman also suggests finding a mechanism to show people “tangible results of their efforts.” And “be as inclusive as possible” to ensure that members, volunteers, employees, and others enjoy their time in service to your cause.

What are your keys to creating a positive culture? Tell us in the comments.

(iStock/Thinkstock)