On my way to work this morning, I passed a gas station sign offering regular gas for $3.76/gallon. YIKES! Alarming? Yes, but what really scares me is how it is impacting my livelihood! I use “is” instead of “will” because I can no longer put this issue on the back burner while I continue business as usual and neither can you.

Just two weeks ago at GMIC’s Sustainable Meeting Conference, Ian Lee, an airline industry analyst at Carleton University warned us six out of 14 European airlines will go out of business by 2015 if oil prices remain at US$100 per barrel. If prices reach US$150 per barrel, nine out of 14 will disappear. Lee drew his data from a recent presentation by a senior executive with Irish air carrier Aer Lingus.

Lee commented “the cost of energy will radically impact the airline industry, the tourism industry, the hotel industry and the meeting industry. It will completely transform our economies, and it’s going to undermine globalization” (source: Mitchell Beer’s post, The Meetings Industry Confronts Its Achilles’ Heel.”)

Scary, I thought at time. I will definitely have to think about how our organization will retool to continue to thrive in the future…later…after the conference…after catching up when I get back to work…after the weekend and so on. This morning when I looked up at that sign, it might as well have read, “The Future is Here, Nancy!”

Today’s to-do list now reads, 1) What can I do right now to guarantee our business is still viable tomorrow?

What’s on your list today?