Meetings meetings everywhere.  For many of us, that's the story of  Diversity Week building up to the big annual Kaitz Dinner on Wednesday night.

Lots of buzz about cab time this year.  With industry meetings and functions spread among several hotels -- Kaitz headquarters at the Hilton, NAMIC headquarters at the Waldorf, WICT luncheon at the Pierre, Cable Positive theater event at the Marriott Marquis, etc. -- executives are tossing a coin several times a day to decide whether to hail a cab or hoof it across town.  This week, walking and the subway have been the two safe bets, with taxicabs as always being dicey depending on east-west traffic, or midtown-downtown traffic. 

Once reaching their destinations, many executives have seen little more than the inside of subterranean hotel conference rooms.  One good friend, an executive at a top-10 MSO, spent the entire business day today in the SAME conference room at the Hilton, participating in two Cable in the Classroom meetings sandwiching a long public affairs meeting.  Right down the hall, the C-SPAN Board was holding forth, halting many participating CEOs and executives in thier tracks as they tried to figure out which meeting they needed to attend at which time. 

The procession continues during the rest of the week with NAMIC and NCTA Board meetings, a meeting of the Cable Positive board and honorary chairs, and several other functions already mentioned, through Thursday night.

It's one of the charms and occasional criticisms of Diversity Week.  With so many key cable executives gathered in one place, it's a convenient, no-brainer opportunity to assemble industry-wide meetings.  Critics though often wonder aloud about the character of the week and whether the rolling meetings detract its real focus, diversity.  We try to compensate for some of that by including a diversity element in the public affairs meetings we convene, hoping to keep our peers and colleagues ever-cognizant of the task at hand.  But the week works very much like a trade show, with the Kaitz dinner and other big diversity events acting as anchors, and as a platform for discussion of a wide assortment of business issues.    Altogether, not a bad combination for seeking progress across the board.