For company getaways, think outside the four walls and a door

Picture this: It's the dead of winter. The Midwest is clutched in the steely grip of an arctic blast that is rattling office windows and sending angry snow swirls across the parking lot. You and your company's management team are seated around a large table. But this is not a typical meeting and you are nowhere near your office and all that snow. Less than 50 feet from your conference table, ocean waves surge rhythmically on a white sand beach. Overhead, palm fronds framed against a cloudless blue sky rustle in the warm morning breeze.

An impossible daydream? The mindless meanderings of an overworked brain burned out on winter? Not at all! Business meetings in settings that might be considered exotic can require more planning, but the boost to productivity, teamwork and camaraderie will make it well worthwhile.

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Options for getaway meetings are almost limitless. Here are a few suggestions, and you won't find a "typical" four-walled meeting room among them:

On Florida's east coast, just 35 miles north of Jacksonville, the Amelia Island Plantation (www.aipfl.com) offers business groups an impressive array of accommodations and meeting facilities in a magnificent maritime forest setting that emphasizes the area's natural environment.

On Amelia Island, midsize groups can convene casually at Walker's Landing located on the marsh of the Amelia River overlooking spectacular views of the Intracoastal Waterway.

The resort's main conference center offers several outdoor patio settings, and if leisure activities are part of your agenda, you'll find options ranging from golf, tennis and spa sessions to horseback riding on the beach or a tour of the island's seaside trails on a Segway personal transporter.

A cruise ship can be an ideal meeting venue, but here too, planning and careful selection is critical. The key is to choose a ship that best reflects your company image and meeting objectives. If your corporate culture leans toward the conservative side, a week of sailing with party-hardy revelers on a ship with minimal meeting facilities could prove to be a disaster.

Tax issues are important to consider too. Most cruise ships fly a foreign flag, which can have implications for the tax deductibility of meeting expenses for both the company and individual participants. Contact your tax adviser for details.

One exception (there are others) is the Hawaii-based ships of the Norwegian Cruise Line (www.ncl.com) that fly the American flag and port-hop along the Hawaiian Island chain. Their newest launch, the Pride of America, boasts the Diamond Head Auditorium, a circular purpose-designed conference center (capacity: 260) complete with plush tiered seating and a state-of-the-art multi-screened audiovisual system. Smaller onboard meeting rooms are also available.

Private homes and villas in lush surroundings are interesting and unique settings for smaller executive meetings. Smith & Nephew, a London-based corporation with several divisions throughout the U.S. needed just such a setting - one that offered high-quality accommodations in an out-of-the-way-but-easy-to-get-to location - for their 2005 meeting.

They chose Palm Island Resort (www.palmisland.com) on a small island just 1? hours from the Fort Myers regional airport on Florida's Gulf coast and a six-minute ferry ride from the resort dock at Cape Haze. On Palm Island they rented a private oceanfront home through the resort's rental program to accommodate their group of division executives for four days.

According to Michael Everette, a Smith & Nephew executive, all meetings were held in the large, luxurious home, with catered meals prepared on site by a chef recommended by the resort. The meals were interactive events with many of the executive team helping to prepare the food. The group also met every morning and evening for vigorous walks on the long wide stretch of beach and, the last evening, they chartered a boat for a sunset cruise.

Talk to Bob Wise, co-owner of the boat-brokerage firm Paradise Connections (www.paradiseconnections.com) on the Caribbean island of St. Thomas, and he'll convince you that chartering a boat, or better yet, several boats, will guarantee the best corporate meeting experience ever.

Bob and his wife, Sheila, work with corporations and travel planners to design programs that draw on the inventory of the approximately 300 sailboats and motor yachts in the Caribbean. Bob favors using a fleet of sailing catamarans, each accommodating 10 people, that can be combined for a "tandem" sail through the tranquil waters of the British Virgin Islands.

The catamarans, he explains, are more economical for business groups than motor yachts, and the ease with which they can be rafted together at a harbor anchorage makes them a unique version of a floating conference room. And because each catamaran has its own crew including a cook, guests' food preferences are surveyed prior to departure and menus are custom-crafted.

"If someone doesn't want to eat carrots, we won't serve them carrots," says Wise, and he notes that food costs for the entire group can be surprisingly cost-efficient because there's little waste. The entire program, he points out, will probably cost less than the same number of days at an island resort.

If your company conferences in four-walls-and-a-door meeting rooms have been suffering from a boring sameness, maybe it's time to look into adding a twist. There's nothing like a change of venue to boost productivity and heighten awareness.