Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with meetings

Roles we play in business meetings

maggiemae — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:31:52 -0800

I am looking for something I saw on the web about people's behaviour during meetings. It was funny and lighthearted, might have been a comic strip or maybe even a video? There was the person leading the meeting giving everyone their roles to play in the upcoming meeting, for example he would point at one person and say 'you! you be defensive!', 'you ramble on about un-related topics!' etc. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Because I can't remember the format, I am having trouble googling this one.

I beat myself up after sharing in meetings

seekingsimplicity — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:46:55 -0800

Almost every meeting I go to and share anything I beat myself up afterwards. This happens to me in business meetings and at something as simple as a knitting group. At my knitting group, if I share something about my personal life, I feel judged, not only by the people in the group but by me! It is so bad that it has even caused me to quit going to certain groups because it is so painful to feel the feelings after the meeting of "why did I say that?" , "she doesn't like me" , " I bragged when I shared that about my daughter" , why did I tell that story about my husband? and on it goes. I am an otherwise happy, well- adjusted, mostly confident woman of 50 years old. My husband says it must be self-esteem. I feel unsafe in most groups and ALWAYS question ANYTHING I share! I have even tried not saying much in the group/meeting but I always end up saying something and HATE it afterward. Anyone have some tips for me? I can ruin lots of my day ruminating over the things I said, so I would like to get some help from you. Yesterday I was in a meeting to discuss candidates for a position and I had some misgivings about the candidate in question. As soon as I shared my opinion, I started the whole "beat self up" routine. In the parking lot after the meeting, I saw 2 of the men from the meeting having a "parking lot meeting" and I "KNEW" (yeah right) they were discussing how pathetic my comments were. I know in my heart that there in nothing "wrong" with what I say, but this habit of self-talk really gets me. Do I just quit telling about my life and my feelings and keep to the facts and to surface conversation? HELP!

Good place for a small group gathering for boisterous board game fun?

1024x768 — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 11:16:13 -0800

Good place for a small group gathering for boisterous board game fun? I have a small group I get together with on the weekends to play board games. We've recently swelled in number to 7 people and we're outgrowing our current meeting place (one of the players apartments). We're looking for a place to play that's open on Saturdays (and hopefully Sundays) and can tolerate at least 7 very boisterous and loud people playing games for several hours every other weekend or so. Cost is a big issue, it should be free or very cheap (as in a couple bucks a person or less). There needs to be a large enough seating area that all the players can sit down at the same table, room for the board, any papers/miscellanea for each player, etc.

None of us are affiliated with any churches or community organizations that would have meeting space. We're thinking we'd be a bit loud for the meeting rooms at the local library. None of us are in college so we can't meet in any empty classroom.

What places exist for this sort of gathering? General suggestions are greatly appreciated. Bonus points for any specific place suggestions that are in or easily accessible from Chicago.

Tips for a newbie convention delegate to not seem like a newbie?

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:48:14 -0800

Tips for a newbie delegate to a political convention? I agreed to act not only as a Democrat delegate but as a vice-chair for my precinct. Our county organizing convention is coming up this weekend. I've read a tiny bit about what to expect on the agenda (but not a lot), but am more worried about just seeming out of place. I'm young, don't have a lot of political experience, and also had to change my affiliation from unaffiliated to do this. Part of me says that in a state where Democrats are a minority no one will be judging me for wanting to serve, but what can you tell me (or links can you give me...) to better prepare me? I'm looking for both what I should know about how it'll run and the more nuanced aspects of interaction/networking/flow.

Book Club woes

Groovytimes — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 21:56:05 -0800

My book club is fizzling out...help me reignite it! A friend and I started a book club with other people in our college department about one year ago (five to six members). We have been going strong but since last december when we all graduated its been tough. Ive tried to take the reigns and get us to at least meet (we've all finished the book we're on) so we can get back on track. The problem is I set a date and then when the date comes up, it falls apart.

The main problem is that its my friend and I who are the driving elements, the others are sort of just along for the ride. So if either I or my friend can't come then the meeting doesn't happen.

I scheduled a meeting two weeks ago for this last Friday and we all were in agreement to meet up. Friday roles around and I call my friend but she doesn't respond back. I'm at a loss, I really want to do this and I know they want to as well, how do I get the ball rolling and not sound like a jackass?

Also follow up: If I ever get this thing rolling again, does anyone know of some good sites for activities we can do?

Help me help them.

sophist — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 10:33:03 -0800

I need help implementing a fair scheduling system for a time-limited resource. My workplace shares time on an fMRI machine for research between a large number of people. My lab has recently grabbed a consistent block of time (6 hour blocks x 3 days a week x 6 months) and is wondering about the best way to split it up between people. We will end up using more time than this and going outside the reserved blocks, but we also want to make sure that the (6) different groups within our lab (~35 people) get access to time within the block in equal measure. Scheduling and requirements change, so it needs to be flexible. We cannot simply assign equal portions of the blocks to each team, as they all have different needs that change from week to week.

A google calendar has been proposed for keeping track of scheduling, as coding something from scratch will take too much time and many of us already use or sync to google calendar anyway. I'm looking for a way to limit people's ability to grab all of the time right away. Perhaps a lottery or a rotation or opening more of the time as it gets closer, I am not sure. If there is a better free, off the shelf solution than google calendar that will easily solve this problem then I would be open to hearing about it.

Help me be a good meeting chair!

razzman — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 05:08:58 -0800

Please give me tips on being a good team meeting chair. We have a rotating chair and it's my turn for the next 10 weeks in a team of 6 ICT business strategy staff. Meetings are usually around an hour and cover actions from last meeting, matters arising from meetings, several agenda items and any other business. Also looking for some ideas which have the capacity to really engage minds in these meetings which we all usually find quite dull.

Making the most of meetings so we don't have to meet again

brandnew — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 04:08:06 -0800

How do I become a better facilitator / collaborator? I facilitate a lot of meetings between teams of technical collaborators. The majority of the teams are fairly young (under 30), and they usually have great ideas. However, they will often come up with ideas that are way too complex or way too simple. I usually have to step in and judge their ideas and redirect the conversation.

This role feels uncomfortable. I feel like a lot of times I'm squashing their ideas. A lot of times they just go with what I say, because I say it. I don't get a sense that they believe what I'm saying. So, I have to go into detail about things, and it feels like I'm lecturing a class.

To be honest, I have more experience than most of them. I can understand their perspectives, as well as the current conventional wisdom. It's my responsibly to make a good judgment. Just because something is in style, doesn't mean it's a good idea.

However, I don't want to turn them off. I just want to be a good guide. And, I absolutely don't want them to blindly accept my ideas.

How do I become an expert at facilitating collaboration? How do I get more from a group than the sum of their individual controbutions?

Introduction Excercise for Business Meeting

SpiffyRob — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:14:17 -0800

What's a good introduction activity for a group of 30 people? I've got a department meeting coming up, and I've been tasked with creating an activity for the people involved to introduce themselves/one another.

Details:
1. There will be about 30 people. 20 of these people work together everyday and know each other well, and the other 10 work in different locations. As such, my fallback activity for things like this, where everybody introduces somebody else, might not work so well.

2. Everything after this activity will be very business-meetingy, so I want to make sure these introductions don't clash too badly with the comparatively dry content of the meeting. Most stuff I've found online has been a little too much on the team-building, trust exercise side of things.

3. That said, I want it to be engaging and successful. I tend to be a little curmudgeonly about these sorts of things, so if it can win over the cynic in me, it'll likely work out well.

I've got my first real meeting- Help me not look like a fool!

GilloD — Mon, 05 May 2008 11:12:55 -0800

I have a meeting with an important figure in my field. I've never had a real meeting, let alone with a person of any genuine import. Help me prepare! More details inside. I recently started my first "real" job. The title was a little vague- Marketing Assistant- and it's kind of evolved into "Online Marketing Guy". This is great- I'm down with the kids, I know my way around AdWords, I have a Twitter account. I did a lot of reading, caught myself up on the pace of modern internet marketing and started to make some changes. I feel confident.

On Friday, I have a meeting with someone who is a minor God in the pantheon of internet/social-media marketing. We're a small company and this meeting was set up by a much bigger and much, much richer benefactor. In short: This is a super rare opportunity and I can't muck it up. I've been unable to get ahold of this minor God's book, but I read his blog and all the articles he's written. So, again, I feel confident.

Here's what you can help me with: What are some pertinent questions about social media marketing you might ask a minor God of the field? More generally, what do I need to know about "business" meetings? 6 weeks ago I was another schlub with a BA- I've never done this before. It's a dinner/drinks kind of meeting, so lax, but I'd like to not look like a fool. I have a habit of kind of overlooking things.

Any tips/tricks are well appreciated. I'll post any answers to your Q's that I get to ask. I'm not really nervous about the meeting, maybe just more about conduct and decorum. How to handle someone who is essentially donating his valuable time. And Q suggestions are welcome!

Help make our video available online

OilPull — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:36:25 -0800

I work for a municipality that televises its public meetings on a government access cable channel -- I need help finding a way to make these cablecasts available to the public online. Regular video hosting services I've looked at don't seem to be quite what we're looking for. Our public meeting broadcasts on cable access are high quality and well-received by our residents. But only cable subscribers can watch them.

We make DVD copies of the meetings available at the public library, and we also make individual DVD copies for a small fee upon request.

Many people have suggested that we upload the video to our city website and stream it, but I've been told this would require a special server that we don't have.

I have also looked into a few video hosting sites, but they all seem to require video of such short duration that each meeting would have to be broken into many parts. Our meetings last, on average, from 1 to 2.5 hours, and there are usually 6, or so, meetings each month.

The meetings are cablecast live and simultaneously recorded on a Panasonic DMR-T6070 digital video recorder and later archived to DVD. The technical specs for the DVR are here, in case they're helpful to anyone.

Is there a better (or best) way to make our meeting videos available to the community online?

How do I cope with time-wasting meetings?

occhiblu — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 07:52:11 -0800

How do I get through time-wasting meetings without dissolving into a homicidal puddle of resentment? Cognitive, behavioral, and affective suggestions welcome. I am in grad school full-time, in a program that meets two afternoons/evenings a week. I am also working part-time 20 hours a week in order to afford to live. I am also in a required internship for 10 hours a week. I have no car, and these places are all spread out all over the city, so I'm also spending a great deal of my time on buses and subways.

My internship has required trainings, one two-hour session every week and one four-hour Saturday training once a month. These trainings are beyond pointless; the presenters/facilitators are disorganized, rambling, and repetitive, and they all seem completely unable to answer direct questions. One of my classes is similarly disorganized (one of my classmates said, "We spend at least a half hour every week going over which of the instructions were incorrect the previous week"; I get most of the assignments via email because the professor can't seem to get it together to explain them well enough during class).

These trainings and classes are driving me insane. I walk out of there seething and exhausted from trying not to roll my eyes for two hours straight. They tend to ruin at least the next several hours of my day, as I struggle to stop being so pissed off at the waste of my time. I feel like I have so little time to devote to anything right now, and having to give up five to ten hours a week to these activities is leaving me really angry.

I'm looking for suggestions of things to do during the meetings to make use of the time (but the meetings & classes are small and reasonably interactive, so I can't just read a book), cognitive framework shifts that will knock me out of this "I don't deseeeeeerve this, wah me" thing I've got going, or any other thoughts of how to cope with some of this in a more productive, healthy way.

Meetup frequencies

hodyoaten — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 11:43:22 -0800

I started a meetup group 2 weeks ago that really took off, and we did a meetup at a restaurant and 10 turned out. Now I'm wondering when to schedule the next one. Help! I've never done the meetup thing before, so I'm curious what the typical meetup frequency is, and if Saturdays are always the best day to do them.

I could ask them, true, but I'm loathe to start burdening the others with bureaucratic details like this. I'd rather just take charge. The people know they can always contact me about specific requests. Regarding the meetup group itself, it's a philosophical group with no real agenda. We just talk.

Help me provide thought provoking interaction in meetings

TheDonF — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 09:35:50 -0800

Help me break my meetings by making them more interactive. I manage a team of ~25 intranet publishers who have web skills varying from almost non-existent to fairly advanced. Once a quarter we have a meeting where I bring them up to date on what's happening in the business and explain some basic web principles (eg: all about alt text, writing good links).

I'm running a two hour meeting next week that's split between basic SEO principles and some coding "no nos" such as using tables for layout. I'm fine with the basic content of the meeting - I have screen shots, examples, explanations and so on. What I really need to avoid is 25 people sitting down and listening to me talk for almost 2 hours because there's no point in doing this as they'll get bored very quickly and will lose concentration. I need to get them thinking and doing things.

I'm really struggling to think of activities for people to do to get them thinking about the two topics. The coding "no nos" section is going to be based around not using tables for layout, making sure all information conveyed with colour is also available without colour and correct table markup. The SEO section will be on metadata, tags, lists, keywords and so on.

I'm open to almost any ideas but they must involve the people staying in the room (no running around doing treasure hunts, for example). Splitting people into small teams would be best so the stronger people support the weaker ones. Equipment I have at my disposal: one laptop connected to big screen, flip charts, pens, paper, glue, scissors. I'd guess the activity should probably last about 15-20 minutes. Help!

Marathon meeting

Jaie — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 14:33:44 -0800

I have to go to a big all-company all-day meeting tomorrow. Help me stay sane while I'm there. Eight hours of speeches! I'm a big-time multitasker who doesn't even watch TV without a book or a crossword puzzle in my lap. There will be too many of us to be closely observed, but I do need to be discreet. I'm planning to take a crossword puzzle or two, a Sudoku or two and a Power Bar in case lunch is yuckky. What am I forgetting?

How do you deal with clashing meetings?

krisjohn — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 18:19:20 -0800

How do you deal with clashing meetings? I'm getting involved in more and more *stuff*. This includes things relating to work, socialising, personal development and (for want of a better term) hobbies.

There doesn't seem to be any way to avoid real time meetings. As in a bunch of people getting together at the same time. But even as I start to add just a couple of extra interests stuff that I really want to attend clashes with other stuff I really want to attend. Or, in the case of on-line stuff, sleep.

Does anyone have any tips on how to be involved in a range of interesting or valuable (both professionally and personally) or just plain fun activities that frequently focus on being in a particular place at a particular time? Are the group meetings really the crux of any interest group, or should I be looking at lots of one-to-one networking-esq stuff? Should I suggest or encourage non-realtime communications like on-line forums or (*shudder*) email lists? Will reading through logs and popping up at the odd meeting be enough for me to be taken seriously?

Or do I just have to give up on some things?

Help me, Mr. Computer!

grumblebee — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 06:37:46 -0800

Scheduling meetings: I need software (or a good human-based procedure) to help me juggle complicated schedules for a group of people.

I direct off-off Broadway plays, which means that there's no budget to pay the actors. So I have to schedule rehearsals around their conflicts. Yesterday, I spent SIX HOURS trying to come up with a workable schedule. I'd get it almost done, and then one of the actors would call me with new conflicts, and that would mess the whole thing up and I'd have to start over from scratch.

Every time I do this, I feel like it's something a computer should be doing for me, but I've never found the right piece of software. My current system involves a whiteboard and dozens of index cards, and it gives me a headache.

Here's the info I'm juggling:

-- eight actors with available times, conflict times, and times that they'd like to have off if possible.

-- some actors have flexible schedules, but I can only use them for a total of X hours. If I use them for X+1 hours, they can't square that with their day job.

-- a list of scenes, each of which uses some of the actors.

-- every scene MUST be rehearsed for X number of hours (I go by pagecount).

-- it's nice to be able to rehearse scenes at least roughly in chronological order. It's okay to fudge a little, but it sucks to rehearse scenes from act five before we've even started act one.

So the ideal piece of software needs to allow "weighted" data. So-and-so MUST have 7/11 off. So-and-so would LIKE to have 7/11 off. This scene MUST have at least four hours of rehearsal. It would be great if it could have 8 hours of rehearsal.

I would enter all this data and out would pop a schedule. If a piece of data changed (e.g. a new conflict), I could enter the change and the app would generate a new schedule.

Best Way to Get Out of Meetings?

jbelkin — Mon, 01 May 2006 12:01:20 -0800

What's a good answer in trying to avoid meetings? Our company loves to have meetings where nothing much gets accomplished - decisions that usually don't affect me either way - of course, my bosses up the chain want to know why I'm not there - I'm pretty senior so it's not like I have to be a good foot soldier but of course, not being there is 'not being a good team player.' so what can I say that is politically correct? Thanks.

Why should I lose money if you needed to reschedule at the last minute?

Wild_Eep — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 07:19:10 -0800

Should I bill clients for scheduled appointments they missed? Twice in the past month, I've had clients who have chosen to call (or email) me within 2 hours of their scheduled appointment time to say that they needed to reschedule. I take time to mentally prepare myself for their appointments (small amounts of research, listing topics for discussion, etc.), so I feel a bit deflated when things don't proceed as scheduled. Also, as other appointment requests come in, I have scheduled around these clients' meeting times.

A doctor's appointment I had to reschedule a few months ago warned me that I'd be responsible for the cost of the visit personally if I were not to provide 24 hours' notice. (They let me off with a warning this first time.)

I think it's a bit rude (or at best, an imposition) to reschedule things at the last moment, but it's also 'less than friendly' to bill someone for the full hourly rate when you haven't delivered any value to them. Should I just think of the 'fee' as an 'annoyance tax'?

Is billing for missed time a sign of being professional, or is it just being a money-grubbing jerk?

Conference Call Services

SoftSummerBreeze — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:33:49 -0800

I've been given the task of locating an inexpensive, easy to use and reliable Conference Call Service. I guess I'm unclear on the concept since our business telephones allow conferencing. So, what I need to know is -
What's a good or average rate to pay for such a service?
What benefits should I look for?

If anyone has specific "tried and true" recommendations, that would be appreciated, also.

Meeting Schedulers

Outlawyr — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 05:34:18 -0800

What do people use to schedule meetings. I'm told it can be done with Outlook, but I hate Outlook. Is there a web site that makes this painless. I'm envisioning a calendar where people can mark the times that they can't attend a meeting so that it's easy to see when the meeting CAN be scheduled. Any help appreciated.

I am looking for recommendations for telephonic conference calling services.

madamjujujive — Tue, 23 Nov 2004 06:57:30 -0800

I am looking for recommendations for telephonic conference calling services. [more] I am looking for a service where a host can set up a telephonic conference call and any number of participants can be given a phone number and password to join the call. I'm not having trouble finding services. I am looking for recommendations about inexpensive or reliable vendors, and any experiences good or bad, that people might have had with such services.