Slashdot Mirror
How Chat and Youth Are Killing the Meeting
dominique_cimafranca writes "Forbes columnist Dan Woods describes a change in the way some companies handle meetings. Owing to instant messaging and younger tech-savvy CEOs, meeting time has gone down from as much as 30 hours per week to as little as 2 hours per week. Woods proposes ways to make this 'meetingless' management effective."
http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2008-11-05/
To succeed in the long term and at scale, stream-of-consciousness management must be supplemented in the following ways:
All of you using IRC and email now have experience in "stream-of-consciousness management". Don't forget or otherwise the resume scanners will pass you over and when you're in the first interview, the HR drone will say you don't have up to date skills and chuck your resume away.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
...until morale improves.
Man, two hours a week isn't nearly enough time for the micromanagement, pontification, self-promotion, idle chatter and general dumbfuckery that has become the mainstay of my job -- I can't see anyone in management in any serious-size company (where the most important job qualification for middle management is, of course, meetings) going for this.
My God, can you just imagine having eight hours to sink into work, unbroken by pointless meetings? Being able to concentrate on a task rather than sit in some soul-crushing little room with fluorescent lighting just to realize that your boss brought you in just so he'd have people sitting there to look impressive to some other department? Getting things done rather than listen to your coworkers discuss the specifics of your job even though they're not vaguely qualified to do so?
It'd be glorious.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
While I laud the efforts in reducing meeting time, I am not yet convinced that the ends justify the means...
Slashdot, I ask you this: can u tolr8 this blud on ur hands?
+1 Disagree
I mean, they do realize that there are only 40 hours in a work week, right?
Can I have your job?
Perhaps a better article title would be "How Meetings and those Who Like them are Killing Productivity".
which is code for "calls me all the damn time to ask the same question over and over again"