Boring Meetings Suck: Get More Out of Your Meetings, or Get Out of More Meetings

Part 1: New Meeting Styles

Everyone loves “new.” The newest phones and mobile tablets with solar charging, 3D television, instant coffee being cool again, cars that nearly drive themselves, full-wall video-conferencing, and wireless everything.

Why not spruce up your meetings by adding a touch of the new—that is, four new meeting styles? Trust me, these ideas will help to combat the boredom!

New Meeting Style 1: “Open House”

Scheduling a meeting time for a group of busy individuals can take more time than actually holding the meeting. Your team has other meetings and events all day; you can't find that 30-minute block of time that synchronizes on everyone's calendar. Ugh!

Regretfully, this will never change in your lifetime. It might be easier if you're looking to schedule a 20-minute “Two 'n Out,” (coming up in “Speed Meetings”) but when you need an hour or more, good luck.

Ask these clarifying questions: Is this the kind of meeting that needs everyone physically together to share ideas, concepts, or findings? Or is it simply important that you all have that opportunity to comment on, discuss, and share these ideas?

In the good old days when we needed to share ideas and get feedback, we'd send an e-mail and solicit input. That's old-school now. It's also problematic. You'd have to repurpose that information from each e-mail to share with everyone else in an endless loop of comments. Too much time to organize. Bad.

But who says we have to all be stuck together at once? Why not ...