10 Comments

"What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received on how to run effective meetings?"

My day job is Enterprise Software Sales and I'm really good at it. One of the reasons why is because I have eliminated 80% of unnecessary meetings from my calendar. I decline any non-customer meeting that doesn't originate in a Slack channel dedicated to the purpose (project, account channel, opportunity channel, team channel, etc.) Shared calendar time is the most expensive resource any company has and the more people wasting time on a meeting that should have been a digital conversation in a dedicated Slack channel integrated into the applications and information events that run the business...well, that kind of groundless meeting just isn't worth my time.

Every meeting is a project and must be run as such.

<><><><><>

What do you think the difference is between an “online community” and a “niche social network”?

The scale of the audience's interest in the topic and the engagement-readiness of the writers. Writers unwilling to engage with their audience on Substack are not going to last long on this platform. Twitter somehow benefitted from this big-dogging behavior where popular tweeters somehow got more popular by ignoring the engagement with their audience. That doesn't play here on Substack and those kind of "reputation writers" won't last long.

<><><><><>

How are you using ChatGPT or any other bots in your day-to-day work building community?

I am currently a paying ChatGPT customer and I use it for customer research (e.g. "Act like a CTO and tell me everything that's wrong with the current health insurance industry. What was the last thing that made you angry and scared?")

As a writer, I workshop my ideas. I don't want AI to write for me because I'm a great writer. I don't need that kind of help. Where it is helpful is assisting me in clarifying the organization and presentation of my ideas. My writing style was forged in a Creative Writing Workshop, which is the most brutal place on Earth for a writer to earn their stripes, at the mercy of other writers. The worst thing you can do in a workshop is bore everyone with pointless drivel. ChatGPT helps me avoid that and clears the lane for me to write my ass off for my readers; that's Job #1 for any serious writer.

Expand full comment

"Every meeting is a project and must be run as such."

put that on a tshirt

Expand full comment

“ Every meeting is a project and must be run as such." wooooo! What a word.

Definitely starting my day with a new mindset thanks to you!

Expand full comment

Loved the four frames! Applied it immediately to a meeting I am not entirely happy with!

What we do in our company is what we call the "three Ds test", i.e. we only convene a meeting for decisions, debates and discussions. Everything else is async in a doc, an email or a message: https://experience.dropbox.com/virtual-first-toolkit/effectiveness/reduce-unnecessary-meetings

Expand full comment

Great way to objectively go through meetings, I was already doing a "checklist" with people before meetings so I could decide if it was worth it or not, but this framework is astronomically better.

Expand full comment

Haha perfect closing meme

Expand full comment

Very nice framework! Definitely saving this one. Just the FAHCs please! (FYI, Approval, Help, Close)

Expand full comment

wait that's genius

"I'm good at meetings because I give a FAHC"

Expand full comment

Haha love it!

Expand full comment