There was an article in yesterday's New York Times about meetings. It's called "Meetings Are a Matter of Precious Time." You can read it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/jobs/18pre.html?8dpc
Here are some of the points of the article, I quote:
*Whoever calls a meeting should be explicit about its objectives. This means specifying tangible goals and assigning responsibility for creating, summarizing and reporting on them. Ask yourself this question: Specifically, what do we want accomplished when we walk out of the room?
*Everyone should think carefully about the opportunity costs of a meeting: How many participants are really needed? How long should the meeting last? Set a definite ending time. Anyone who doubts that the meeting is necessary, or thinks it’s too long, should speak up.
*Don’t just call a meeting and hope the magic happens. Take charge and take personal responsibility for meeting its objectives, whatever they are.
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I cite the above firm in my belief that our jobs, creating what we create is really quite simple. What makes our jobs a brain-suck are the meetings to get to the work, the meetings to sell the work, the meetings to produce the work and then the post-mortem meetings to discuss the work.
