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From: taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor)
Newsgroups: mod.comp-soc
Subject: Re: Computer Networks and Literacy
Message-ID: <898@hplabsc.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Nov-86 19:10:34 EST
Article-I.D.: hplabsc.898
Posted: Mon Nov 24 19:10:34 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 24-Nov-86 23:50:55 EST
Reply-To: laura@hoptoad.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
Lines: 60
Approved: taylor@hplabs
Reference: <882@hplabsc.UUCP>


This article is from hoptoad!laura@hplabs.HP.COM (Laura Creighton)
 and was received on  Sat Nov 22 21:59:14 1986
 
Andrew Burt writes:

>Allow me to relate the preliminary results of an `experiment' currently
>underway here at the University of Denver.
>
>[text removed]
>
>Analysis.
>
>The problems with the meetings are that there are too many issues
>that need discussing but because of the scarcity of regular times to
>discuss things before the entire faculty, they don't get discussed.

I think that your analysis may be wrong.  My father is chief of his
department, and here is what he has figured out about meetings.  His
meetings used to sound like yours.

I am going to assume that the reason your meetings do not work are
the same as the reasons why his used to not work, and work from there.
If I am wrong in my analysis, though, all of this is irrelevant to you.

The problem is not that there are too many issues.  The problem is
that too many people want to be heard.  And they want to be heard
because they want to show off in front of their friends and because
they can't stand to not have the last word, and because they feel
that they *have* to say something -- and the end result is that
everybody yammers at meetings.  Meetings are where people get together
and yammer -- not where problems get solved.

The problems get solved later, when somebody who really has a problem,
gets really angry at the status quo, and goes off and fixes his problem
and forces his solutions down everybody else's throats.  Since this is
hard work, the problems don't usually get solved much.

When you gave the professors the chance to use a newsgroup, you 
shone a spotlight on your real problem -- the professors don't want
to fix the problems, they want to yammer.  And while there are
those of us who yammer on the net all the time, net yammering
is different from yammering in person.  And both of these are
different than problem solving.  What you want to do is to get
to the problem solving without the yammering -- right?

There are lots of books which talk about how to hold a good meeting.
So far, I have yet to be able to keep order in a meeting where
people want to yammer -- and I have tried real hard.  My father
says that it is impossible, and that I should stop trying.  He
has been at it longer than I have, but I haven't given up yet.

What he does it hold meetings to solve problems at very inconvenient
times -- he has a meeting every morning at 7:30 am with somebody or
somebodies.  The only people who come to those meetings are people
who really and truly care about the problem.  All the people who
don't really care all that much, but would come anyway to an 11:00
meetings are still in bed.  This cuts down the amount of yammering
drastically.  And things get fixed.

Laura Creighton		ihnp4!hoptoad!laura       toad@lll-crg.arpa