Everybody wants your meetings to stop sucking.

A few weeks ago I posted my thoughts on improving meetings. Apparently I'm not the only on who has had to suffer through some bad meetings lately. Every blogger I know is writing on the same topic.

Michael Hyatt is taking some of the complexity out of his organization and has this to say:

The number of meetings. We should be very careful about setting up routine meetings. Once they are in place, they are hard to eliminate—they seem to take on a life of their own. Every once in a while (perhaps annually) it is good to re-evaluate every standing meeting and ask five questions:

“What is the intended outcome of this meeting?”
“Are all the people who attend this meeting really necessary to achieve this outcome?
“Can we meet less frequently and still achieve this outcome?”
“Can we meet for a shorter period of time and still achieve this outcome?”
“Is there some way to accomplish this outcome without a regular meeting?”

Seth Godin has 9 great ideas for shaking up your meetings. Here are a couple:

8. Create a public space (either a big piece of poster board or a simple online page) that allows attendees to rate meetings and their organizers on a scale of 1 to 5 in terms of usefulness. Just a simple box where everyone can write a number. Watch what happens.

9. If you're not adding value to a meeting, leave. You can always read the summary later.

Bert Decker lists 10 steps to make your meetings better. My favorites:

1. Cut the meetings you have in half. Cut the time of the meetings that remain in half. Unproductive talk and time will fill the space of long meetings - The Peter Principle in action.

4. Be controversial. Not outlandish, but stimulate robust dialogue. The reason most meetings are boring is because most meetings are boring. As the meeting leader, it's up to you to make it interesting.

All of their advice is a little different, but with a consistent theme: don't have one if you don't need to. And if you do, have an agenda, keep it short and lively, and send out minutes promptly.

Together we can make the world a better place. Or at least meetings.

What are meetings like in your organization?

Photo: kjarrett

You're not the only one that hates brainstorming

Is brainstorming ever not a soul sucking waste of time? Richard Huntington doesn't think so. He says (via Lateral Thinking):

I hate brainstorms.

I hate running them, I hate contributing to them and I hate using them to solve problems.

They waste huge amounts of time and talent and they are no f***ing good at delivering decent ideas.

Okay then. It turns out there is research to back this up. Most of the research shows that groups individuals working alone will generate more ideas that those working together. But as Bob Sutton points out this research is flawed.

The academic research on brainstorming -- the laboratory studies that are described as showing it doesn't work -- are rigorous but irrelevant. They compare how many ideas individuals working alone versus versus working in groups can utter into a microphone in the same stretch of time. This is irrelevant and silly, as the practical norm that people take turns talking seems to explain why people are more productive alone -- so this research rules out LISTENING TO OTHERS as productive behavior. Also, the way those studies are done makes it impossible for people to build on each others' ideas -- because building on the ideas of others is impossible when you work alone.

So is Brainstorming worth it? I can be if it's done right. Companies Like Pixar and IDEO have created some of the most imaginative films and products using brainstorming as a part of their process. According to Tom Kelly the General Manager of IDEO:

Brainstorming is practically a religion at IDEO, one we practice nearly every day. Though brainstorms themselves are often playful, brainstorming as a tool - as a skill - is taken quite seriously. And in a company without many rules, we have a very firm idea about what constitutes a brainstorm and how it should be organised.

So what makes a good brainstorming session? Honestly I still struggle with it. But here are seven secrets to good brainstorming and six sure fire ways to kill a brainstorm.

How do you brainstorm?

photo by: Khilwat

What to put in your slides. (Part 2)

In part 1 I talked about some things commonly found on PowerPoint slides that need to come off. Among those are logos and standard templates. Here are a few tips to keep your presentations looking professional and related to you brand without resorting to logos and the standard templates.

Create a custom color palette. You may not have your logo on the slides, but you can still incorporate your brand into your presentation material. Create a color palette based on your logo or on a photo representative of your industry. My favorite tool for this is Kuler. Just upload an image and let Kuler do its thing. You can tell it whether you want bold, colorful, or subdued colors.

Write down the RGB values for each color. You can enter those values into PowerPoint's color picker when selecting color for text, shapes, or lines. These will then show up as choices the next time you need to change a color. I create a color palette slide at the end of the deck to use as reference while creating the presentation. An example of this is below.

Once you have a palette use it in a consistent way for text, shapes, charts, etc.

Use Grids to create a flexible, yet consistent layout. In Slide:ology, Nancy Duarte recommends using grids to maintain consistency in the placing of elements from one slide to the next. Check out Adam's example of a 4 x 4 grid system. Try a 5 x 5 grid or 4 x 5 grid. A 3 x 3 grid is great for using to the rule of thirds. Here is an example of a Fibonacci grid with the color swatches for a corporate color palette.

From Jeromy Timmer

For their work with Adobe, Duarte used a 5 x 5 grid on a white background with a corporate branded color palette. Check it out here.



Use photographs. People remember pictures better than words. This is called the picture superiority effect. In addition, people remember concepts better when they hear about it and see it (but reading does not count as seeing). Since this is a live presentation, you have the hearing part covered. Use pictures and images to reinforce the

The clip art built into MS Office is overused and cliched. Avoid it. Instead, use professional looking photographs from stock image sites such as iStockPhoto.com or Flickr. You can find very creative and striking images from the stock photo sites. But if you need shots of people exhibiting genuine emotion you'll have better luck with Flickr Creative Commons photos.

Use fewer words. As a rule: If you are going to say it, then it does not to be on the slide. This will keep you from reading the slide, which bores the audience to death and reduces comprehension. Use keywords and headlines for the audience to key in on. But avoid complete sentences (other than the headline, or pertinent quotes).

Those tips will get you started toward better looking presentations. for more advice on Presentation design read the following.

Presentation Zen

Speaking about Presenting

Slide:ology Blog

Extreme Presentation

What to take off your slides. (Part 1)

Why is there so much junk on PowerPoint slides?

Olivia at Speaking about Presenting asks the question, "what would you like to see in PowerPoint slide design in 2009?" This is aimed at an audience already on the better presentation bandwagon. But I still see a lot of basic mistakes in PowerPoint design. So before talking about what I'd like to see in PowerPoint slide design is a discussion of what needs to come off of PowerPoint slides.

There is a direct correlation between the amount of unnecessary junk on the slides and the boredom of the audience. This isn't cause and effect, they both result from the presenter not really understanding the needs of the audience.

So take some time to figure what the audience needs are and get rid of the following elements from your slides.

Company Logo. The audience does not need a reminder of whom you work for on every slide, especially if you all work for the same company.

Animated Logo. One company I worked for had an animated logo in the top left corner of their standard template. Every 30 seconds the logo would spin around and explode in a fountain of color. I can only imagine what went though the mind of the audience, "I think I might buy . . . whoooaaa look at the pretty colors . . . what was I thinking?"

Page numbers. Page numbers are for books and documents. There is absolutely no reason the audience needs to know that a particular slide is number 42 of 168. Unless you plan on giving the audience a printed version of the presentation as a document . But don't do that either. If you must, print it with the page numbers and present it without.

Document control information. I've seen copyright notices, trademarks, file names and revision numbers (e.g. Company.Training.Pres ver. 2.00.1.15) appear in slide footers more than once. Again, this might be appropriate if you print them (please don't), but take them off your presentation. The audience does not need to see these.

Standard Templates. All of the standard Microsoft PowerPoint templates stink. Horribly. The ones that aren't completely awful are so overused that they've become a cliche. Don't use any of them. It is possible to get a well designed, thoughtful and useful template. But be careful, some designers think putting an animated logo on every slide is a good idea.

Bullet Points. Don't get me started on bullet points.

All of these things have one thing in common: they don't serve the needs of the audience. Once you take all of that junk out of your presentation, you can keep a professional, brand oriented appearance using the tips in part 2.

Photo: Phoenixdailyphoto

What to say when you screw up.

Everybody screws up occasionally. When it happens the apology is important. There is only one right way to say I'm sorry and it should go something like this: "I'm sorry for what I did. I know it caused you pain. I promise it will never happen again." Notice that there is no "but." Anything that begins, "I'm sorry, but..." is not an apology.

Earlier this week one of the web services we use was performing horribly. Nobody from our company complained immediately, some of us even assumed the problem was on our end. Today, however we got the following note form the vendor (the name of the service has been changed.)

The last two days have been rough. HAL9000's performance was terrible. I would like to explain what happened, what we did to fix the problem, and how we are making sure that it doesn't happen again. Your time is valuable, and spending minutes waiting for every HAL9000 operation (or getting kicked out after entering data) is plain not good.

First, the slowdown was a performance issue not a security one. Our database was stuck in a logic loop. The root of the problem was the monthly snapshot that HAL9000 makes of each clients data for use in comparative reporting. The December 1st snapshot was the first one to include the new 2009 regulatory standards. We made a mistake in the computer code, so that the database made a full snapshot with EACH new standard. Needless to say, that's a lot of snapshots. The size of that request (measured in Terabytes, not megabytes or gigabytes) caused a cascade of safety features to kick-in. Our tech team has spent the past two days resetting those safety features and modifying the snapshot code. Short-term problem resolved.

To make sure this does not happen again, we have done two things: first we have upgrade the diagnostic systems that monitor our data base from industry standard to cutting edge, and second we have engaged a consulting company to analyze and optimize our database structure. While this performance issue was the first for HAL9000 in 2.5 years, we agree that even once is too much.

Thank you for your understanding, and we are sorry for the inconvenience this has caused. If we can help enter data that has accumulated over the past days, please forward them to your account manager. As always, contact me directly if you would like more gory tech details.

Sincerely,
Jon

That is how you write an apology. It begins with an acknowledgment that they screwed up, it goes on to acknowledge the pain it causes, and it assures us that they have put in procedures to prevent this from happening again. While it does go into some technical detail, it does so only to provide context for the assurances that it won't happen again. The technical stuff doesn't become an excuse. That's important. And they never use the word "but".

So the next time you screw up, remember these three things:

• I'm sorry
• I know it caused you pain
• It won't happen again

Try it at work and at home.

Photo: Half Chinese