Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Creating Additional Value at a Committee Meeting (in 3 minutes or less)

If a committee meeting is adjourning early, do you (or should you) take 3 minutes for professional development?

At the end of a meeting, a chairman asked an attendee (before we adjourned) if she could tell the group in two minutes about the top two business apps she uses on her iPad. Two others gave their top app too. It all took a total of about 3 minutes. Everyone was writing the info down (including me); and when we reconvened the next day the pre-meeting chat was all about those apps.

Sometimes we miss easy opportunities to learn from each other - even if only a 3 minute burst of opportunity. If the meeting was ending on time, or heaven forbid running over, it's not appropriate to extend for any reason. And had it been more than 3 minutes I'm not sure that would have been fair to the group either - as so totally off-topic. But it was short, and great.

I thought that was 3 minutes well spent; and definitely of interest to those who attended. The chairman knew she taught a class on that topic, and we all benefited from her knowledge and presence unexpectedly.

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