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Category: Meetings

How to take smart meeting notes

Some of the most successful businesspeople, such as Bill Gates, are known for taking detailed, effective meeting notes. Gina Trapani, a technology writer and software developer, recently shared three different note-taking systems in Fast Company:

Ask 5 questions before every meeting

Communications strategist Miri McDonald thinks unproductive meetings should be banned. And when a meeting is needed, it should be both productive and fun. She believes in thinking through every aspect of a meeting in advance—everything from the relationships between attendees to which open-ended questions will get a conversation going.

Whose meeting is it, anyway?

You receive a meeting request for your boss, but there’s no agenda attached. You don’t want your boss to walk into the meeting room unprepared, but then again, it isn’t your job to do the organizing work. Is it?

1-Minute Strategies: Aug. ’10

Proofreading alert! According to search engines Google and Yahoo, the most common misspellings in searches are not due to the difficulty of the word, but rather to sloppiness … Make restaurant reservations in a fraction of the time, now that Yelp.com and OpenTable.com have integrated their web sites … Reduce ink use and save money by changing your default e-mail font to Century Gothic.

No-doze tips

It’s a warm August afternoon, and you’re beginning to feel sleepy after sitting in a conference room meeting for more than an hour. Here are some helpful pointers on how to stay alert during long meetings:

Closing the loop on minute-taking

The meeting may be over, but the minute-taker’s job goes on. At the group’s next meeting, you may hear corrections to the minutes, says Joan Burge, founder and CEO of Office Dynamics. “Follow the legal requirements of your organization in correcting the minutes,” she says. “If no special requirements are indicated, then follow this procedure”:

Minute-taking: Should I write that down?

You’re taking minutes in a meeting when the conversation suddenly goes off topic. Or two attendees begin to argue. To what extent should you capture the conversation? Joan Burge, founder and CEO of Office Dynamics, offers these tips for turning meeting conversations into a valuable road map—even when the conversation is difficult to track.