Meeting Ticker

July 17, 2009 12:34 AM

Meeting Ticker -- if this helps shorten even one meeting by one minute, it'll have been worth it.
posted by nthdegx (20 comments total)

Brilliant! I hate meetings.
posted by dabitch at 12:39 AM on July 17, 2009

I would like to install this on every flatscreen, in every meeting room I've every worked in.
posted by Happy Dave at 12:50 AM on July 17, 2009

Doesn't work in IE6.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 12:54 AM on July 17, 2009 [2 favorites]

Some years back Siemens made it a requirement for getting on the board that you could speak fluent English. Not because they needed their execs to globetrot and be all suave, but because board meetings in English took something like 30% less time than if they were held in German.*

So there's your solution. Hold the meeting in a language you speak badly or not at all - Swahili, Urdu, or Farsi, for example - and you will find meetings take no time at all.

*All true. For example, the German word for a "CD" is "Digitalschallplatte" - you get the picture of how it might take a long time to work through a technically-focused meeting.
posted by MuffinMan at 1:02 AM on July 17, 2009 [4 favorites]

I like how serious the whole thing looks; even down to the "stop the bleeding" button. I also can't help but note a comparison between this and the national deficit clocks you see in downtowns of larger cities.
posted by tiaka at 1:42 AM on July 17, 2009

No, no. If our senior executives don't sit in meetings all day, they'll be out there interfering with people and making decisions, and then it's hello, handcart to Hell for the lot of us.
posted by Phanx at 1:49 AM on July 17, 2009 [7 favorites]

C-SPAN ought to have this up during Congressional hearings, right next to the national debt clock.
posted by XMLicious at 2:36 AM on July 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

Phanx got it...this assumes that, were these folks not in the meeting, they would be out doing something non-destructive and profitable... how many of these people would be dozing in their offices, getting in the way, (or reading metafilter) were they not in the meeting....
posted by HuronBob at 3:41 AM on July 17, 2009

I remember once hearing that the "Standing Committees" which form part of the UK Parliamentary process got this name because they met in rooms without chairs. A great time saver apparently.
[On researching this I note that they have now been re-named general committees and that the illustrative picture shows a bunch of people sitting on their arses - not a good sign.]
posted by rongorongo at 3:48 AM on July 17, 2009

This has all the complexity of a 5th grade systems design project, and doesn't work and it took three people to develop. I'm not sure I need these three opining on corporate efficiency. All three should attend a meeting on developing webapps.

But, one with ability to configure size and font would be nice.
posted by sfts2 at 3:51 AM on July 17, 2009

Everyone's a web designer.
posted by nthdegx at 4:01 AM on July 17, 2009

Good idea, but most of the people in meetings I go to are salaried rather than hourly. And Phanx is correct that many of them best in meetings rather than interfering with people who actually work.
posted by TedW at 5:01 AM on July 17, 2009

Doesn't work in IE6.

If you're still using IE6, the cost of your meetings is the least of your problems.
posted by sriracha at 5:36 AM on July 17, 2009 [5 favorites]

C-SPAN ought to have this up during Congressional hearings, right next to the national debt clock.

Except that Congress doesn't do anything else besides having meetings. What exactly do you think they would be doing instead?
posted by delmoi at 7:17 AM on July 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

This has all the complexity of a 5th grade systems design project, and doesn't work and it took three people to develop. I'm not sure I need these three opining on corporate efficiency. All three should attend a meeting on developing webapps.

But, one with ability to configure size and font would be nice.

Well, you can fork it on github!
posted by delmoi at 7:18 AM on July 17, 2009

As a Dutchman I greet this development with deep disapproval.

We must meet and we must talk for hours and hours on end, exhaust every idea from every brain of every participant, even ask the janitor for input, neverending sessions no matter what the cost, sure, we'll order some dinner, go over this last minor point again, rehash some details that last came up well before lunch, take a vote, take a revote, recount the revote and make sure that, yes it's almost midnight on day three, that everyone is on the same page, let me double-check if everyone's half-hearted satisfied smile is sincere, not a sour face in the room, yes, okay, I suppose we are agreed.

Then we drink.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 7:38 AM on July 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

goodnewsfortheinsane, HEH!

When I used to live in your part of the world, a US manager I used to know had a heart attack when confronted with the Polder model (granted, she was of the "I Attila, you Jane" school of management). I think she offered to swim back to the States in roder to escape this....this....SOCIALISM!!
posted by MessageInABottle at 7:50 AM on July 17, 2009

For example, the German word for a "CD" is "Digitalschallplatte" - you get the picture of how it might take a long time to work through a technically-focused meeting.

The German equivalent to "compact disc" may be "Digitalschallplatte". But Germans go to the store to buy ein CD - just like Americans go to the store to buy a CD.
posted by spaceman_spiff at 9:26 AM on July 17, 2009

Spaceman_spiff: Are you saying discussing things in technical German is as efficient as in technical English, or just attacking a poor example for the thrill of it?
posted by Antidisestablishmentarianist at 9:39 AM on July 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

This was probably coded up while some web hacker was sitting in a meeting.
posted by chairface at 1:18 PM on July 17, 2009