Tortuous Business Meeting? Tech Is Here to Help - WSJ.com

From a business meeting reality check

"Neither Mr. Libin nor Mr. Levie invented this PowerPoint-free version of meetings. That honor likely goes to Amazon.com Inc. chief Jeff Bezos, who asks staffers to dispense with presentation software and instead write up a pages-long narrative agenda for meetings. At Amazon, discussions begin with a 30-minute study period of the agenda itself.

Does this approach actually improve the effectiveness of meetings? That is difficult to measure in any empirical way, but Mr. Libin says he's noticed a change in the culture at Evernote. In the past meetings often began with the bit of time-suck known, euphemistically, as "bringing people up to speed." Like an unusually dry version of one of those "previously on..." montages prepended to TV dramas, there was a synopsis of what happened at the last meeting, followed by a desultory recitation of what had happened since (usually nothing). Now, because everyone's notes from each meeting are being logged and disseminated, there is no need for the recap, and each meeting builds on top of the last one."

Tortuous Business Meeting? Tech Is Here to Help - WSJ.com