Monday, March 15, 2010

Meetings Made Practical

At least two of the problems with holding meetings are 1. scheduling the things, and 2. keeping conversations on track.  An article in Inside Higher Ed today cites an experiment at Ohio State University in trying to solve the second problem with Wikis.  It seems to me that a discussion board would be more suitable than a wiki, but never mind.  They report equivocal success, with more participation than anticipated, 
But the wiki idea also drew its fair share of skeptics. “I believe (and think most colleagues share this belief) that there’s a value in getting together in the same room to debate and to decide on issues,” wrote Jim Phelan in an e-mail. “The concentrated thinking and discussing is beneficial for group decision-making.”
 To solve the first problem, I discovered TimeToMeet.info,which has a nice interface for finding when a group can meet.  It works by email, and you just paint your available times on the grid.  It looks like the shot below when everyone responds:

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