David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

4 Steps to a Better Meeting

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Meetings – I’ve heard more than one person say meetings are a huge waste of time. They hate them. They aren’t productive. A meeting gets in the way of their “real work.”

If that’s the case … you’re doing meetings wrong.

And that’s sad, because a productive meeting is pretty easy to do, and it can help move your organization forward.

And … to get the 4 steps, go read my article over at Emerald Group Publishing! Then come back, and fill in the blanks – tell me what I missed!

Image by Torsten Werner. OK – whose meeting actually look like this? That’d be pretty sweet 🙂

The Creative Group

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Creative Group
The Creative Group

In my last blog post, I mentioned my library’s Creative Group. What is that, exactly?

My library decided that Public Relations and the web team did a lot of similar things, and needed to work together. PR routinely creates print ads, newsletters, posters, banners, and PR campaigns. The web team does much the same thing, just online. Why not collaborate up-front, so the message online and in-print is the same?

And hey – while we’re at it … both teams are highly creative. What’s not to like about schmushing two creative teams together into the same physical space, to see what happens?

So we stuck both teams into the same work space. We also started holding regular weekly meetings. So every week, our three PR staff, two web developers, me, our Programs Supervisor, our Digital Content Librarian (new position that’s part of Public Services), the Deputy Director, and sometimes our library director meet. Anyone else in the library is invited, too.

What do we do? We talk about projects. Last week, we talked about our Personalized Reading List service – we’re reworking the form and the page the form lives on. The staffer in charge of that service and the Public Services Manager came for that part of the meeting. We also talked about creating some database widgets (did you know database vendors like Gale and EbscoHost have widgets now? Who knew?), guest posts for book reviews, and a new blog we’re creating.

So what do you think? Is it helpful for PR and the Web team to meet regularly? It’s sure been helpful for us!

And – boring pic by me, using my Instagr.am account. Follow me at davidleeking on instagr.am if you’re interested!