[Noisebridge-discuss] Meeting Optimization

[Asheesh Laroia]

On Wed, 8 Apr 2009, Christie Dudley wrote:

> I'm also opposed to hard cutoffs.

I am firmly in favor of hard cutoffs.

I came to all the first few Noisebridge meetings, even the first "meeting" 
where we assembled to check out the space. That was before the space was 
ours, and it was before there were any members.

Now I rarely come to Noisebridge meetings anymore because they take a 
long, long time, and they don't usually start on time (in my experience). 
The result is that they're extremely difficult to plan for. These days 
when I come to meetings I try to come in late; it's an attempt to 
second-guess the meeting start time.

But I love Noisebridge, the place and people!

I think that 90 minutes is a long time, and should be enough time.

My feeling is that this should be left up to the meeting moderator. If 
this week's meeting moderator wants a cutoff, let him or her decide that, 
and he calls the shots. If someone wishes there weren't a cutoff, let the 
do-ocracy speak and that person should run a meeting with no cutoffs.

I volunteer to run the next available meeting. The meeting I run will have 
a 90-minute cutoff, and it will start on time according to this schedule:

8:00 People stroll in
8:12 Meeting officially starts
9:42 Meeting ends

-- Asheesh.

P.S. Let me be crass and capitalistic for a demonstration here:

If each of us earns on average minimum wage, which in San Francisco is 
$9.79 (*), and the meeting has 45 attendees, a decent guess by my 
standards, here's how much it "costs" in aggregate to have a meeting:

1 hour: $440.55
2 hours: $881.10
2.5 hours: $1101.38
(that's where I left, 10:30 PM)
3 hours: $1321.65
(that's where the meeting ended, 11:00 PM)

Now, many of us are jobless, and many (like me) are thankfully currently 
employed at more than minimum wage. So those numbers are probably low. 
Assume that those of us at the meeting came on time because we thought it 
would start at 8.

Given that there are four meetings per month, and membership dues are $80 
per month, here are those figures in terms of monthly non-starving 
membership dues. (Multiply by four, divide by 80:)

1 hour: 22 full dues
2 hours: 44 full dues
2.5 hours: 55 full dues
(that's where I left, 10:30 PM)
3 hours: 66 full dues
(that's where the meeting ended, 11:00 PM)

In truth, these figures don't mean much of anything, since they're based 
on the bizarre hypothesis that we all should/could be working instead of 
going to the Noisebridge meeting. This is a P.S., after all. I just want 
to impress upon everyone that if there are 45 people in a room, we could 
be doing a *lot* instead of being at a meeting.

As I see it, meetings are for only the issues that require everyone to be 
present — primarily deciding if we have reached consensus on something. 
It's okay to object; it means you get to discuss it further with people 
offline without taking up everyone's time.

*. 
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/25/BAAP14UAG2.DTL

P.P.S. For this past Tuesday's meeting, I knew I would have to leave at 
10:30. I left even a little after that, but apparently I missed a lot of 
excitement.

P.P.P.S. I actually think 45 minutes ought to be enough, but let's start 
with 90.

P.P.P.P.S. This week's meeting started a bit over half an hour late. 
That's $220 by the above metric, but by a more important metric: My 
leaving at 10:30 would have let me attend the whole meeting.

-- 
Q:	What do you call a WASP who doesn't work for his father, isn't a
 	lawyer, and believes in social causes?
A:	A failure.