4 ms·

Stop wasting everyone's time with face to face meetings. Words are meaningless, easily misinterpreted and non binding. Written documentation of actions are ea

Stop wasting everyone's time with face to face meetings. Words are meaningless, easily misinterpreted and non binding. Written documentation of actions are easily referenced and binding.

paskozdilar 4y ago
> Words are meaningless, easily misinterpreted and non binding. I wish more people recognized this, instead of expecting everyone else to remember "that thing that we talked about, like, last week". I imagine it should be possible to create an organization where all communication would be just specification and documentation. I wonder if there is anything that can't in principle be done that way.
- mcculley 4y ago
  It is nice where it works out. Some organizations have staff working manual labor who are not as literate or articulate with written communication. Some organizations are competing at a pace where a rival organization can beat them with a well run meeting over waiting for emails to be written, read, and replied to.
- kps 4y ago
  > remember "that thing that we talked about, like, last week". If you're lucky. Usually it's “Hey new hire, remember that thing Alice and Bob talked about last year, before they left the company?”
- MarkChristensen 4y ago
  You might want to check out Automattic (the makers of Wordpress) and their P2 tool - https://vickiboykis.com/2021/07/17/writing-for-distributed-teams/ https://vickiboykis.com/2021/07/17/writing-for-distributed-t...
- burnished 4y ago
  I think that could work in an environment where everything could be cleanly laid out and understood in advance, without room for error or confusion or misalignment. I think it is a lot easier to burn through misunderstandings with face to face or otherwise synchronous speech. Detailed note taking is a good remedy for the whole "words only last as long as your throat cords vibrate" thing. Although now that I think about it we're probably pretty close to agreeing, I'm really just pointing out the value of regular old talking as a good escape for when text based communications slow down or fail but implicitly I'm assuming a world where the default is text.. which is what it sounds like you'd prefer.
- smabie 4y ago
  I mean in principle almost any form of communication is possible, but there's a reason you don't go to dinner with a friend and only communicate through post-it notes: because it is unnatural and inefficient.
ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
I'm tired of people always jumping on the latest technological hype-train. O.K Typing is great but I used Speech successfully for decades before it was deprecated and I'm not going to jump on the latest trend and change my whole workflow and tooling just because young devs want to add the cool new tech like "Typing" to their resumes. Words are semantic units, they are by definition and purpose: meaningful. Speech is also: * Synchronous * A faster form of communication than the fastest typers * A much much faster form of communication than the average typer * Has incredibly good built-in features for communication like: * The ability to see who's currently talking * The ability to communicate a thought almost continuously rather than discretely * The ability to be interrupted to provide new information when necessary * Built-in styling features like tone, feeling, volume to emphasize important information * Built-in synchronous next-speaker negotiation * Privacy respecting and non-binding which is incredibly important in heavily regulated industries where everything recorded must be very carefully thought out because it might come up in discovery 10 years later
gnulinux 4y ago
This is an absolutely horrendous claim. Every person is different, there is absolutely no replacement for face to face talk for me and my current co-workers. I need it, if my company decides it'll be replaced with written-only communication, I'll leave them in a second. Seeing people's facial expressions, hearing their tone, understanding how they react to spontaneous questions, what frustrates them, what things they feel confident about, what things they're puzzled about... There is no easy way to express these via text. Please understand that I have no problem with remote work; I'm only responding to your implication that face to face meetings are "waste of time".
dymk 4y ago
Meeting notes

Stop wasting everyone's time with face to face meetings. Words are meaningless, easily misinterpreted and non binding. Written documentation of actions are easily referenced and binding.

paskozdilar 4y ago

> Words are meaningless, easily misinterpreted and non binding. I wish more people recognized this, instead of expecting everyone else to remember "that thing that we talked about, like, last week". I imagine it should be possible to create an organization where all communication would be just specification and documentation. I wonder if there is anything that can't in principle be done that way.

mcculley 4y ago
It is nice where it works out. Some organizations have staff working manual labor who are not as literate or articulate with written communication. Some organizations are competing at a pace where a rival organization can beat them with a well run meeting over waiting for emails to be written, read, and replied to.
kps 4y ago
> remember "that thing that we talked about, like, last week". If you're lucky. Usually it's “Hey new hire, remember that thing Alice and Bob talked about last year, before they left the company?”
MarkChristensen 4y ago
You might want to check out Automattic (the makers of Wordpress) and their P2 tool - https://vickiboykis.com/2021/07/17/writing-for-distributed-teams/ https://vickiboykis.com/2021/07/17/writing-for-distributed-t...
burnished 4y ago
I think that could work in an environment where everything could be cleanly laid out and understood in advance, without room for error or confusion or misalignment. I think it is a lot easier to burn through misunderstandings with face to face or otherwise synchronous speech. Detailed note taking is a good remedy for the whole "words only last as long as your throat cords vibrate" thing. Although now that I think about it we're probably pretty close to agreeing, I'm really just pointing out the value of regular old talking as a good escape for when text based communications slow down or fail but implicitly I'm assuming a world where the default is text.. which is what it sounds like you'd prefer.
smabie 4y ago
I mean in principle almost any form of communication is possible, but there's a reason you don't go to dinner with a friend and only communicate through post-it notes: because it is unnatural and inefficient.

ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago

I'm tired of people always jumping on the latest technological hype-train. O.K Typing is great but I used Speech successfully for decades before it was deprecated and I'm not going to jump on the latest trend and change my whole workflow and tooling just because young devs want to add the cool new tech like "Typing" to their resumes. Words are semantic units, they are by definition and purpose: meaningful. Speech is also: * Synchronous * A faster form of communication than the fastest typers * A much much faster form of communication than the average typer * Has incredibly good built-in features for communication like: * The ability to see who's currently talking * The ability to communicate a thought almost continuously rather than discretely * The ability to be interrupted to provide new information when necessary * Built-in styling features like tone, feeling, volume to emphasize important information * Built-in synchronous next-speaker negotiation * Privacy respecting and non-binding which is incredibly important in heavily regulated industries where everything recorded must be very carefully thought out because it might come up in discovery 10 years later

gnulinux 4y ago

This is an absolutely horrendous claim. Every person is different, there is absolutely no replacement for face to face talk for me and my current co-workers. I need it, if my company decides it'll be replaced with written-only communication, I'll leave them in a second. Seeing people's facial expressions, hearing their tone, understanding how they react to spontaneous questions, what frustrates them, what things they feel confident about, what things they're puzzled about... There is no easy way to express these via text. Please understand that I have no problem with remote work; I'm only responding to your implication that face to face meetings are "waste of time".

dymk 4y ago

Meeting notes