The underestimated power of meetings

Let’s face it: the business world’s disdain (dare we say hatred) for meetings isn’t just misguided—it's downright counterproductive. Every single person I’ve ever met rolls their eyes at the mention of another meeting, seeing it as a distraction or even an interruption to 'real work'.

But this viewpoint overlooks the raw, unfiltered power of face-to-face (video-to-video) interaction. Meetings aren’t just necessary; they are where creativity and collaboration is born, where ideas are happen and get shaped.

We're not just wasting time by complaining and approaching meetings with such a deep level of dislike; we're underutilising a potent tool for innovation. The disdain for meetings isn’t just a harmless trend; it’s a blind spot in modern business practices.

By dismissing meetings, we're throwing away valuable opportunities for brainstorming and team building. It's easy to hide behind emails and project management tools, but it’s in the meetings where the magic of unscripted dialogue and spontaneous ideas occur. We’re quick to chase the latest productivity tools and software, yet we neglect the most basic form of collaboration: human conversation. This oversight isn’t just a small error; it’s a fundamental flaw in how we perceive productivity and teamwork.

Here’s the kicker… this feeling about meetings… it’s totally understandable. We all feel it at some point. We believe it can change, we believe we can get more out of meetings, that's why we started Clearword.

The inefficiency in traditional meeting follow-ups

The real problem with meetings isn’t their existence; it's in part what happens after. The traditional approach to meeting follow-ups is a perfect example of corporate inefficiency at its finest. We sit through meetings, take notes, and then what? We waste further hours transferring these notes into digital platforms, or we forget the context of that scribble, or we just have too much work to transfer this knowledge we’ve gathered into an email and send it to other participants and people who couldn’t make it.

This isn’t just inefficient; it's a ridiculous duplication of effort. And what do we get from these handwritten notes? A subjective, often incomplete record of the meeting, trapped in the confines of our notebooks.

This archaic process doesn’t just eat into our time; it diminishes the value of the meetings themselves. The rich discussions and decisions made are often lost in a black hole between the meeting room and our digital tools. We’re effectively turning valuable collaborative time into a mere prelude to a tedious, unproductive task. It's not just about inefficiency; it's a massive mismanagement of resources and talent.

No wonder we feel so strongly about meetings.

Automating meeting productivity

We’ve been rather quiet, working on addressing some of those issues and now it’s about time we call out this absurdity an take a more intelligent and productive approach. Why continue to slog through the mundane task of manual note-taking, data entry, cover-your-ass email follow-ups when technology can do it for us? This isn’t just about convenience; it’s about challenging the status quo of meeting productivity. Clearword does that for you, that’s partly why we built it.

Automating the tedious parts of meeting follow-ups isn’t just a minor upgrade; it's a complete step-change towards efficiency. For the average busy professional who have multiple meetings a day, this isn’t just a time-saver; it's a career changer. The potential to reclaim hours spent in administrative drudgery is not just appealing; it’s a critical shift for anyone serious about their time and career and their time.

Beyond time-saving: Meetings move businesses forward

This isn’t just about scraping back a few hours in our workweek; it's about fundamentally changing how we value and utilize our time at work. By stripping away the monotonous, repetitive tasks associated with meetings, we’re not just saving time; we’re elevating the quality of our work and that’s a critical reason behind the existence of Clearword.

This shift is about recognizing that the creative and strategic energy wasted on post-meeting administration is better spent on tackling real challenges and driving innovation. Doing what humans do best: arguging, building, collaborating, making stuff up, being wrong, being right, and growing amongst many other things.

Refusing to adopt such technologies is not just a personal choice; it's a professional misstep. In a economic and market climate where efficiency and innovation are key, clinging to outdated practices isn’t just old-fashioned; it's a hindrance to personal and organizational growth. The question is not just about adopting new tools; it’s about whether we’re willing to let go of inefficient traditions to embrace a more dynamic, productive work culture.

Do you care about efficiency? Do you take pride in your work? Or are you happy hanging around meetings all day?