Advice

This Meeting Didn’t Need To Be An Email

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

There’s a joke we’ve all heard – and probably repeated – “this meeting could have been an email.” It’s popular because it’s true, we’ve all had the meeting that could have been an email, and let’s be honest we’ve probably held those meetings. We’re all part of the problem.

But I’d like to argue that this joke wrong in some cases. That meeting didn’t need to be an email. That meeting didn’t need to exist in any form – email, chat, and so on – and that’s the real issue.

Am I going to analyze a joke about having too many meetings? Yes I am. If you don’t like it, send me an email.

So let’s take a look at this joke. We wasted a bunch of time getting people into a room, virtual or otherwise, to discuss things or share data. Some of us probably didn’t need to be there, certainly some of us didn’t want to be there. The end results probably could have been done in an email, not necessarily even a chain, just one.

The joke isn’t quite as funny when you analyze it, is it?

But here’s the thing. The meeting in question – or the email in question – is held because something had to be settled or something had to be done, or something had to be cleared up. Be it a meeting or email, something had to be done because something else didn’t.

So the real question is what was needed to avoid the meeting or the email that could have replaced it.

Was there some document that didn’t exist so people had to discuss it? Was there a signoff that could have been automated but is instead 5 people in meeting knowing 3 of them didn’t need to be there? Did people just not talk in the past and now you’re sitting in an actual room for hours because you could have done something earlier?

That meeting didn’t need to be an email. It needed to be a process. It needed to be an accurate help document. It needed to be a form in your software. It needed to be something that didn’t waste people’s time. It needed to not happen.

Now I am going to defend meetings as I schedule them as part of my job. But a good meeting is held when needed and should prevent even more time-consuming things from happening. A good meeting prevents other meetings.

But we shouldn’t just replace meetings with email. We have to make as many unnecessary.

Steven Savage

Grinding On In Hope

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

2022 seems to be a line of unmitigated tragedy.  COVID continues to rampage, Russia invades Ukraine, the economy teeters, the news is full of bullshit, and there are multiple school shootings.  Even though we see hope in Ukraine, the other issues wear on us.

I’m sure you feel that grinding awfulness, and in time you want to give up.  I can offer you this advice – don’t.  Take a rest, take a break, get away, but don’t give up.

The one thing we can do is keep going in the face of all this awfulness.  We can fight for what matters, we can stick to what’s meaningful to us, we can not quit.  Quitting is the one thing that guarantees a worse world.

This isn’t just a moral statement, it’s a statement about meaning in our lives.  When we give up then we’re no longer ourselves, we’re a shadow waiting for harsh light to erase us.  In motion there is hope that what matters to us can continue to matter, to sustain, to grow, to return.  We need this motion not just to be good people but to stay sane.

Humans are a process.  When we stop, we’re just not people, just not ourselves.

So as hard as things are now – and I know they’re hard – don’t give up.  Keep going, even if “going” involves a rest for now.  Keep being you – that you, that process, might just get us out of this mess, or at least you.  Until we get out of this, at least you’ll be yourself when you’re in motion.

Steven Savage

It’s What You Know, You Know?

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This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

“Write what you know,” is advice writers ogive each other.  This is followed by writers arguing about that statement, and the Great Circle of Advice and Debate continues.  I’d like to add my own nuance to the debate because it may help.

“Write what you know,” is an incomplete statement.

Serdar notes that many writers seem to create writing/artistic heroes – to the point that “writer/artist” is shorthand for protagonist to many.  This issue arises from writers writing what they know – themselves.  It’s a grand example of how “write what you know” backfires, and I’m sure we all have seen writers follow that advice a bit too much.

Yet many writers try to break out of what they know.  We know – and perhaps are – researchers and obsessive readers who will go to great lengths to find what they need for a story.  There’s the ever-repeating joke of how writers have questionable browsing history as they research so many things.  Isn’t writing about “knowing more” to write?

Even if we’re not researching things that might disturb someone, aren’t we growing as a writer anyway?  Aren’t we learning from our writing?  Aren’t we changing with life?  The “what we know” part of the advice is changing all the time.

This is where harder truths break into the unpleasant simplicity of “write what you know.”  Yes, an author should write what they know, but the act of writing also means the author should be learning and growing all the time.   That growth is part of writing as well, and perhaps needs more acknowledgment.

“Write what you know, but both you and your writing should grow together,” may be a better bit of advice.  If we writers can grow, so can our catchphrases.

Steven Savage