I've been in enough companies, that I have started to develop an almost pathological aversion to meetings. The wikipedia entry on meetings actually touches on the problems I run into: "In organizations, meetings are an important vehicle for personal contact. They are so common and pervasive in organizations, however, that many take them for granted and forget that, unless properly planned and executed, meetings can be a waste of time and resources."
So, how properly plan and execute a meeting? I have a few rules that help:
Does this have to be a meeting? Some meetings are often...
I recently saw the announcement that Hotmail now supports POP access. Awesome news, as logging into the web version is a pain on a mobile phone. I grabbed my phone, and gave it a go: After entering my Hotmail information, I got a nasty surprise: Windows Mobile is smart enough to recognize the "Hotmail.com" extension and redirect you to their web interface. How helpful! So, you are forced to do what you often have to do when someone walls you off with BS: you have to lie to them. Here we have gotten extra sneaky...