Seth Godin listed the different types of meetings:

• Just so everyone knows: This is a meeting in which one person or small group tells other people what’s already been decided and is about to happen. These meetings should always have a written piece to go with them, and in many cases, it should be distributed a day before the meeting. The meeting should be very short, take place in an auditorium type setting, not a circle, and have focused Q&A at the end. Even a quiz. It’s the football huddle, and the running back isn’t supposed to challenge the very premises the quarterback is using to call the play.
• What are you up to: This is a meeting in which every participant needs to present the state of their situation. It probably happens on a regular basis and each person should have a strict time limit. Like two minutes (with an egg timer). After presenting the situation, each attendee can send their summary in an email to one person, who can sum it up and send it out to everyone.
• What does everyone think? In third place, a meeting where anyone can speak up. People who don’t speak up on a regular basis should not be invited back. It’s obvious they are good at some other function in the office, so you’re wasting their time if they sit there.
• We need a decision right now. These are ad hoc meetings that have a specific agenda and should end with a decision. A final decision that doesn’t get reviewed.
• Hanging out meetings. These are meetings with no real agenda, lots of side conversations, bored people, people instant messaging and just sort of hanging out. Sometimes these are fun, but I wouldn’t know, because I haven’t been to one in three years.
• To hear myself talk meetings. You get the idea.

I dislike meetings. But the meeting I like best is the “we need a decision right now” type. I do not run many meetings anymore, but I prefer meetings in very cold rooms with no chairs where everyone read the email BEFORE coming.

If you have ever banged your head against your monitor in frustration. This post is for you. We giving anyone a chance to make Plaid into their dream web application. Since Plaid is still in development (coming August 2007), here is your chance to share your thoughts.

Based on eight years of experience in ministry to the inner city of Minneapolis, Tim designed Plaid to be his dream tool. That is a great place to start, but Plaid would be better if you tell us how Plaid can be your dream tool?

• What is the most painful part of ministry?
• What is the most rewarding?
• What makes you want to quit?
• What makes you continue?
• What tools to you use now to keep track of your ministry?

Please add your comment below and share your dream.

Tired of kids or parents not having access to important forms? Use the ThinkFree Viewer to put them online.

ThinkFree is an online office suite of tools. While that is cool, I prefer Google Docs and Spreadsheets myself. The realy killer idea is that ThinkFree allows you to publish and share your Microsoft Word, Excel and even PowerPoint documents to the web. People can view them even if they do not have Office installed on their computer.

ThinkFree Viewer

Just upload your document to the web, provide ThinkFree with the URL, choose whether you want it embedded on your page or not, grab the code, paste it into your web page or blog. You are done.

Now, parents and teems can get your forms. This is a great way to share documents without making them jump through a bunch of hoops. Or forcing you to figure out how to turn an Office document into a PDF. This is just so much easier.