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Cognition
An Open Letter to 37signals
- @kevinmhoffman
- User Experience Director
- Kevin’s articles Feed
- Bio on Happycog.com
Good day to you, Signals!
Basecamp has greatly enriched our work life. It deftly reduces the incredibly complex noise of a large, busy project with many moving parts into exactly what each of us needs to get our jobs done. It has allowed us to isolate and document critical conversations, and therefore collaborate with our clients and each other more effectively. 
Smooth integration with e-mail makes it possible to respond at the speed of thought. And the recent integration of accounts makes hopping between the many different Basecamps in the Happy Cog universe a breeze.
When you launched your recent promotional site boycottameetingday.com, we paid attention. On the site and in your book, Rework, you told us how meetings are broken; how people are usually unprepared for them, and agendas are sometimes too abstract; how difficult personalities send group discussions flying off the rails. And perhaps most importantly, the high time and therefore cost of meetings, which unflinchingly devour project hours, is rarely justified against their tendency to fracture productive stretches of time when work could be getting done.
But here’s the thing. We like meetings.
We’ve come to rely on meetings as a way of building consensus between our different practices. We’ve used brainstorming and other collaborative activities to ideate, resulting in innovative approaches that we could have never stumbled upon by working alone at our desks. We’ve enjoyed the camaraderie and mutual respect that comes from getting together to apply ourselves to a difficult problem. And, on more than one occasion, we’ve had a heckuva lot of fun doing it.
There are four kinds of meetings that come to mind that have immeasurable benefit for what we do.
- Kickoff meetings are something of a specialty of ours, so much so that we’ve shared our thoughts on this genre of meeting before. Most of why we think kickoffs are important is in that link back there, but perhaps the biggest benefit is that if we hit the ground running hard enough, we actually build enough trust to eliminate other meetings farther down the line.
- An interesting gathering we’ve used in the last year or so is something I like to call “the rumble.” We have five distinct areas of practice at Happy Cog, but we’ve found that five heads can be better than one when addressing the most unique problems. These open invite brainstorming sessions are attendance optional, but always packed. The wireframe sketches, editorial tone, art direction concepts, and strategic decisions that come out of these highly detailed agendas are invariably better than what we used to accomplish by trying to bounce ideas back and forth asynchronously via e-mail, instant message, or other written communication. Simply put, we cannot always form quite the same Voltron online as we can in person.
- Critiques make us design and build things better. We respectfully beat the crap out of each other’s hard work until we find the best possible outcome. Looking someone in the eye, amongst your peers, and stating the best case you can for a design choice or revision makes us better presenters and communicators. It also helps keep us in business; if we can’t sell our design thinking, we’re dead in the water.
- Post mortems can be tough, but the time we spend owning our mistakes keeps history from repeating itself. The shared acceptance, and even occasional celebration, of our failures reminds us that we can always be better, and it’s important to examine the risks we took to discover those improvements.
By asking us to boycott meetings, even for a day, you are asking us to forego a tool that may be imperfect, but has played an immeasurable role in our success. A role not unlike Basecamp.
We’d love to hear more about what makes meetings go well, and how to make meetings even less of a waste of time, from you or anyone else who would like to tweet or blog their thoughts below.
Sincerely and respectfully,
A Happy Cog
P.S. If one were curious about improving that first meeting, the kickoff, one might be interested in some sort of virtual seminar one you could register for right now.
35 Responses
Curious to if @ddh, @jasonfried, @37signals or YOU would like to share your opinion with us!
Thu, January 27, 2011 12:35:06
When something is broken do you throw it away or fix it? Read our open letter to 37signals:
Thu, January 27, 2011 12:42:05
When something is broken do you throw it away or fix it? Read our open letter to 37signals: (via @happycog)
Thu, January 27, 2011 12:56:14
Freaking brilliant. Had the same thoughts yesterday after a great co-working session. / via @happycog
Thu, January 27, 2011 12:58:33
Rules I like to follow for meetings: If you can't name a concrete objective & outcome, don't have it. Also, less chitcat
Thu, January 27, 2011 1:01:38
Many managers incorrectly choose between something that requires a meeting and something that can be handled by e-mail.
Thu, January 27, 2011 1:05:32
Based on the tweet, I thought this was going to be on openID for some reason. This is more interesting!
Thu, January 27, 2011 2:27:09
A collection of good thoughts on meetings.
Thu, January 27, 2011 2:56:28
Well said @happycog! Nothing replaces the invaluable dynamics of a good meeting. I use Basecamp to prepare for meetings!
Thu, January 27, 2011 3:31:52
the word "ideate" just ruined happy cog's whole point in this open letter. having a meeting to ideate sounds horrible..
Thu, January 27, 2011 5:08:21
I think it comes with training your staff to know how to have a good meeting. It's all in the preparation.
Thu, January 27, 2011 6:01:22
Aren't meetings toxic?
Fri, January 28, 2011 3:06:47
Insightful, as always. But, since when did short URLs make sense in a blog post? They're hiding very important UI stuff.
Fri, January 28, 2011 3:16:31
I have 2+ hrs of phone conference calls per day, most of which *are* unnecessary. I'm still with 37signals on this one.
Fri, January 28, 2011 8:55:32
Kevin Hoffman of Happy Cog explains why meetings might be costly but are indispensable for dispatching certain problems. Having run Full Stop the past 18 months from multiple locations, we’re all too well aware of the void created by meeting abstinence. More →
Fri, January 28, 2011 9:20:28
Better meetings are short and concise w/ quick agendas
Sat, January 29, 2011 4:39:17
@jaynawallace I don't support unnecessary meetings in any situation. But I don't think ALL meetings are a waste of time.
Sat, January 29, 2011 7:35:12
@matiaslarsson I did read that in a book somewhere, but isn't that for the FDA to decide? ;)
Sat, January 29, 2011 7:36:58
Great thoughts on, and call for the redemption of meetings, rather than their removal. /via @happycog @kevinmhoffman
Mon, January 31, 2011 9:04:57
Sometimes I like meetings too, but sometimes only.
Wed, February 02, 2011 5:13:36
Yes, yes, a thousand times YES! @kevinmhoffman politely drubs the insipid "Meetings R Bad, Yo," meme.
Wed, February 02, 2011 4:51:35
Happy Cog's open letter to 37signals: Completely agree. I love the stuff that 37signals creates, but I love meetings, too.
Fri, February 04, 2011 3:27:50
The guys at @37signals can't answer or discuss your post because they're on meeting right now. :)
Sat, February 05, 2011 8:55:45
like any tool, a meeting is only useful in the right hands
Fri, February 18, 2011 9:34:07
An Open Letter to 37signals - Great article by @kevinmhoffman (this guy's going places ;) #webpm #webdesign
Tue, March 08, 2011 2:45:01
Meetings: should we throw them out or fix them? "An Open Letter to 37signals" #Rework
Tue, March 08, 2011 3:16:21
Kevin, blog.pgi.com will be posting on your recent SXSW talk and would love to interview you! DM me for contact details!
Tue, March 29, 2011 10:51:40