Standard Public Meeting Syndrome and what to do about it.

Public Meetings are disastrously bad at achieving their goals. They are not the only reason that social movement organisations struggle to recruit or retain people, but they are a significant barrier to a Better World ™.

I have been writing and video-making about this forever (well, it feels like that). See here and here.

To zero effect, of course. So it goes.

Anyway, I’ve started (over?)using transactional analysis in other aspects of my life, so why not apply it to public meetings? Here’s a 60 page (and this is the short version) spittle-flecked screed/rant/jeremiad on public meetings, why they only “work” for a select coterie, how the syndrome is stabilised, what those who would like to transrupt it might try to do (but won’t and would be defeated if they tried, anyway).

Terrible public meetings are only one of the many pathologies that afflict social movements, and trying to improve them without simultaneously trying to address all the other stuff is like climate activism more generally – futile, exhausting and a search for martyrdom points. So it goes.

Here’s the cover

Here’s the Executive Summary

Thanks to Sam, Robbie and Calum for their perceptive comments. All errors (of typography and judgement) remain mine, obvs. As will be the Nobel Peace Prize I will inevitably win for such scintillating and vital work.