Over the last month I’ve collected yet more examples of just how terrible “we” are at meetings (online, in meatspace, hybrid, whatever). I did not need these, or go looking for them. But there they were….
By “we” I do not just mean social movement “activists” looking to create momentum behind a campaign – my years of trying to tolerate terrible activist meetings are almost entirely behind me (I think/intend). Nope, these examples were
- a wretched book launch in London (the irony being that the book was about an author who was all about polyvocality, contesting power etc etc.)
- a very cack-handed activist meeting (I was there on zoom, and fled after an hour that felt like three)
- a truly embarrassingly vapid and poorly designed academic “workshop” (an absolute wrist-slasher)
There is no single cause, but there are overlapping reasons. I think, first, a great complacency, because “everyone knows” how to do x type of meeting. There’s a script, and it isn’t ever held up to the light to see if it is fit for purpose. Or if it is, those who try to do so are told they’re being weird/trainspotter/process-mad, and normal dis-service resumes.
So there is never any robust obvious feedback that such and such an event was miserable. Either feedback is not collected at all, or it’s done in such a way that only the “it was wonderful” messages get through. And anyway, people who had a mid (or lousy) time rarely have both the willingness to say so and the vocabulary. They lack scripts of what these meetings COULD be.
I hold no hope – zero, nulpoint, none, nada – that this will ever change. We are toast. It didn’t need to be like this, but it is what it is.
marchudson.net 
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