A few years back, my niece visited my office and after spending the whole day with me, she was asked by her mother: “What does Uwe do all day?”

Her answer: “He’s in meetings.”

That’s a sad reality for the majority of us.

Boring Meetings. Useless meetings. Sloppy meetings. If the US army would be as sloppily run as our meetings, there wouldn’t be the United States of America. If my kid would be as poorly prepared for her school life as most meetings are, she’d drop out of school in 7^th grade.

Meetings are important.

They are the wheel that set things in motion.

Unfortunately, that wheel doesn’t work 95% of the time.

“Read this before our next meeting.”

It’s the title of a book by Al Pittampalli, published by The Domino Project and the content will change your life.

Al Pittampalli describes the usual MS Office appointments as ‘weapons of mass interruption’ and explains that it’s far too easy for people to call team meetings without any real preparation and empathy for the impact another bad meeting might have on all recipients.

In addition, he describes the majority of meetings as stalling tactics and havens for complacency or collective indecision.

How to combat ‘Death by meetings’

- Only invite people to meetings who NEED to be there, not people who SHOULD be there.

- Circulate reading materials way ahead of the meeting, insisting that everybody actually read the material. If not, ask them to leave the meeting. Should have used their own time get informed, meetings are about decisions, not information.

- All meetings have to have a clear purpose, clear objective(s) and end on time.

- Meet only to support a decision that has already been made.

- Produce committed action plans.

Summer is over. Time to be productive again.

Don’t waste another hour with useless meetings.

Buy the book to get more in-depth insights. It took me 30 minutes to read it. But it will save me a lot of time and energy in the years to come.

Oh, and please, don’t invite me to any meetings.

The purpose of design is not to showcase your brand in the best light possible.

The purpose of design is about communicating your perception of the customer.

Develop a micro site with numerous ‘Buy now’ and ‘Purchase here’ buttons, and you tell everybody that you consider your customers as pure consumers.

Create a micro site with endless opportunities to collect data, and you tell everybody that customers are just data you want to collect.

A Facebook page with constant promotional posts and no interaction: We don’t care about you, we just care about our marketing goals.

When your forms are too long, you communicate: ‘My time is more valuable than yours.’

When your site is too complex to navigate, you say: ‘I care more about my metrics than achieving your goals.’

Branding has become a complex minefield of human interactions.

All of us try to maneuver that minefield without getting hurt (losing time, filling out forms we don’t want to fill out, etc.).

Bad design will try to create as many traps as possible.

Good design will help the customer to steer towards their goal.

Do you perceive your customers as sheep?

Or as valuable partners?

When you enter the agency world, you quickly learn that all agency folks are in line to be admitted to Mensa and all clients should be on the slow bus.

‘They just don’t get it.’

For most agency folks, clients are only intelligent and well-informed when they agree with THEIR opinion.

Oh boy, when clients disagree the insults are flying quickly.

What most agency folks don’t get is that they weren’t hired to develop the craziest campaign ever, the best Facebook page ever, the most creative mobile solution ever.

Any agency was hired to make more money for the client.

Period.

And that’s why I believe agencies need to hire entrepreneurs today.

I’ve been running my own business for 18 months now.

It tests your will, your passion, your morals, your ethics and everything you stand for.

When you work for an agency you always have somewhere to hide.

When it’s your shop, you can’t hide anywhere.

When you were on the agency side, a $100,000 investment meant nothing to you. Because you had no skin in the game.

When you have a small shop, an investment of $1,000 might mean the world to you.

That’s why every agency should hire entrepreneurs today

They know that every penny counts.

They know there are more factors than marketing/advertising to make your product/service successful.

They have less ego and more success metrics on their minds.

Don’t feel intimidated by entrepreneurs.

Embrace them.

I would add:

11 Be passionate

12 Be curious

13 Be nice

Seen at Fischli & Weiss; “How to Work Better” Mural on office building in Zuerich-Oerlikon.