Meeting on 2-18-08

MEETING MINUTES (SORT OF), and a recap

The good news from Monday’s meeting is that folks really seemed to respond to the “Turning Points” theme idea. Caroline facilitated a storytelling exercise in which everybody thought of a turning point, figured out its pluses and minuses, and then decided how their perception of that moment in time had changed and what lasting effect it had had.
Everybody could think of a turning point, even if it took them a while to decide the exact moment, exactly. Such an articulate, thoughtful group really seemed to understand how these moments in time had helped shape them. So, yeah, Turning Points is a go, and I got no sense that people were feeling railroaded into going along with the theme.
The bad news from Monday’s meeting was that we had one vendor in particular who really demanded a lot of attention and had a prerogative of basically dominating the conversation. He detracted from the conversation in general, but more importantly I think he killed some of the candor that had been built so well in prior meetings. And that, given that we are trying to (and have to) foster an environment of creativity, is a big problem.

DEBRIEF:

-people are ready to start-there was a sense that people had things in mind (Richard and newcomer Mike Garcia both had an idea of where they wanted to go, what they wanted to shoot, &c.), and that any more discussion might actually be holding some folks back… so, we should start shooting

Next meeting: low-key meeting on Monday, Feb. 25th that people can come to and will cover basic camera operation; it will also be a time to discuss next steps, share story ideas

Future meeting should:
-refresh ground rules, esp. reiterate WAITTS/WAIT (What am I trying to say?/Why am I talking?)
-set time limits on brainstorming activities & stay within the two hours allotted
-have a discussion/presentation of the elements of narrative structure
-(can we afford to have disruptive vendors attending meetings?)

Agenda for Monday!

Hey,
I was just thinking maybe we should all touch base about the meeting agenda for Monday, just so we can all be on the same page. I'm worried that we'll walk out of the vendor meeting with our heads spinning, then walk into the video meeting and not have a cohesive idea of what we're shooting for.
Here's a list of stuff we'd talked about covering next meeting:

-Recap
-ground rules
-updates (including inviting folks to this blog)
-floating the idea of "turning points," and
-doing the turning point exorcise where people in the group buddy up, think of a turning point, share it with a partner, and have the partner present it

See you all Monday!