Meeting on the Right Side....: Sometimes, it can be a wonderful thing, a real gift to the spirit, to the fun of work, this bringing in of fun and games, these "irregularly shaped meeting rooms with few right angles, including an oval foyer with a video wall and a room with a curved wall, low armchairs and an electric fireplace. In the quadrangular boardroom, notebook computers that record handwritten notes replace flip charts. One L-shaped space features a recessed bank of white leather seat pods opposite a water wall."

Sometimes, it can be yet another way to manipulate people into getting the least out of giving the most.

Sometimes, the people who call these meetings have agendas that are radically different, profoundly less playful, dangerously less supportive. They bring in toys and games and goodies and hire facilitators and folk of fun, not just because they want to get the best ideas, but ultimately so they can harvest those ideas, and claim them as their own.

I think we are right to be a little suspicious of these kinds of meetings. A good meeting can take place anywhere - in a restaurant as well as in a conference room, in a classroom or even a hallway. We don't need toys or games to make the meeting fun, because a good meeting - one that is truly coliberating - is in itself fun, far deeper fun than we can have with each other shooting water pistols.

I think we have more good meetings in our coworking communities, when we gather together simply because we really want to help each other, simply because we have discovered that we really can help each other...better, more productive meetings than the kinds of meetings that go on in corporate retreat centers with inflatable floors and silly putty chairs and slinkies all around.

© Bernie DeKoven