Re: Format of meeting minutes

At 01:02 PM 3/18/2004 +0900, olivier Thereaux wrote:

>On Mar 18, 2004, at 09:11, Lofton Henderson wrote:
>[...]
>>A caveat.  The synopsis/abstract that summarizes each discussion topic:
>>1.) introduces a responsibility that the minute taker interpret and 
>>summarize the raw discussion.
>
>Unless the minute taker is able to transcript exactly and completely every 
>work the participants say (which I, at least, am not), I don't see 
>summarizing the discussion as much different from interpreting everyone 
>lengthy sentence into a short one. I would even dare say that it's easier 
>to summarize the whole discussion after it happened than to summarize what 
>someone just said. YMMV.

I'm impressed by those who can transcript -- I can't.  Like you, I catch 
key statements and summarize.  The useful aspect of transcript is being 
able to connect members to positions, but that can achieved as well without 
a verbatim record.

So yes, probably no difference.  (Btw ... YMMV?)


>>2.) implies that all of us ought to check the draft minutes, more perhaps 
>>than is happening now.
>
>...and is that a bad thing? :)

No, it's a good thing, of course.  In fact, I'm curious whether a template 
with a higher implied standard might itself help to improve the minutes.

-Lofton.

Received on Thursday, 18 March 2004 09:58:08 UTC