When currentblend is large enough to warrant some important (Board?) meetings, I plan to hire one of the artists mentioned in this post on Visual Note-taking to record sketch our meeting minutes/notes. I don’t want the typical, boring notes to be passed out afterward.

I understand that PowerPoint is a necessary evil, but I loathe the bullet-point heavy presentations most people put out there. (Hint, go check out Presentation Zen to change that). Edward Tufte (infographics rockstar!), who also loathes PowerPoint, notes that Microsoft is steering away from using its own product.

A cup of coffee is an opportunity to meet someone, talk about a few other things, make a friend or a business acquaintance. Done right, the face to face reference check is a lot more than a reference check. It’s a way to grow your network and your business. And it’s also the best way to find out exactly what you need to know about a person you want to hire, invest in, or otherwise go into business with.

Good advice here on scheduling and running meetings.

As a general rule, meetings make individuals perform below their capacity and skill levels. This doesn’t mean we should always avoid face-to-face meetings — but it is certain that every organization has too many meetings, and far too many poorly designed ones.