RE: meeting minutes--

["Joe Malin" <jmalin -at- tuvox -dot- com>]

My comments:

Technical writers should expect to be part of the staff meetings for the
engineering/product teams of the products they work on.

I serve as secretary for my local STC chapter, and have served as
secretary for other organizations in the past. I started out by gently
reminding the meetings so-called "manager" about things like going
off-topic, running out of time, and so forth, and I was not shy about
asking people to repeat the question. Nobody argued with this approach;
in fact, most people liked the idea that someone was really managing the
meeting so that things were accomplished.

The meeting's "manager" or "organizer" also liked it because she no
longer had the onerous duty of "ruling" the meeting.

I have to say that I learned how to do this professionally when I worked
as a product manager. You don't want to go in proclaiming that you're
going to re-do how meetings work, but if you give some hints, people
usually respond. You can always make the excuse that you're trying to
take minutes, so you have to be organized.

I can anticipate that your manager might complain. She sounds a bit
fussy. You may have to simply assert that you can't take minutes
manually the way the meetings were run, and you want to do a good job.



Joe


Joe Malin
Technical Writer
(408)625-1623
jmalin -at- tuvox -dot- com 
www.tuvox.com
The views expressed in this document are those of the sender, and do not
necessarily reflect those of TuVox, Inc.	

-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-techwr-l-216553 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:bounce-techwr-l-216553 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Lucero,
Peggy
Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2005 5:44 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: meeting minutes--


I started my present job at the beginning of May '05.  Part of my job is
to capture the meeting minutes for the team's weekly meetings.
*I am trying to learn how many other tech writers have this kind of a
responsibility and how they do it.* Further, I work on a Govt. contract.
These meetings get very involved and a number of the key participants
talk very fast.  
Initially I was trying to capture these events manually (and no, I don't
know shorthand.)  It was impossible.  


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