typing their own notes...

[Chris Corrigan]

Hi Peggy:

I have had "secretaries" type up notes and find that the end result is
not nearly as satisfying as when people do it themselves.  I wouldn't
classify them as disasters however, in my experience anyway.

I find that for anything less than one day, people generally express the
complaint that there isn't enough time to type up notes AND go to all
the sessions they want to.  So I'm generally flexible on this point with
my clients, after giving them the appropriate caveats about the quality
of the product.

Another option, if typing is the issue, is to hand out poster board or
flipchart paper and ask people to makes sense of their notes by
transcribing them on the paper and then posting these on the news wall.
This makes it a lot easier to handle graphics and diagrams and allows
for more colour and stuff to be incorporated into the notes.  Reading
the proceedings is easier on the news wall and the actual document can
be produced with digital photos of the proceedings, or by people
transcribing the re-written text later.

The real value of having people do their own notes I think is giving
them the opportunity to revisit them instead of just dumping a bunch of
raw bullet points on to secretaries who can't decipher them.  That seems
to me to be the important point.

Chris

---
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Bowen Island, BC, Canada
http://www.chriscorrigan.com
chris at chriscorrigan.com
(604) 947-9236

-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Peggy
Holman
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2003 1:41 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: typing their own notes...

I just had a conversation with a client about an upcoming 2-day Open
Space.  The group is composed lots of high-powered executives.  As my
contact put it, "there are undoubtedly people in the group who haven't
taken their own notes in 40 years."

The planners are envisioning having staff do the typing of session
notes.  In other words, convenors would, as always, be responsible for
seeing that the notes are taken.  Convenors would then hand them off to
staff to type up after their sessions.

My instinct is to advise against this and invite these folks to take
responsibility for seeing that the notes are entered themselves.  My
client is skeptical that any sessions would actually make it into the
computers this way.

Has anyone dealt with this sort of issue?  Any thoughts?

Peggy

_______________________________
Peggy Holman
The Open Circle Company
15347 SE 49th Place
Bellevue, WA  98006
425.746.6274
www.opencirclecompany.com
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