Meeting Facilitation Apps

During Great Circle, several people asked me to show them how I was doing the magical things they saw coming from my phone. While the meeting progressed, I used a bunch of apps to do a variety of tasks:
- Edited online proposal documents that others could review
- Added items to agendas for later meetings
- Edited and distributed a new org chart to clarify a proposal
- Shared quirky photos of our meeting, including a panorama
- Enhanced remote participation with announcements of upcoming agenda items

For online document creation and editing, I use NoteMaster and Google Docs. This app allows for remote editing, and has been my saving grace in developing the artist in residence program proposal. When I wake up with an idea or some new concept comes up during another meeting, I just jot a note into the document to flesh out later. When it was time to propose it, I sent out read-only links to the document and hit the floor.

[NoteMaster, a syncing Google Docs editor]

As the board meeting progressed, many items arose that need to be handled in lower committees. When this happened I pulled up Bento, a general purpose database program from the makers of Filemaker. In there, I've created a database for meeting agendas. I just add the item to the appropriate committee's agenda and it'll be waiting for me when the meeting comes.

[Bento manages my agenda items database]

To help demonstrate the place of an Artist In Residence within the greater community, I developed an org chart using InstaViz. As the Great Circle created more committees, I was able to edit the chart and share it with others. I printed a PDF for my presentation and shared an image on the Twitter stream for remote participants.

[InstaViz lets me draw and share charts]

With so many people in one room, the only way to give a good feel for the scene was to share a panorama, created with AutoStitch. I shot three photos to make this montage.

[AutoStitch lets me take wide snapshots to share with remote participants]

And finally, I used Tweetie to interface with Twitter and keep in touch with remote participants. Every agenda item was announced as it came up, and the results announced afterward. This was our first time doing that, and I'll bet we will find other interesting things to do with this technology in the future.

The Tweetie interface allowed me to view only the traffic that had the #GreatCircle hashtag, ignoring all of my regular Twitter traffic.

[Twittering the proceedings]

All-in-all, this Great Circle went off very well, with almost seamless interaction between the main circle in San Francisco, a satellite circle in Wolf Creek, and several callers for specific agenda items, including our first international participant from Guatemala. We are learning to harness technology to enhance the experience. Let's see what tomorrow brings!