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O P I N I O N
Writing right, right now
In our current digital and remote work environment, the basic task of note taking has become enormously important.
V ideo conferencing, video chats, Zoom, Skype, Monday.com, Basecamp, Planit. The list is long. And it was sudden. Yet here we are, all living in a remote work world. Strangely, some of us are getting more face time – albeit via a laptop monitor – than we had with our co-workers before.
Jane Lawler Smith
Yet as we zip from one Zoom to another, what are we left with? ❚ ❚ Some sense of personal connection. ❚ ❚ Perhaps a to-do list item or two. ❚ ❚ But often, especially when video meetings are scheduled back-to-back-to-back, an overwhelming feeling of dismay and the thought “what just happened?” “Remote working tends to shift the emphasis from verbal communication to written communication,” according to Gapingvoid’s article “A New Remote Era Unfolds.” “As handy as Skype and Zoom are, nobody wants to spend six hours a day on them. Be ready and act accordingly.” Which leads us to a real need – to start writing right, right now.
In our overwhelming digital and remote work environment, the basic task of note taking has become enormously important. We must all become active meeting participants during our remote meetings. This means not only contributing to the conversation, but also following all parts of the conversation. And to make sure our meetings are most effective – in the moment and in the days and weeks to come – we need to be intentional about our writing and recording. Which is easy if you follow a few basic steps: ❚ ❚ Assign a scribe. Unless someone is recording the conversation during your meeting, you are wasting time. This has always been true but is more significant now when you can’t just pop your head
See JANE LAWLER SMITH, page 12
THE ZWEIG LETTER SEPTEMBER 21, 2020, ISSUE 1360
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