How I Work: David, Marketing Manager at Microsoft
Best advice when it comes to organizing meetings? Decline an invite and schedule face-to-face time, says David, Marketing Manager at Microsoft. Add a pow-wow with a local craft brewery and you have yourself an event you won’t forget. Read the next article in our ‘How I Work’ series, exploring office lives of companies big and small.
What is the number one advice you could give us when it comes to organizing effective meetings?
I work for a big corporation and we go on tons of meetings, so my advice is very clear: keep the meetings short. There is no particular reason that meetings should run for one hour or even longer. It works great if you cut them to 45, 30 or even 20 minutes. Also, have a meeting about a single topic with clear action items and a timeline for delivery! No laptops, a small team and standing in the meeting also helps.
What is the coolest meeting room you have at Microsoft or would want to have?
Every meeting room at Microsoft Slovenia is different. They are named after Slovenian cities, so it’s always fun when we invite someone to a meeting to, let’s say, a seaside town. All the rooms are packed with digital technology, big screens and communication gear. We have rooms with sofas and rocking chairs, but my favorite one is still the one with a simple bar table, a whiteboard and a big screen.
What is the best advice you’ve ever received on organizing meetings?
Decline an invite! Seriously. What will the meeting change? Will we be able to sell more after the meeting? Will I learn something? Will it motivate me? If you can’t find a good reason to be at that meeting, decline it. A good indication that you don’t have to participate in a meeting is if there is a ton of people on the invitation list.
What is the craziest meeting you’ve ever attended at Microsoft?
It’s always fun to have meetings with startups. We had a meeting not long ago with a team that works with a local craft brewery. And although the meeting was in the morning, with people from several corporations attending, we had a sampling session which broke through all the initial awkwardness and hesitation. The meeting turned out to be super productive! Before you ask: No, we weren’t drunk, it was just a sampling session. 🙂
Where do you prefer to hold your meetings at Microsoft?
We have very diverse teams at Microsoft, with team members who live and work in various countries. My boss is in Israel, my teammates all over Europe, from Munich to the UK. But nothing beats live face to face communication. While a lot can be accomplished and agreed on via digital channels, it is essential to meet in person from time to time, exchange a handshake and a few laughs over coffee.
How do you go about naming the meeting rooms in your company and why?
Like I said, we’ve named our meeting rooms after Slovenian cities. We have rooms like Ljubljana, Maribor, Planica, Kobarid, Ptuj and Koper. We don’t have Celje, my hometown for some reason! It’s fun, especially for visitors, but it takes some time to remember where those rooms actually are. If we were to name the rooms again, I would insist that we sort them geographically, so that rooms that are nearby are named after places that are also nearby. But that’s just me being overly pedantic.
If you were to design and name any meeting or conference room, how would it look like and what would you name it?
A creative meeting room is not the same as a productive one. For me, it all comes down to the purpose of the meeting; the purpose determines if a room is perfect or not. But a meeting room should definitely be spacious and full of light, comfortable, with plenty of fresh air. Communications and display technology in the room is also essential. And everything needs to be connected, of course. Joan is great in that sense: I can easily reserve a room, get quick info and do ad-hoc meetings if necessary.
If you were to hire an office assistant, what should their personality traits be?
An office assistant has to be a lot of things — friendly, orderly, punctual. Since all of us are in a hurry all the time a great office assistant will keep things in order in both the in digital and real world. Meetings rooms are the face of a company, and a tidy workspace is a must, with well-supplied offices and things running smoothly. It really bugs me when I go to a meeting and the room is full of old papers, boxes and hardware. It doesn’t have to be like that. We sometimes get lectures from our office assistant like we were kids: “Would you do this at home? How would you feel if the room was this messy for your meeting?” And she is usually right!
How has Joan changed your meetings?
While we were testing Joan it became obvious that the system is seamless, very user-friendly and low maintenance. The IT team loves it because of its simplicity of integration and maintenance, and the users because of its ease of use.
Follow the rest of the ‘How I Work’ series here.
About Microsoft
Microsoft is one of the biggest software companies in the world, operating in 123 countries. While most people know Microsoft for Windows and Office, the company develops tons of different products, working hard to create a digital future for everyone across the globe.
Joan Meeting Room Assistant
Microsoft displayed Joan’s easy integration with Office 365 and Microsoft Azure in a showcase in the tech giant’s offices. Read more about the showcase demonstrating Joan’s resourcefulness in the workplace here.
Photo credit: A. Domitrica
Originally published at getjoan.com on June 27, 2016.
