Lazy, hazy Sunday, a perfect day to talk about meetings on meetings, and after that, a well-designed life and transitions at DESIGNBOOM.  A little ski porn, how to paint a room, and music to end the week.  Peace! 

Another story about meetings, this time, WSJ goes even more profound and starts off talking about Reynolds, the tobacco company, who switched from large staff-type meetings to a pre-recorded video.  The WSJ article includes more companies' ideas; many grew out of remote work during the pandemic years.  How we work has changed, and the companies that continue to find better ways to do the job will see it as a competitive advantage. 

The recent unemployment number is the lowest in 50 years, and companies will have to entertain remote work, bigger and better perks, and the promise of fewer meetings to fill positions.  Quiet quitting, which we have also talked about in the newsletter, is related to the “less is more” options facing companies right now.  Stride Health Inc., also featured in the WSJ article, instituted "No Meeting Wednesdays" to help staff work on big projects and focus work.

Getting rid of unproductive meetings is one part of increasing productivity; analyzing why you have the meeting and the purpose of it is another.  Meetings can have significant and broad goals, and brainstorming, feedback, and barriers can be a part of the meeting, but if you don't break a meeting into chunks, it could last for days.  

We expect more ideas and technology to come that will improve communication and work product.  Our section on new work ideas, called Innovation Station, will continue to report on the most interesting.

Starting an image-heavy, design-based website in the late 90s when most of the Internet was text-based is a risk.  20+ years later and millions of followers, the risk Massimo Mini and Birgit Lohmann made when they started DESIGNBOOM paid off.  As DESIGNBOOM continues to grow, Lohmann is stepping down from her role as Editor-in-Chief and plans to spend more time on particular projects and less on day-to-day operations.

It seems easy to paint a room, like most home improvement projects, if you do it right.  Wirecutter tells us how.  Suggestions from paint, primers, and equipment, the article will give you everything you need to paint the town or your room.  The last section, subtitled Things to skip, makes this article unique.  And yes, we have a box of them in our garage too.

Trip Shakespeare from back in the day.

Click on the Apple Music image to listen to the song on Apple Music or on the Spotify Image to listen to Spotify.

Thank you for spending a few minutes with us. Here’s one for the road!

With A Shout newsletter is written by Johnny Christian with the support of a thousand idea bits and the help of many people.

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