🙌Why do we hate all-hands meetings so much?
The latest news from StreamAlive and the world of online, offline, and hybrid live events.
Hi there! In this week’s newsletter:
Why work meetings induce feelings of dread
How to improve your all-hands from a no-hands
What we’ve been reading…
✋We’re doing all-hands all wrong in the post-covid workplace
Enter the phrase “work meetings” in Google and the most popular suggestions are all negative connotations about meetings.
Work meetings anxiety… Work meetings are a waste of time…
One of the first thoughts to go through an employee’s head when the “mandatory” all-hands email invite lands in their inbox is "Do I have to attend?”
And if the answer is “Yes”, do I need to have the camera on?
So often, the important all-hands meeting could have been an email update.
Instead, it’s sucked an hour of productivity from your team, department, or even company-wide workforce.
One study from a few years ago even suggested that corporates should measure the satisfaction of meetings as part of the overall job satisfaction.
When the employee was asked to attend a meeting which they deemed to be a waste of time because they weren’t providing any input or it wasn’t directly related to their work, the job satisfaction decreased.
The opposite was also true, the more satisfied the employee was with meetings, the higher their overall job satisfaction.
Why we hate all-hands even more now
Myriam Hadnes, founder of Workshops Work, is on a mission to make meetings useful again. She has insights on why we have a greater aversion to meetings now than before:
Before Covid, we had lots of meetings, but they were in-person and in the office. Given the choice between sitting at your desk and sitting in the meeting room with others, the opportunity cost wasn’t so high.
Today, we’re working remotely or from home. Now the choice is sitting in a boring meeting behind a screen all by myself, doing something productive, or even doing something you want to do like watching a TV show, then the opportunity cost becomes a lot higher.
So when we’re in a boring, unengaging meeting that could have been an email or Slack message, our resentment towards meetings grows.
Multiply that by 1000 when it comes to all-hands which have a bad habit of being monologues between the managers and employees.
Can satisfaction-sapping, soul-sucking all-hands be fixed?
Myriam thinks so.
She has been facilitating meetings and all-hands for organizations long before the great shift to virtual meetings.
In her upcoming masterclass, she’s going to show you how all-hands monologues can become lively, interactive dialogues without needing the CEO’s approval on everything.
If your boss prefers all-hands to no-hands, this session is for you.
If you are the boss who wants to improve their all-hands, this session is definitely for you!
Registration is free, but seats are limited so save your seat today.
We also have some more exciting #StreamAliveShowcase events coming up and we’d love to have you join us for them as well!
May 22: Said Saddouk is joining us to teach how to run interactive virtual events that get everyone involved.
Jun 5: Neela Saldanha has dedicated her life to understanding human behavior and deciphering what makes us tick. She’ll be sharing her discoveries with us at her event.
Jul 2: How can design systems improve your productivity? That’s the question Manish Agarwal will be answering in his session.
July 17: Tatiana Rodriguez is going to teach us how to conquer your virtual stage fright, perfect if your palms go sweaty and throat goes dry before speaking to a virtual audience.
Save your seat to all of these events today!
What we’ve been reading
Podcasters are having an existential problem.
By their very definition, podcasts are supposed to be audio only (a portmanteau of "iPod" and "broadcast").
But with video and streaming booming on TikTok and YouTube, can podcasts survive as an audio-only format or do they need to evolve?
That’s the question the New York Times looks to answer.
16 of the top 30 podcasts are now video podcasts.
New podcasts are being filmed in a setup reminiscent of a TV studio rather than a sound booth.
But more fundamentally, for the podcast purists, are video podcasts still podcasts?
There is the argument that video is saturated with shorts, reels, and other viral content. A “let’s sit down and chat with a guest” video is not a visually entertaining experience.
But… what if these video podcasts were to stream it live and add some chat-powered audience interactions (using StreamAlive, of course) to the experience—that would certainly keep it entertaining and engaging for viewers!
Catch us on our social pages
If you haven’t already, check out our social media pages to stay updated on our quirky takes on the latest social media trends and the occasional piece of engagement-related advice.
All the best,
Peter and the StreamAlive team