Discuss Ron's Board Agenda Application:

On the whole issue of board meetings, I've got an idea. I've been working on a Paperless Board Meetings/Electronic Agenda application for a client. The idea behind it is to create a mechanism for electronic distribution of materials prior to meetings so that members can prepare in advance.

Now, you can do this roughly with email, but the disadvantage is that you now have emails flying all over with various subjects and this gets pretty unmanagable and confusing pretty fast. The advantage of an online application specifically designed for this is that you now have an organized place for people to go and a) retrieve information b) comment (ask or respond to questions) and c) prepare their responses prior to actual meetings. Not only does this help to reduce the amount of tiime at the actual meetings (because people have at least been able to study the issues), but it leaves behind a detailed and organized audit trail of the discussion and progress of the issue.

This application basically has an event calendar, which will easily display the meeting dates and locations. It has a signup feature so that those who are attending can indicate so electronically, and everyone else can see it. It has an itemized agenda capability so that each agenda item can be described and associated documents, images and files attached to it. In addition, all members, or selected members, can be allowed to comment on each agenda item, thus providing for a mechanism for questions and clarifications WAY IN ADVANCE of the actual meetings. Also, there is a notification system so that all members are notified via email every tiime new content is added to the calendar or agenda. Finally, there is a "minutes" feature so that minutes from previous meetings can be posted for all to see prior to the next meeting.

What's in this for me? As I said, this application is for a client, so my interest is in utilizing it in an environment I am working in so I can customize it to make it even better. And also, if I'm going to be a board member, I would have a personal interest in making the actual board meetings more productive and effective.

The downside: Individuals will have to create their own online accounts (easy, but they've got to do it) and actually use the application for it to be effective. Now, theorectially, all these busy people who have to be here and there and complain about the meeting dates should be the first ones to take advantage of something like this. Real life, however, tells a different story.

The upside: There are only 12 board members. If we can get most of them to use it, and everone sees that they are coming to the meetings prepared, we can eventually train the others to come along.

I would take care of everything required to set this up. All I need is to be sent the board meeting agenda and associated documents in a timely manner. All the members have to do is log into the site to utilize application as their time permits.