The BBC does an article on Raiding:

[SurfD]

A somewhat entertaining article about raiding.  And the name of the PHD student studying the raiders is sure to get a few laughs.

Edit, damnit, see next post.  Must have cut and pasted link from wrong tab while not paying attention.

[Merusk]

Wrong link, surf. That's to MMO-Champ. The BBC Article is here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12326825

[Malakili]

The virtual teams and teamwork it demands are likely to be in demand as the world makes more use of the web.

"There is a lot for us to learn about how people co-ordinate this," she said. "What they are doing has a lot of implications for group dynamics, management and other approaches in business that we really need to start taking seriously."

They are going to miss the real point - you want me to show up for your online meetings, make sure there is a carrot.

[ghost]

If you show up for the meeting you will get a possibility of getting these sweet purple shoulder guards with big spikey things on them and an eerie yellow-green glow that emanates unnaturally from their underside.

[Merusk]

Around these parts it's "You show up for the meeting, you get to keep your job.  There's your damn carrot now shut up and get back to work."

I understand from previous conversations this isn't the case in tech fields.

[Paelos]

Around these parts it's "You show up for the meeting, you get to keep your job.  There's your damn carrot now shut up and get back to work."

I understand from previous conversations this isn't the case in tech fields.

What's so bad about meetings? I think we have one a week and I'm not sitting there clawing my eyes out or anything.

[Rasix]

In the current job role I'm in, meetings are 99% a waste of time.  That's why I'm thankful that I've been limited to monthly one-on-ones with my boss and a singular department meeting in the past 5 months. 

However, I will go to any meeting that provides donuts, even if I'm not invited.

[Merusk]

Depends on the manager and role.  Last office the production manager had the estimator in meetings with vendors for 2-3 hours every day, on top of the weekly status meetings and the daily "oh hey, I just ran into this problem let's talk about it" that took between 1-2 hours.   He then wondered why the estimator hadn't been able to get a house done and in the invoice system when he'd had 6 months to do it. (That alone is normally a 40 hour a week job for 2-3 weeks per house.) 

Meanwhile I had 2-3 meetings a week for 15-20 mins that were just for things like: Ok, here's what I'm doing; Here's where this project is at; here's the tech problems we've got with the software and how I plan to resolve them; and here's how I fixed the design problem I ran into is that ok with you.

[Minvaren]

LFM weekly status meeting, need steno and whiner, plz link achieve.

[Nebu]

99% of meetings could be handled with a 5 min email exchange.  I hate meetings.  They are a monumental waste of productive time.

[Paelos]

Ok, so how many people who said that meetings were stupid work in highly technical fields?

[Rasix]

Ok, so how many people who said that meetings were stupid work in highly technical fields?

/raises_hand

[Paelos]

I'm just curious because I could see meetings with highly technical or skilled people being a complete clusterfuck and waste of resources.

Pretty much like any meeting of CPAs when somebody brings up GAAP changes. Dear god.

[Ingmar]

It kind of depends on their purpose. You can't do Real Projects without some sort of meetings to keep everyone on track, but a lot of day to day stuff gets meetings scheduled about it even though they aren't really necessary.

[ghost]

I think that it's safe to say that meetings are a waste of time in any field. 

[K9]

I enjoy my weekly meetings with the rest of my research group, and they feel fairly productive. I suspect our style of meeting and the content is somewhat atypical.

[apocrypha]

Around these parts it's "You show up for the meeting, you get to keep your job.  There's your damn carrot now shut up and get back to work."

Neoliberalism at it's finest. Here's a stick, we're calling it a carrot!

And meetings are only useful if they're well run. Allow people to blather on, meander and engage in one-upmanship and they're shit and pointless. Keep them short, snappy and to the point and a focus for actual debate and discussion then they're useful.

[Paelos]

I think that it's safe to say that meetings are a waste of time in any field. 

I get a lot out of staff meetings we have for the first 15 minutes. Usually it's about procedural stuff we'll be doing during the high season and time shortcuts that we can utilize with new software packages. Thing devolve fast if that one person opens their mouth, though. Everybody has one.

[ghost]

I think that it's safe to say that meetings are a waste of time in any field. 

I get a lot out of staff meetings we have for the first 15 minutes. Usually it's about procedural stuff we'll be doing during the high season and time shortcuts that we can utilize with new software packages. Thing devolve fast if that one person opens their mouth, though. Everybody has one.

I don't really see those as meetings, per se, but more of a pow wow.  I'm thinking of the two hour full on meeting.  We have a 15 minute deal every morning in my office and it's pretty useful.  I don't know if I would call it a meeting necessarily. 

[Merusk]

Depends on the meeting. I've been in some successful meetings where large specs were being hammered out or construction details were discussed. 

There's also two meetings that are necessary in homebuilding. (Well, there's more than that but these are just the office staff ones.)

1) The production meetings that were had weekly with the field guys and the production manager were typically 3-4 hours and were the only time they all had to face-to-face.  It gave them all the opportunity to discuss the problems they'd run in to with various vendors or logistics problems and detail/ construction issues on the houses they were currently overseeing.  Very useful to let the guy building the new house tell the other 5 where the problems were so if they had one before the drawings were corrected, they'd know what to look for.

There's also the big ass logistical meeting called "Backlog" that was 2-4 hours a week.  That involved calling the sales people to discover where the contracts they had in process were, what leads they'd gotten that week.  This was used to determine start/ dig dates and closing dates.  The office staff would in turn relay production issues that might delay or speed up closing to the sales people that had come up at the production meeting.  It also went over finance issues, paperwork problems and other miscellany.

[Ashamanchill]

JAYSUS CHRIST!!!!! Am I seriously playing the game that wrong?!?! The extent of the meetings I have ever had with my guild are:

Guild: "Hey Mcgarnagle: are you too drunk to raid tonight?!?!

Me: "Ya, prolly. But I'm good for tommorow."

Guild: "KK"

I'm not even over emphasizing, that's how shit went. Am I playing the game wrong?

[Lantyssa]

If you're not playing the game like a job, I'd say you're doing it right.

[Sheepherder]

JAYSUS CHRIST!!!!! Am I seriously playing the game that wrong?!?! The extent of the meetings I have ever had with my guild are:

Guild: "Hey Mcgarnagle: are you too drunk to raid tonight?!?!

Me: "Ya, prolly. But I'm good for tommorow."

Guild: "KK"

I'm not even over emphasizing, that's how shit went. Am I playing the game wrong?

Back in TBC the guild's shadow priest and resto druid would play drinking games over Ventrilo while we ran Karazhan.  The best part was that the druid was at always at his best form when half tanked.

[Fabricated]

You're missing the best part. The dude doing the study is named Ladan Cockshut. Tee hee hee.

I get the point of the study, and that the super-hardcore raiders probably are an interesting subject of study since they operate under a more overarching goal with strict competition and timeframes (world firsts)...but casual raiding usually amounts to throwing a mess of people who meet the holy trinity together and throwing shit at a wall until either sticks or doesn't stick. Individual failures (wipes) have a cost of...like 3-5 minutes of running back/ressing/buffing/discussion. You can get kicked from a guild for shitty performance I guess but I don't think it's terribly parallel to real life.

[Ironwood]

Dude looks like a lady...