Microsoft tries to make boring team meetings more productive...through software?
I got the latest edition of the Microsoft Business Insight newsletter in my Inbox just now and had to chuckle at the headline: "Do Team Meetings Seem Like A Waste of Time?" The hook is to tease a webcast detailing how to use various components of MS Office 2003 to enable better collaboration. Sorry folks, if a meeting is truly boring there's no amount of apps that can save it. It's poor organizational structure, bad chemistry and human ambiguity that make these things a true waste of time.
The only software I can see making any boring team meeting I've ever been - either in the same room or tele-whatever - in more productive would be a Game Boy.