Meetings vs. others types of gatherings

[dgibson1 (David Gibson)]

@wstandae

in social presence theory, a psychological feeling of co-presence is not limited to face-to-face settings, but would also be related to for instance phone calls.

I should have said “physical co-presence.” I think most participants wanted that as a defining characteristic of a meeting. Yet much of what is accomplished in a meeting, and through talk about meetings before and after they occur, could also be accomplished if everyone called or Skyped in. See here:

An overarching theory of meetings?

I was thinking on this one, and on the question of Why Meet? recently, and it occurred to me that what we have heard thrown around as a joke may be the most important unifying definition we have for meetings. Specifically, when you ask a practitioner what a meeting is, they’ll say “Whatever my client says it is.” I swear I heard someone say the same thing about their research - when looking at meetings, they look at whatever their subjects happen to call meetings. This makes the defining characteristic of a meeting this: it is declared as such. Which raises all kinds of cool questions! Wh…