Minutes: Emergency Meeting 6 Feb 2007

Venue: The Usual Spot
Present: Agatha, The Chair, Coyote, Fourth Dwarf, The Independent Observer (guest: Audrey)
Late with no excuse: Conch Shell (guest: Painted Stick)
Emergency: The Usual
Minutes by: 4D

Opening

Chair: Someone should do a cartoon series for the blog - The Adventures of Bored Baby "N".

4D: [pulls out index card, begins writing notes, does not draw picture of bored baby.]

[Redacted]

Agatha: I'm tired.

Coyote: So, I've been dealing with a person who sends ten emails to arrange a meeting, suggesting tentative times... I just want to know when the meeting is.

Agatha: Maybe she's ADD and could use an assistant. I've got an assistant now. She's great. We're doing a Clean Sweep of my office... She's totally non-judgmental, for instance she'll say things like "I'm feeling really good about this, how about you?"

[Redacted]

4D: [asks IO a prying personal question]

IO: [speaks for several minutes without actually answering 4D's question]

4D: Hmm, very interesting, but back to my question...

Agatha: Just a minute! [through gestures and inarticulate syllables Agatha expresses displeasure with 4D's persistence in questioning the IO. After a suggestion is made that she is once again avoiding intimacy, Agatha shares observations about recent interactions with a close relative.]

[Redacted]

The Phone Call

Agatha: Is it time to call Conch Shell?

IO: [Pulls out his Blackberry]

Coyote: Has anyone noticed these meetings are taking on a ritualistic character?

Agatha: [Rocking back and forth in a manner evocative of Dustin Hoffman's performance in Rainman] Really?

Chair: CS hasn't met her quota this month.

Agatha: Yesterday she told me that she now has more time.

IO: [finally manages to dial CS, leaves a stern message]... and here is what the other ESIs have to say about your absence....

Coyote, Chair, 4D, Agatha: [a chorus of booing and farting noises]

The Aborted Posting

[Redacted discussion of Agatha's aborted Muse on Elgin Street posting.]

Agatha: The lesson learned is "Don't blog while angry."

[Brief discussion of why Agatha was angry, 4D whines about the unfortunate loss of the brilliant comment he had left before Agatha deleted it all.]

Audrey: How about we have a party where the women wear dresses like that one with the polaroid photos?

The lads: [General agreement]

Agatha: [that look she gets when she is nowhere close to agreeing, is too polite to say so, but is not worried that one knows she disagrees.]

Conch shell and Painted Stick Arrive

Audrey: Hey, I went to Oz because of Aggie's recommendation... had the Asian bowl.... really liked it.

Aggie's New Car

Conch Shell: Aggie and I made a list of what she needs in her new car.

Agatha shares her list. The group quickly decides that her list is incomplete and that her new car should be completely pimped. Among the features called for:

• Purple lights on the underbody
• A popcorn maker
• A car phone - old fashioned, big honking thing
• Espresso machine
• Hairwashing sink

Singles > 36 and their Issues

Audrey: Single men over 36 have issues, let me tell you that.

4D: You mean those guys you dated in their 20s didn't have issues?

Audrey: Not like the ones over 36.

Agatha: What about women?

Audrey: I don't know, I don't have issues. Fourth Dwarf doesn't have issues.

Someone asks Audrey about bad sex.

Audrey: I think you can fix bad sex with men if you explain what good sex is.

Fourth Dwarf and the Chair have a side conversation in which they decide to try for new blog feature "Ask Audrey".

Having filled both sides of an index card, 4D concludes his minute taking.

Daddy needs a new cocktail shaker

The banks are having a rough time. Bad publicity about layoffs despite unquestionably handsome profits. Chief NDipper Jack Layton slamming those $1.50 Interac fees. Scurrilous bloggers taking well-aimed potshots.

But there's a golden opportunity to turn things around: Vegas-style cash machines.

Imagine . . . every 500th customer gets an extra $20 bill with their withdrawal.

You're the 10,000th lucky stiff in the queue? A cool $100.

And if you happen to be that most fortunate one millionth button-pusher, get set to walk away with a thousand bucks!

These little prizes would amount to pocket change for the big banks. And, heck, everyone would be so enthralled that the cigar-smoking brandy swillers could quietly jack up Interac fees to $3 a pop.

The Latest Numbers

Earnings for the Bank of Montreal (BMO:TSX) in 2006: $2.66 billion

Total compensation package paid in 2006 to its CEO, Tony Comper: $10 million

Number of employees that need to be laid-off because BMO says it didn't earn enough: 1,000

Number of words in a BMO press release explaining why they need to earn more money by laying off 1000 employees: 533

Number of words used in the same press release cautioning its shareholders that BMO may not neccessarily know what it is doing in order to avoid any litigation: 646

Dysfunction Junction

I have found a book, now topping the non-fiction bestsellers list, that could help us moribund metabloggers. It is The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni.

Here's an excerpt, courtesy of USA Today:

Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is powerful and so rare.

A friend of mine, the founder of a company that grew to a billion dollars in annual revenue, best expressed the power of teamwork when he once told me, "If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time."

Whenever I repeat that saying to a group of leaders, they immediately nod their heads, but in a desperate sort of way. They seem to grasp the truth of it while simultaneously surrendering to the impossibility of actually making it happen.

And that is where the rarity of teamwork comes into play. For all the attention that it has received over the years from scholars, coaches, teachers, and the media, teamwork is as elusive as it has ever been within most organizations. The fact remains that teams, because they are made up of imperfect human beings, are inherently dysfunctional.

Meta question

I was partaking of tea and crumpies with Aggie the other day -- she's good about pouring my tea into a saucer, at least tolerates the unavoidably rude slurping noises, and us coyotes always enjoy a nice bit of crumpet... O hell! I'm already digressing again, ain't I?

Anyway, I meant to say she let drop how disappointed she was, that all of her efforts on Elgin Street Muse hadn't earned her the coveted metablog scrutiny yet.

Whether she'd actually like it if she got it is a question for another day. She has a point. She's bustin' her butt over there. We're metabloggers, dammit! Just lately this has manifested as Aggie riffin' on 4th Dwarf riffin' on my gig. Now, I happen to believe the world needs more poets, and I fully support these worthy efforts. They're both brilliant. More, please!

But might this trend not also suggest a peril of swallowing our own metamythological tail until we disappear entirely? I admit to a certain ongoing existential worry in this regard.

Do we need to consider returning to our former Musely format, to metablog Aggie? We've done some of our best stuff on Muses... But what to label it? MetablAgging? MetabAggie? iMetaDame?

Wha...? 'Scuse me a sec, phone's ringing...

"Hello? Who? What? Mmmhmmm, mmmhmmm, mmmhmmm. I see... Well, your mom wears 'em too, I bet!"

Ahem. That was Steve Jobs' hideously-expensive team of Apple Inc™ lawyers calling from Cupertino. Er, scratch that last naming option. Seems it would suck us inexorably into an ruinous legal debacle that we would be sure to lose, one way or another. Damn, those guys are fast!