In every meeting, someone has to take notes. Otherwise, it's just a conversation. Conversations are splendid, but a Meeting is a conversation with a purpose. There are three genres of meetings:
You oughta know. Moving information from one mind to another. You can sometimes replace this meeting with a written dispatch, but not always. Gathering can help.
We can work it out. An alignment meeting. A place for folks to assert their point of view, debate ideas, and land on a simplified perspective everyone agrees on. (All endeavor requires compromise.)
Let's get it on. Only when folks are informed and aligned can you make decisions about what to do and actually do those things. Also known as collaboration.
And in all three gatherings someone has to take notes. Because you are what you read, and what you read is the notes.
The role of note-taker is challenging. You are neither passive stenographer, nor authoritative author, but someone in between. You ask clarifying questions. You must prod the yielding voices and curb the unyielding ones. And you write things down.
You, dear note-taker, are the patron saint of lost time. You faithfully note the crinkles that bring folks together, and scribe the process of smoothing them. Taking notes is work. If the notes are unclear, then a meeting may well never have happened.
This is the tax humans pay for our lack of telepathy.
Be sure to take turns.
I always thought the note-taker has this awesome unspoken power to shape reality. The notes are the artifact of what happened and what was worth documenting, but also they’re the interpretation of what happened and what was worth documenting *according to one person.* And that’s a power you can use for good or evil.