Paul Graham offers a very interesting idea: That people tend to work either on a maker’s schedule or a manager’s schedule. Here’s his description:

The manager’s schedule is for bosses. It’s embodied in the traditional appointment book, with each day cut into one hour intervals. You can block off several hours for a single task if you need to, but by default you change what you’re doing every hour…

Most powerful people are on the manager’s schedule. It’s the schedule of command. But there’s another way of using time that’s common among people who make things, like programmers and writers. They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can’t write or program well in units of an hour. That’s barely enough time to get started.

Pretty much all traditional conferences are arranged mainly on a manager’s schedule, with sessions slotted in in a nice, orderly fashion. But for the makers in your audience, does this really provide a good schedule for learning? That’s one problem that I often have: I go to a session, really get into it, take copious notes. Then it’s over and, instead of being able to talk about it, put it into action, do something with it, I have to rush off to the next, usually completely unrelated session. I don’t know if it’s because I do work mainly on a maker’s schedule, but this truncated way of scheduling makes it really hard for me to absorb much of any one thing.

Is it possible, or even desirable, to design meetings more in tune with maker’s time?

Thanks to Jamie Notter and Johnnie Moore for the pointer to this excellent article.

I ran out of steam on Friday, but here are a few more meetings-related blogs I’ve added to my blogroll in recent times:

Meetings: Minnesota’s Hospitality Journal, which of course is full of great tidbits about meeting in Minnesota, but also covers lots of other meetings topics.

The Convention Insider, with Jim Turner’s thoughts on convention and trade show planning. It also features one of my favorite trade show experts, Candy Adams, aka The Booth Mom, as one of its guest bloggers.

I’m sad to hear that Eunice Kennedy Shriver has passed away. Whatever your politics may be, please join me in celebrating the life of an amazing woman who founded something that has had great meaning to someone close to me: The Special Olympics. Because of her work, my sister Becky, who has intellectual disabilities, has competed with athletes from around the state she lives in, and from around the world. She proudly shows off her medals, and her swim strokes, to anyone who asks, beaming all the while with the pride of accomplishment. That is priceless.

From the Boston Globe:
“[Mrs. Shriver] believed that people with intellectual disabilities could — individually and collectively — achieve more than anyone thought possible,” her son, Timothy P. Shriver, chairman and CEO of the Special Olympics, said in a statement. “This much she knew with unbridled faith and certainty. And this faith in turn gave her hope that their future might be radically different.”

From Mrs. Shriver at the 1987 Special Olympics World Games, South Bend, Ind.:
“The right to play on any playing field? You have earned it. The right to study in any school. You have earned it. The right to hold a job? You have earned it. The right to be anyone’s neighbor? You have earned it.”

Thank you, Mrs. Shriver. May you rest in peace. You have earned it.