John Porcaro over at Microsoft makes some really good points about the difference between sharing and presenting ideas.

How many times do w come to meetings to "present" information rather than to share ideas? And when we're the attendees, how many times do we NOT speak up when we should, because we're being polite? And what is it about going through documents or status reports or PowerPoint decks that makes us fold our arms and reverently listen? [John Porcaro: mktg@msft]

Interestingly, this comment in his post reminds me about something I experienced when I used to post to UseNet a long time ago (Well, 1990 or so), and I would get no responses to my post.

Don't get me wrong, if something in the plan was plain wrong, we would have spoken up. But in this case, I think we all (let me speak for everyone!) felt there was nothing left to add....

I would post and long threads that had been raging for a day or so would just stop dead after my post.

After this had happened a couple of times, I asked someone about it on IRC, and they said "After that post, there was nothing left to say".

So, are you trying to have a conversation, or tell people how something is going to be?

9:11:21 AM     Discuss: []