User talk:4five

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[edit] The Conference Call

Now here's a thing. The conference call is a phenomena that is sweeping the business world. A concept whereby you can invite far too many people to a meeting. You can forget who you've invited and end up talking in a derogatory fashion about people you have forgotten you have invited, thinking you'd forgotten to invite them. It turns out they were there all the time and you may as well forget to invite them in future.

In some areas it is known as the Party Line. Clearly the conference calls that I'm invited to are so far removed from a party that I appear to be in an alternate universe where balloons haven't even been invented yet.

There's the "willing contributor". They know how to speak. Everyone on the call knows they know how to speak. Just they don't know how to stop speaking. When you're faced with a virtual room full of people who you are pretty convinced aren't paying you any attention, should you ramble on in order to fill the silence or take the silence as wholehearted agreement and button it.

Next there's the "unwilling contributor". This guy doesn't volunteer any information. He'll provide only one word answers when forced into a corner.

Finally there's the "non-contributor". He attends, speaks his name, often as an early arrival to the call so no-one knows he's even there. Having made no contribution except costing your business for his time, he leaves the meeting at the end [after all the actions have been shared out between the unwilling contributors by the willing ones]. "Joe has now left the conference"........"Joe who?" Everyone asks.

This one is going to run and run, so I'll leave it for now and keep coming back to it.