Going Meta
At a former education job, we used to end each meeting by “going meta.” Sure, we’d cover the standard logistics (Did hit all the items in the agenda? Do we each know what to do next?), but we’d also pick apart the flow of the meeting that had just ended. Did somebody unreasonably monopolize the conversation? Did anyone feel as if they shouldn’t have been present? Finally, we’d score the meeting on a scale of 1 to 10.
Whoever initiated the meta-conversation always did so with a sheepish grin, as if to intimate to everyone assembled, “Yeah, I know this is kind of a joke, but it clearly means a lot to the principal, so let’s just get it over with.” Other times, from the safety of a barstool, similar ideas were stated outright.
Confession: I really enjoyed going meta. I still enjoy going meta. I can’t not go meta. And neither, I’d argue, can anyone else. Who doesn’t ask silent questions in the middle of a conversation? Why isn’t he making eye contact? She was 15 minutes late: should I read something into that? Is he a little drunk, or is that just his personality?
The formalized, public meta session simply provided a sanctioned, low-resistance mechanism for voicing these thoughts (or their more professional equivalents) right there and then, rather than at the bar later — or worse, not at all. It made it okay to say the meeting sucked. Or that it should never have been called in the first place. And that ultimately led to better, fewer meetings.
So, indulge me as I go meta on this… writing platform. This “blog”.
It wasn’t supposed to be a Tumblr, I can promise you that. It was originally intended to be on WordPress, and indeed it was, back in its earlier incarnations. Self-hosted and spartan, it was a place where serious writing could be set down in an appropriately serious serif font.
I didn’t write in it. Of course I didn’t. It was the digital version of a new Moleskine notebook. How dare I set down crude doodles and notes to myself (“you’re not allowed to buy Nutella”) in the same shared paperspace where Hemingway and Van Gogh produced art? Similarly, what writing would ever be good enough to send out to the world as my emissary?
I don’t really like Tumblr. I admire the heck out of it—as a work of technology and design, as a business—but I don’t want to have one. I don’t like that my content is on some servers in, where, California? that I don’t have access to. I don’t like that even with a domain name, my post URL structure instantly reveals my blogging platform. I don’t like that I’m using a service intended for multimedia microblogging to do my largely-textual macroblogging.
My notebook was a gift, and I don’t like the way it’s ruled or bound. And that’s why I think I’m going to write a lot in it.
Meta over. 7/10.
