From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Adam Spiers Subject: using org for meeting agendas and minutes? Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 12:56:07 +0000 Message-ID: <20080209125607.GC20023@atlantic.linksys.moosehall> Reply-To: Adam Spiers Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Return-path: Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1JNpFa-0005SD-Ie for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Sat, 09 Feb 2008 07:56:10 -0500 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1JNpFa-0005Ru-1t for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Sat, 09 Feb 2008 07:56:10 -0500 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1JNpFZ-0005Rr-S9 for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Sat, 09 Feb 2008 07:56:09 -0500 Received: from mail.beimborn.com ([70.84.38.100]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1JNpFZ-00072n-Ow for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Sat, 09 Feb 2008 07:56:09 -0500 Received: from mail.beimborn.com (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by mail.beimborn.com (8.12.11.20060308/8.12.8) with ESMTP id m19Cu8wt002538 for ; Sat, 9 Feb 2008 06:56:08 -0600 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by mail.beimborn.com (8.12.11.20060308/8.12.11/Submit) id m19Cu8cL002529 for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Sat, 9 Feb 2008 12:56:08 GMT Content-Disposition: inline List-Id: "General discussions about Org-mode." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: org-mode mailing list I "accidentally" became secretary of my resident's association committee recently, so I'm now producing meeting agendas and minutes more often than before (sometimes it happens at work too). So I thought I'd poll the enormous collective wisdom of this group and see if we could establish some kind of best practice around using org for this task. It could even become a Worg article ;-) These are the goals as I see them: (1) Allow *fast* production of meeting agendas and minutes, exportable in a good-looking legible format which non-org readers can digest. (2) Allow minutes to be taken as the meeting progresses, minimising the amount of work required after the meeting. (3) Allow actions to be captured and then automatically extracted into a simple tabulated report which clearly shows actions grouped by owner. (4) Track progress of actions *after* the minutes have been issued. (5) (Up for debate) Allow minutes to be embedded within a previous agenda, easily demarcating between agenda items and minute items. This encourages the meeting to follow its intended structure, and clearly documents unplanned deviations from the agenda (for better or worse), e.g. via colour coding. I think it's pretty obvious that org already enables (1) and (2) admirably, and of course I'm already beginning to use it in this manner. But I'm slightly struggling with the others. For (3) and (4), my current thinking is to have workflow defined by TODO keywords, e.g. #+SEQ_TODO: ACTION WAITING | DONE and to have action ownership defined via tags, e.g. #+TAGS: { Alice(a) Bob(b) Carys(c) } Then a dynamic columnview block at the end of the file could easily extract all actions and summarise them so that each owner of action(s) can easily see them. This is where sorting of rows in column view would be really useful! For (5) I'm really not sure how to achieve the demarcation. Maybe it's best when beginning to take minutes simply to copy the agenda to a new file and start embedding minutes within that. Then a diff of agenda.org and minutes.org shows any deviations etc.? This would also preserve the original agenda by protecting it against accidental editing. Any thoughts on this or other ideas very welcome! Thanks, Adam