The suit says business. The alcohol is a business. (Together these do not make for good business.)

At Columbia, we study everything from the intricacies of the world financial market to the sociological basis and implication of normative gender to the driving forces behind cultural development. When we graduate we will be called on to organize teleconferencing and to prepare adequate legal documentation. Exploring one of these real world skills, and bringing a glimpse into our future, our correspondent and one day office drone reports on the School of Continuing Education’s Strategic Communication Workshop: How to Run a Killer Meeting.

The key to a killer meeting is not, as one might expect, arsenic in the complimentary brownies, but preparation, easy communication, and the incorporation of fun.

Offered through Strategic Communication Program in  the Columbia School of Continuing Education, ‘How to Run a Killer Meeting,’ is one in a series of seminars offered throughout the semester as a supplement to curriculum. The audience, almost exclusively mid-career professionals currently enrolled in the Strategic Communication Program, come at the end of their work week to pick up extra skills and to see the theory they are learning applied in relevant examples. Though open to alumni and current students, as an undergrad I found myself more than a little bit out of place.

After a brief introduction, the evening’s presenter, Arabella Pollack, took the floor. Founder and Principle of her own consulting firm, Greystoke Insights, Ms. Pollack works primarily with the beverage industry, with clients ranging from Absolut Vodka to Pepsicola. This little detail is what first drew Bwog; we came for the ambiguous promise of tales from the vodka world and stayed for the insight into strategic communication.

The first half of the evening was conducted in loose lecture style, broken up into three parts arranged around the macabre theme: plotting, execution, and post-doc (or, in more typical jargon: planning, implementation, and review). In each section, Ms. Pollack emphasized the need to promote collaborative exchange over the simple presentation of information. A meeting needs to be more than presentation she explained. There are better ways of sending information; the meeting’s true value lies in the chance to build new consensus, not just recognizing the variety of viewpoints in a room, but finding a way to combine them in a productive way. To accomplish this, Ms. Pollack recommended breaking the room into smaller groups with a number of perspectives before the meeting even starts, avoiding lecture style meetings, and encouraging creativity. Ms. Pollack also described the importance of  understanding the background of different viewpoints both before and during the meeting and of structuring a meeting based on clearly defined objectives.

What Ms. Pollack believed most crucial to the success of a meeting, and the theme she came back to most frequently over the course of the night, was the incorporation of fun. Fun, she argued, not only inspires greater participation and engagement, it temporarily breaks down hierarchies and promotes the collaboration and free communication that are so vital. She gave a number of different examples of ways fun could be brought into a meeting, including icebreaker games, quite literal sketching out ideas in group brainstorm, and most graphically, the use of an Elmo doll to represent “enough, let’s move on,” casually tossed up when off topic discussion threatens to overwhelm momentum.

I have to confess, I was a little skeptical of this point. While I could accept the principles behind the idea, I couldn’t imagine the execution outside of some hip tech firm. I couldn’t picture, for example, a group of buttoned up JPMorgan executives tossing a plush red toy.

The second half of the seminar did a lot to convince me. It was here that Ms. Pollack brought out the vodka. Passing around a bottle, (unfortunately) not intended for consumption, she described the work she had done recently for VDKA 6100 in developing their brand image. Presenting us with a list of facts about the company (its part ownership by Robert de Niro, its origins in Australia, etc.) and breaking us into pairs, Ms. Pollack challenged us to describe not the brand itself, but the individual who the brand would be. A man or a woman? What profession? How old? My partner and I decided on a woman, in her late twenties to early thirties, sophisticated, high powered, and well traveled. More Olivia Pope than party girl.

Coming together, we found that the majority of groups had similar ideas. Urban elite, a woman, young and very modern. Talking about her, the room opened up. People got excited, leapt in to contribute, excitedly jumped in. With Ms. Pollack subtly highlighting areas of alignment, debate broke out about details I never would have thought of. Definitely sexually empowered, does she pursue or is she pursued? Work hard play hard or business as pleasure?

In our next activity, we were asked to draw our vodka girl. Careful to make sure we were comfortable, Ms. Pollack joked about the validity of stick figures. Coming together this time, the group was much more excited, pointing out crudely constructed exotic cityscapes and rooftop bars, men in suits and women in black slinky dresses. Eager, partners described their pictures, where she was, what she was doing, who she was with, and most importantly why. They offered casual critique and offered new ideas, one man going so far as to propose a slogan on the spot. In fact, after two activities, the room was invested enough in their ideas to be disappointed when the actual campaign was finally revealed, certain that ours could have been better.

The evening wrapped up with a Q&A session highlighting just how important these considerations will one day be. One woman wondered what could be done in the case of a regular weekly meeting, where staleness seems inevitable. Ms. Pollack advised she set up a rotation of meeting ownership, allowing different members of the group to generate ideas for how the meeting could be better rather than burning out one person. Another participant accepted the importance of fun, and saw how without it her own office culture was suffering, but wasn’t sure she could bring it into a more traditional workplace. Ms. Pollack here talked about accepting the strangeness of a new kind of meeting, of mentioning it, and of ensuring a safe environment. Finally, a final questioner wondered what could be done about virtual meetings. At this point it became apparent how much the earlier activities had opened up the group. Other attendees had experienced the same problem, and were excited to offer their expertise, in the end boiling down to as much actual or at least virtual face time as possible, trying for at least one in person meeting a year and videoconferencing whenever possible.

It’s unlikely that business seminars will become the event of Friday night, especially for undergrads. For that matter, it’s unlikely that fun will become synonymous with meetings. But whether it’s taking an hour or two early one lighter night to learn something new, or trying out ways to make meetings more creative and effective, sometimes trying something a bit new or unusual has the potential to make your life a whole lot better. A comfort, when facing the harsh mundanity of things to come.

Office alcoholism via Shutterstock