This is Your Brain on Walking Meetings

Since I started regular walking meetings at the beginning of the year, I have been surprised at the interest and response I’ve had.  My previous co-worker from the early AGIS days, Jake Kuramoto (now of TheAppsLab fame) penned a nice blog post about it, called Good Idea: Walking Meetings.  I was interviewed by @Ultan from the Oracle UX team for the Usable Apps Blog, which included a picture of myself walking with Floyd Teter, of ORCLville fame, who is a long time walking meetings proponent and gave me some encouragement and advice.  I was also interviewed for a travel magazine, for a June edition, so we will see if I survive the editing process and make it into that article.

This article from @thefastcompany, which had the picture above really resonated with me.  I feel my meetings are more productive when walking; I seem to be able to remember things without referring to lists or taking notes and the conversations flow faster.  the picture might give a clue why.  I had a great phone conversation with Russell Clayton (@ProfessorRWC) after commenting on his great piece on Harvard Business Review blog about exercise promoting work-life balance.  He is also interested in the how walking meetings can promote better working, I am looking forward to hear more from him on that, because I have anecdotal evidence, but would be interested in scientific research on that aspect of walking meetings.

Finally, the most pleasing aspect has been the response from my team and my colleagues.  The enthusiasm and encouragement from them has made it a really positive experience.

So if you haven’t tried them yet, give it a go and tweet your experience and pictures using the hashtag #walkingmeetings