AI meeting notes feel productive. But the decisions that matter are taken in bar conversations or spontaneous calls, not in formal meetings.

In the good old days, meetings were minuted by administrative staff, creating verbatim transcripts.

A few years ago, Microsoft Teams and Zoom added call recording.

In the AI era, all those video call tools can not only record calls, but also create AI minutes, including action items, and automatically send them to all participants once the call has ended.

That’s all great. But what is the true essence of meetings? What is the true essence of communicating with other humans? In my humble opinion, it’s certainly not about the meeting minutes, whatever form they may take.

Writing vs. Remembering

Paper is patient. Even if you write things down, it doesn’t mean that you will find your notes again when you need them. And it certainly doesn’t mean you will remember the content of your notes at the right moment.

Speaking for myself, I use Obsidian to keep meeting notes. When I am planning my next week, I prepare meeting notes in Obsidian for each and every meeting. I list the points to be discussed and the attendees, complementing those notes when wrapping up each meeting. But even though all my Obsidian notes are linked, it happens now and then that I am surprised to find interesting stuff in my own notes from previous meetings.

In contrast, those who have worked with me know that I have a good memory, especially for people’s names and what was discussed with whom on what date. That memory often serves me better than my meeting notes.

Who Will Ever Read It Again?

At Yonder, the B2B SaaS company I co-founded, we serve some public sector customers. In contrast to private companies, it’s impossible to miss the public sector’s emphasis on creating written records from meetings, test protocols, etc. I guess this stems from the need to archive documents in public organizations.

It’s the same in my active reserve officer assignment in the Swiss Armed Forces: The amount of forms, records, and meeting minutes is humongous.

Here is the core question: Who will read all these records ever again? Who will be able to connect the dots between all these records? I dare to say that most of the records will never be read again. Even if all those AI tools promise you that they can use all your meeting notes to connect the dots and generate insights. Alas, most AI productivity tools are anyway blocked on most public sector IT clients.

The Magic Happens in Informal Meetings

Meeting minutes are boring, but they are required in some cases, no doubt. However, when does the magic happen? From my own experience, it’s usually not in formal meetings. It’s the famous discussions late at night in a bar just before a major deal closes. It’s the frenzy of multiple calls right in time for a critical decision. And it’s the spontaneous thoughts people suddenly come up with after contemplating and weighing options for some time.

Who has ever seen meeting notes for such events? Maybe I’m a lonely warrior, but I never have.

Conclusion

I’m not saying meeting notes aren’t important. From my own experience, I believe that a good memory and a mobile phone are much more important to reach major decisions. You need to know the essence of previous conversations at the top of your head, and you need to be able to call the right people spontaneously to achieve breakthroughs.

Without throwing away all your meeting notes, why don’t you keep your memory in shape and your mobile phone charged?