Over the years I've learned the value of active note taking in these meetings. Meaning: not minutes, not transcriptions or AI summaries, but me using my brain to actively pull out the key points in short form bullet-like notes, as the meeting is going on, as I'm talking and listening (and probably typing with one hand). This could be agenda points to cover, any interesting sidebars raised, insights gotten to in a discussion, actions agreed to (and a way to track whether they got done next time!).
It's both useful just to track what's going on in all these different meetings week to week (at one point I was doing about a dozen 1-1s per week, and it just becomes impossible to hold it in RAM) but also really valuable over time when you can look back and see the full history of a particular meeting, what was discussed when, how themes and structure are changing, is the meetings effective, etc.
Anyway, I've tried a bunch of different tools for taking these notes over the years. All the obvious ones you've probably used too. And I've always just been not quite satisfied with the experience. They work, obviously (it's just text based notes at the end of the day) but nothing is first-class for this usecase.
So, I decided to build the tool I've always felt I want to use, specifically for regular 1-1s and other types of regular meetings. I've been using it myself and with friends for a while already now, and I think it's got to that point where I actually prefer to reach for it over other general purpose note taking tools now, and I want to share it more widely.
There's a free tier so you can use it right away, in fact without even signing up.
If you've also been wanting a better system to manage your notes for regular meetings, give it a go and let me know what you think!
Quite a while back, I realized that anything digital, from phones to computers, tends to become or look like very official/non-personal and hence looks bad, especially in 1:1 meetings. I decided to go with pen and paper, in a simple Notebook (A5 or A7 is my choice). I’m do not write anything personal, but the points shared or noted down between us are enough to remind me of any points that I might have noted in my mind.
I’ve carried this habit to many other meetings (non-1:1s too), even when there is a note-taker (AI or otherwise). My meeting notes usually get shared or used as references by other participants.
Even during the meetings, other participant(s) sometimes contribute to my notes. I don’t hate digital mediums; in fact, I have used Freeform on an iPad just like I use my Notebook for meeting notes.
The interesting part is that I learnt to draw like Dan Roam[1] quite a while back. So, my notes contain texts with a lot of arrows, stick figures, shapes, etc.
Sidenote: A lot of conversations got sidetracked to discussions about paper, fountain pens, the way I write, etc.
How are you transcribing, or are you sharing photos?
Tangential: I also recently switched to paper without lines after 20 years, and it's been quite liberating.
are these the same things or are we reaching differently w/ the consideration
Here’s the issue - all my meetings have confidential, sensitive info. I can’t use a version you host (or well, I could, but you won’t be willing to do the 6 month security review I need).
Can you give me a version I can host (or run locally) and I give you some $ one time or per year?
My email is davnicwil at gmail, please email me and let's talk about it!
I'm going to give everyone who signs up today full access to everything and access to those features will be grandfathered in to any future plans.
The plans as you see them now are just rough shape anyway just to launch something!
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UPDATE
alright that should be implemented now, and all existing signups ported (if I got everyone :-)
Everyone is now on the 'Business' plan (full access to everything) on signup
That means
- meetings notes are structured as entries, new entry in 1 click, with a template, with responsive structure
- easy to see who wrote what, everyone gets their own section
- first class action tracking and management of actions in one place
- distraction-free editor optimised for one-hand typing with only minimal formatting necessary to make notes tidy
- easier to search and navigate through history of notes
I think this applies for google docs but also other 'general' note taking tools and editors.
But to get directly to your point, I just think entries give better structure than a sort of 'open doc' self-regulated-formatting type system with headers etc. You get an 'entity' that can be tagged with date&time, searched, displayed in a cluster of sections with responsive layout, etc. That's actually one of the precise things I'm trying to improve upon from my own experience with using general note taking tools for meeting notes. But I concede it could just be subjective opinion.
This might be a stretch but if you are at all up for it I would absolutely love to quiz you further on this though on a call or via email. I may have misunderstood. davnicwil at gmail, if you'd be up for it :-)
That said, I, of course, always welcome competition.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMoGOWOBicY
[2] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/facilitator-in-mi...
You're in a ton of regular meetings, and you and want to take notes and actions to keep track of what's going on in them week to week.
Missing "be". Plus here is another vote for self hosted
Writer's blindness is real!
My email is davnicwil at gmail, if you email me just so I have yours I'll update you when self hosted is available
- actions (checkboxes) with mentions that you can track in one place
- images
- templates and one-click new entry
On the shared thing, it's opinionated in that it's not a shared single document like a google doc, rather everyone you share with gets their own section, so you can very easily see who wrote what.
May be add a small section for private notes ?
For now, you could temporarily turn off wifi and rant away ;-)
Relatedly, I've had a few requests for a self hosted version already and will be offering this very soon as a priority. If that'd solve the issue also, please email me at davnicwil at gmail and I will update you when it's available.
We already use Lattice for performance notes, peer to peer feedback and it’s a place where we put notes for our 1:1s. It integrates with Slack to remind us to enter topics before the meeting, etc.
Even with all of those objections, you won’t get anywhere in corporate America with your product unless you offer SSO. It’s not that hard to do.
I have recommended a one man SaaS once in my career to something that was critical to what I needed for a large company critical initiative. But we got lawyers involved and negotiated our own instance and the code be put in escrow with a third party that we would get access to under certain circumstances. We were going to be 70% of his post sign in revenue and growing.
And I say that from a similar situation: I can't bring ANY executable onto my computer without corporate IT approval. Even as an untouched file.
But that isn't common in most companies.
Any midsize company that would trust having their proprietary information like would be in one on ones would be a complete idiot to depend on a random website.
One on ones usually feed into reviews. What guarantees would their be that the site would be up in a year?
IRL: I could add whatever I wanted into my computer at most places I've worked, including multi-billion$ international companies.
I don't know Lattice so I would not use it.
If anyone wants to be updated when this is available, email me at davnicwil at gmail
https://medium.com/@Arakunrin/the-post-ipo-performance-of-y-...
So yes, if you want to start a business your most likely outcome is going to be complete failure. Your second most likely outcome is muddling along in obscurity until you give up realizing you could make more money being an enterprise CRUD developer at a bank and not work as hard. The next outcome is you might get acquired.
Unless you are decision maker for a medium to large company, you shouldn’t have heard of Lattice.
But don’t you think before someone invest time in building something they hope to be successful they look at the landscape of others in their vertical?
I'm not even mentioning trust issues, when sensitive data is involved.
Doing anything less and hoping that companies would use your toy project is just wishful thinking. Sorry to be that guy, but please get real.
But that take is cliched founder take. “X is a $10 billion industry. If we just get 1% we will be a great investment”.
If someone doesn’t more narrowly target their market to something more realistic than the entire population in the world. They have already lost
There are many people that don't have regular meetings so I'm guessing he is focusing on those that do which is a market. I wouldn't use it as personally I prefer to avoid the meetings.
How often do you have meetings except at work?
I don't live in your head.
Absolutely, yes, full export of notes (in variety of formats) is coming soon :-)
I was emphasizing that E-Ink devices with EMR pens provide an input experience very close to writing on paper. Combine that with all the advantages of actually having a digital document. The EMR pen never needs charging, and the E-Ink device gets charged on the weekend.
Almost as good as Emacs Org mode. I use Org mode with Evil, to get VIM keybindings. This way I can quickly navigate and edit the document, not just append to the end of it. And of course, Emacs is completely local.
I suppose there is supposed to be a collaborative element that Emacs won't provide. In my experience people in meetings already have workflows and are seldom interested in using the tool somebody else asks them to.
I take that as the highest compliment!
But yeah, the sharing aspect is a key thing I wanted to nail here. In my mind, it should be so simple to share and just start typing in Docket that say, the organiser of a meeting will just share the notes and it should be the simplest (or, at least, a simple) option for everyone to dive in.
RTL (right-to-left) text is displayed with LTR directionality and alignment. Even when preceding an RTL line with the RLE character, it remains left-aligned. I suggest using the method that most other software uses: detecting the first strongly-directional character in the sentence and then using that directionality. And since you provide formatting, provide also an option to override the detected directionality.
See here for more information about handling RTL:
https://dotancohen.com/howto/rtl_right_to_left.html
Also, the floating toolbar on mobile is maddening. It precludes reading what was written, which is very important when using e.g. a voice dictation keyboard (maybe not in meetings).
That also means that the URL must be unique enough to not be guessed, and that the person initiating the session should be able to boot off users and lock the session so other users cannot join after every wanted user joins.
Who am I kidding? If anybody ever gets their meeting partners to actually install and use this, I want to hear about it.
I'd love a help button or keyboard shortcut to show keyboard shortcuts.
Thanks!
edit: I figured out the action, with putting [] first. But that was an educated guess based on some other comment here that said actions were checkboxes and me knowing more about Markdown than maybe your average meeting notetaker.
But yeah, I need to make the formatting and shortcuts available much clearer somehow. Thanks for the feedback!
Just for reference in case anyone else finds this comment, we have
action: []
bullet: - at the start of a line
indent: tab and shift tab
bold: cmd+B / ctrl+B
emojis: type : and it brings up an autocomplete selector
image: just paste one in
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You can also highlight any word to bring up a small popup panel with all these options too.
One point of (hopefully) constructive feedback is that it wasn't obvious from my first interaction with the temporary doc that I was able to create checklists and bullet points. Once I saw that those are possible, I quickly guessed the keystrokes, but it might be helpful to add some graphical guidance.
On desktop, you get a little popover menu with all available formatting when you highlight some text. On mobile, it's always there when you select.
I was thinking along the lines of something like a little help icon (?) that might toggle it on desktop, some sort of overlay that only appears on first use, or just a real simple tutorial video or something. I'll think on it. Thanks for the feedback!
What browser are you on if you don't mind me asking?
If you triggered a few login flows there may be some race condition with emails arriving out of order or something.
If you're feeling even more generous with your valuable time and want to let me know your sign in email (my email is davnicwil at gmail) I can investigate further.
Also, I use pen and a notebook. It is better than anything electronic, since we are monkeys and using our eye-hand coordination has proven effects on concentration and learning.
I guess in the end it's my take on a system that I want to use for regular meeting notes with others and that I've never been able to find in any other tool, so I built it.
Also shout-out to Attendee which is OSS for building meeting bots https://github.com/attendee-labs/attendee