"Few decisions are made"

The BBC series W1A finished in October 2017. Two years later, BBC engineers have finally caught up with some of the ground-breaking technology featured in the show, particularly the Digital Handshake delivered by Syncopatico software.

Welcome, then, to BBC Zoom. It allows you to schedule meetings, video-conference from mobiles, laptops and PCs, share audio and video, and use an interactive whiteboard. Hmm. Or you could just set up a WhatsApp group....

Meanwhile, this BBC News report on the value of meetings (facilitated or not by Zoom) gives a better route to a more productive re-imagination of work.

Academics from the University of Malmo in Sweden say meetings provide an outlet for people at work to show off their status or to express frustration. Professor Patrik Hall says they are becoming increasingly frequent - as more managerial and "strategy" jobs generate more meetings.

But he says despite there being more meetings "few decisions are made".

Prof Hall has investigated an apparent contradiction in how people can have a low opinion of work meetings, yet their numbers keep increasing. The political scientist says the rise in meetings reflects changes in the workforce - with fewer people doing and making things and an increase in those involved in "meetings-intense" roles such as strategists, advisers, consultants and managers.

"People don't do concrete things any more," he says.