As we worked to find out more about the origins of meetings in our History of Meetings research poster, we realized that though the reasons, and settings may have changed, the underlying way people met was pretty well consistent across the board. They come, they meet/discuss/brainstorm/share, they assign next steps, they leave (and repeat).

Within this basic formula, it was usually the tool used to facilitate the meeting that provided the most insights about the meeting. The tool can reflect the culture, time period, social status, and any number of other things. From collaboration contraptions to time-keeping devices, from long-distance gadgets to simple note-taking utensils, we compiled the increasingly changing landscape of today’s meeting tools into groupings to better understand what’s out there.

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