My own signal-to-noise ratio was certainly lower than I'd have liked it to be. There are several reasons:
1. I wasn't well prepared for the discussion (and neither were most of the other participants). I'm not sure how that could have been fixed: even if things had been ready earlier, they wouldn't have been distributed outside of a meeting. Maybe having quiet time to read each whole document, then proceeding once everyone had finished?
2. I felt that I was competing for floor time. There was a point when I said "you should discuss this... oh, wait, maybe you already did, but in a previous section... oh, uh, then I guess you should make the connection more explicit, or say it here also, or something, uh..." (etc). Now, one reason I was fumbling so badly was the lack of preparation, of course, but the reason I kept going was that I felt like I had something to say, and eventually I'd figure it out, and I'd better keep the floor, because if I didn't, I might not get it again any time soon.
3. I wasn't entirely clear on our purpose. The general idea was obvious, of course, but... well, more on that in email, not here.
#2 is just a corollary of the problem you were already wondering how to solve, but I guess it helps illustrate the self-reinforcing nature of it.
no subject
1. I wasn't well prepared for the discussion (and neither were most of the other participants). I'm not sure how that could have been fixed: even if things had been ready earlier, they wouldn't have been distributed outside of a meeting. Maybe having quiet time to read each whole document, then proceeding once everyone had finished?
2. I felt that I was competing for floor time. There was a point when I said "you should discuss this... oh, wait, maybe you already did, but in a previous section... oh, uh, then I guess you should make the connection more explicit, or say it here also, or something, uh..." (etc). Now, one reason I was fumbling so badly was the lack of preparation, of course, but the reason I kept going was that I felt like I had something to say, and eventually I'd figure it out, and I'd better keep the floor, because if I didn't, I might not get it again any time soon.
3. I wasn't entirely clear on our purpose. The general idea was obvious, of course, but... well, more on that in email, not here.
#2 is just a corollary of the problem you were already wondering how to solve, but I guess it helps illustrate the self-reinforcing nature of it.