My wife sent over a clipping from TechFlash’s article about the Northwest Entrepreneur Network’s First Look Forum, which included Qworky, a Seattle based startup looking to “develop software and advanced technologies to help individuals and organizations design a better workday, beginning with better meeting.” She knows how much I despise meetings.

I am always intrigued with companies using technology to improve processes so I decided to take a deeper look at Qworky’s website to see if they had a demo or more information about how they actually plan on help me have better meetings. Here’s what I found out:

1. “Easy to access agendas ensures your meeting tells for years to come. ” Mmm. Okay.

2. “A shared central location for meeting information means Qworky reduces email overhead, all while integrating email for clients and colleagues who live and breathe their inbox. ” Gotcha, central meeting location online.

3. “By incorporating positive cues proven to increase collaborative participation, Qworky Meetings is your ultimate brainstorm companion. Bring Qworky to the Table and the Ideas will follow.”  Apparently, you haven’t met some of the people I sit with in meetings.

And that’s all they’re sharing. Fortunately, the meeting preview they used at NWEN is still available here. You can also go to their preview site and register to set up your own test meeting. It was pretty straight forward. Below is the end result.

So, here the problem. You are asking me to use another artificial process (Qworky) to better another artificial process (the meeting). I assume, eventually, you will even ask me to pay for it. It looks much like a B2C play which is a difficult play when tackling processes within organizations. You may get some adopters here or there but more than likely there will be significant obstacles for widespread use.

I like startups, I like them a lot. I also like to see them tackling cool issues like making meetings better. For that, I wish Qworky luck.

Dan Hall