Meeting Minutes Brainstorming

This is an outline of ideas for how to structure meeting minutes structure, using existing microformats as much as possible.

A schematic outline of thinking for hMinutes:

hMinutes and xoxo root class

• "header" information:
  • title
  • vCard for organization, location
  • date/time
  • hParticipants
    • set of vCards
    • roles in this context
• list of topics (can be extensibly classed, also tagged using relTag)
  • include title, description, etc.
  • include hDecisions in text or as subitems
    • hDecisions also include hParticipants, with roles contextually identifying "proposer", "seconder", "opponent", etc. (locally extensible)
    • hDecisions have their own tags, or inherit topic's tag.
  • Action items using vTodo from iCal spec, in text or as subitems.
• include vEvents for next meetings? special class to notate?

hParticipants

We need a way to list multiple participants -- both in the meeting overall, and in an action item, and perhaps in a decision. So, here's a way to do that:

<span class="hminutes">
...
 <span class="hparticipants">
  <span class="vcard"> 
    <span class="fn">John Doe</span>
    <span class="role">Scribe</span>
    ...
  </span>
  <span class="vcard"> 
    <span class="fn">Mary Smith</span>
    <span class="role">Facilitator</span>
    <span class="title">Director</span>
  </span>
  ... 
 </span>
</span>

• Note: ROLE inside an "hparticipants" is strictly limited to the appropriate context.
  • Inside "hminutes" but nothing else, hparticipants' roles define their role for that meeting.
  • Inside, say, hminutes and <span class="vcalendar"><span class="vtodo">, the roles define who has what part to play in the action item.
  • Inside hminutes and <span class="hdecision"><span class="hparticipants">, the role defines (perhaps) "proponent", or "opponent", or "abstainer" (or "mover", "seconder", "blocker", "standeraside", etc.).
• Also, note that "title" can be used inside hParticipants to define an enduring organizational capacity, rather than a specific role in the immediate context. Does this make sense?

hDecision

• Have an (optional?) topic tag using reltag.
  • If not included, parent topic's tag will be used.
• Use hParticipants to identify who is part of decision.
  • Can we create a special "Everyone [else]" "hCard" value to include all participants from parent meeting? Use the "include" pattern?
• Should have "description" class, if not included tag is used?

hMinutes

Example idea:

		
<ul class="xoxo hminutes">
  <li class="header">
   <ul>
    <li><span class="vcard"><span class="fn org">ABC, Inc.</span>		
    ...		
    </li>
    <li class="meeting">		
     <dl>
      <dt>description</dt><dd>Annual Meeting</dd>
      <dt>location</dt><dd class="vcard">...</dd>
     </dl>
     <abbr class="dtstart" title="DT2006...">April 10, 2006; 7pm</span>		
    <li class="hparticipants">
     Participants:
     <ul>		
       <li class="vcard"> 
         <span class="fn">John Doe</span>, 
         <span class="role">Scribe</span> and
         <span class="title">Volunteer</span>
           ...
        </li>
        <li class="vcard"> 
          <span class="fn">Mary Smith</span>, 
          <span class="role">Facilitator</span> and 
          <span class="title">Director</span>
        </li>
          ... 
       </ul>
    </li>
   </ul>
  <li class="agenda">Meeting Summary:
   <ol>
    <li>
      <a href="http://somethingcool/topic/id" title="Would this be different than what is printed?" rel="tag"><span class="description">Our first topic</span></a>		
      <dt> 
        <dl class="description">		
	  Well, we discussed this and that. Then we 
          <span class="hdecision">
            <span class="description">decided to make a large temple to Indra.</span>
            <span class="hparticipants"> 
              <span class="vcard"> 
                 <span class="fn">James Mack</span> 
                 <span class="role" title="mover">came up with the idea</span>
              </span>, 
              but 
              <span class="vcard">
                <span class="fn">Everyone else</span>
                <span class="role" title="proponent">agreed</span>.		
	      </span>		
            </span>
          </span>
	  <span class="vcalendar">		
	    <span class="vtodo">		
	      There is also this action item ''do example markup''		
	    </span>		
	  </span>
        </dl>
       <dt>
       <ul>
         <li>
         ... subpoints ...
         </li>
       </ul> 
     </li>		
   <li>
   ... next topic ...		
   </li>
  </ol>
 </li>
</ul>		

See Also

Link to related pages as they become available

• meeting-minutes-examples
• meeting-minutes-formats
• -proposal
• -microformat