I read this post about Boycott A Meeting Day, sponsored by 37 Signals. It sounds great, right? I was fired up. I contacted 37 Signals to see what I could do to help.

Meetings are mostly a waste of time, as my readers and followers no doubt know. So of course I was excited. I told 37 Signals we needed to do more to spread the word, make it an event. I offered several suggestions, including printing some t-shirts to give away which I offered to pay for. I said I’d like to interview someone from 37 Signals on why they’re behind this.

But they’re not behind it. It’s a one page web site with no effort and nothing to follow up. Here was their reply to me:

however we can’t really contribute anything more than what’s on the site: http://boycottameetingday.com. We’d love for you to tweet it out. There are also some great quotes on there you can share with your audience.

Let me paraphrase: We’ll do nothing, but we’d love for you to tweet and tell your followers about our press release and make us look like the good guys.

Boycott A Meeting Day is not real. It’s vaporware! It’s just talk. It’s another CEO headfake.

You know the drill: CEO has BRILLIANT IDEA about how to change the way we work and make things more efficient, less bullshit. He calls a big meeting, announces it to the whole company. Things are going to change. But then it gets no budget, no one is assigned to follow up and get people to change behavior, and 10 days later its business as usual.

I’ve seen this before. 10 years ago the COO sent out an email saying that no meetings could be held without a published agenda, and employees should refuse to go without one. But there was no enforcement mechanism, so people had to keep going to pointless meetings because they can’t say no to their boss.

And another thing— that great Jason Fried video at TED where he rails against meetings? It’s a great example of why so many meetings suck— it’s way too long. He rambles. And rambles. He could have made his point in 2 minutes, not 15! Another CEO wasting our time!

The whole thing’s bullshit, and by the 19th, even 37 Signals will probably have forgotten about it. Welcome to business as usual.