The Amazon Written Memo Meeting: Nothing New Here

by Dwayne Phillips

Jeff Bezos and Amazon have received much praise for their use of written essays at meetings instead of PowerPoint and bullet points. Great, but not new.

This is a good piece about Amazon’s use of written memos at meetings. Keep the thinking focused. Don’t waste time. Think. Communicate.

Excellent. Great. I love it.

That is why I used it back in 2003 on a government project.

I doubt I was the first. I know Amazon wasn’t the first, because I beat Jeff Bezos to it.

I didn’t become rich and famous, and neither did anyone else on the project. We did, however, save the taxpayers a few million dolalrs, and that was a pretty good thing.