What are Walking Meetings and how can they help us?

I hope you are not tired of “trend” terms, the neologisms that multiply everywhere and the upstart concepts that you can’t seem to memorize that well because they always sound like something else. I actually hope you are not, because here it comes another one, fresh from the oven. Take note, because as soon as you learn about it, as it usually happens, it will start mysteriously proliferating around your acquaintances. Today, in our alien-green Pandora FMS blog, we talk about what Walking Meetings are.

What are Walking Meetings?

Walking Meetings, *drum rolls*, are nothing more than work meetings while you walk. Yes, instead of sitting in an expensive and comfortable desk chair you take a stroll. Therefore, if you work remotely, we recommend you to have a pretty big living room, otherwise, it won’t work, we guarantee…

One of the excuses that surround the concept for its immediate implementation is that it helps us alleviate the sedentary lifestyle of today’s jobs. And it is true that we are all fed up with those pounds we seem to be gaining afterwork, a concept with which I hope you are familiar with, because it is one of the few that truly succeeds today and it is worth it. Although, as for me, I would continue to call it “things got out of hand and I ended up having a hard time the next day at the office.”

Walking Meetings or “Walking while you talk to your boss“, in addition to lowering the volume of your stomach, would help you relax, set you in a good mood and foster a positive environment. The bad thing is that if you are immersed in teleworking and you no longer have data on your business cell phone, your walk would be limited to the place where you still have Wi-Fi connection. That is why it is better to have a big living room.

As we already knew from the famous peripatetic school, walking while talking encourages creativity and reasoning. It is not surprising then that Aristotle strolled around the gardens bordering the temple of Apollo, along with his disciples, to teach them while they did some exercise to digest lunch better.

I know that maybe you are more of an oval noble wood table, blazer and tie, cards and Power Point, seriousness and silence person, while someone explains the new ideas that will no doubt relaunch the company. But things are evolving and what is trending now are Walking Meetings, something like walking the dog but with your work colleagues and while someone assigns, by Skype or in strict presence, the tasks of the week. Sorry, boomer, the elevator pitch is more popular than the static monologues of seniors of the company remembering better times, back in the old days. Dynamism and fluidity, relaxation and conversation, pedestrian exercise and rhythm, cardio and walking, project solutions and original answers. That is what prevails nowadays. And we welcome it with open arms. I have already bought my sneakers for that purpose!

But Walking Meetings already existed

As it is often the case with these types of newly coined concepts, Walking Meetings already existed. There we also have freeganism, for example. Which is basically, for those of you who may not know, “the collection of food that has previously been thrown away or discarded because its expiration date is near or past.” That was already in motion since garbage existed, however now it has a striking name, which some may consider unnecessary, and different nuances, ranging from hipsterism to anti-consumerism.

With Walking Meetings it is the same thing happening again, there were already conversations in the hallway on the way to the cafeteria or restroom, but they have finally become institutionalized and we now have a new excuse to wear shorts to work.

So what before could be a meal for those leading two different companies to reach an agreement of vital importance until way later after dinner, now they meet at the park to talk between gasps while keeping a light gallop. Of course, it is much better for strengthening the core, than the digestive gin tonics and a cigar after a good steak.

Possible benefits of Walking Meetings

• Promoting creativity:

For some causal reason, walking is better. Synapses proliferate, our neurons sparkle, everything seems clearer, and creativity arises, from ear to ear, with a rainbow glow. Stanford University does not have to come to tell us about its experiments with sedentary and athletic people, we all know that movement shakes our heads and favors creation.

• Exercise included:

Until we can eat popcorn without choking and pay attention to Netflix as we drive around with the porch, walking while working is the closest thing to doing something uplifting while exercising. You take a break from the screen for once, relax your burned corneas, and make other just as interesting muscles work.

• Ideal for dealing with complicated topics:

Being locked up, immobile and face to face with someone is not the healthiest way to deliver sensitive news. It is much better to enjoy the air, space, exercise to distress and see the landscape views. If things get ugly you can always accelerate until you leave your teammates behind.

• Good vibes:

Do you remember how good it felt when the teacher decided to teach the class outside because it was too good a day to be inside? Well, the same happiness and good vibes arouse Walking Meetings in the open air. Encouragement and positivism will flood us when we listen to something more than the photocopier in the background and we see something more than the gray facing of our cubicle.

I hope that with this information you can guess by yourself whether Walking Meeting instauration is worth it and you should give it a chance or whether you should just completely ignore them. Maybe you like them and they seem appropriate but with another name, something more simple and humble like “Meetings strolling” or the always cool “Marathon Meeting” or “Running Reunioning”.

But once you’ve gotten into these ins and outs, would you like to keep going? Go even further but into the world of technology? What about spending a couple of minutes to find out what computing system monitoring is and why it is also very important?

Monitoring systems are responsible for supervising technology (hardware, networks and communications, operating systems or applications, for example) in order to analyze its performance, and to detect and alert about possible errors. And this leads us to Pandora FMS, that wonderful tool thanks to which this blog is possible.

Pandora FMS is a flexible monitoring system, capable of monitoring devices, infrastructures, applications, services and business processes.