At my online marketing company VerticalResponse, anyone can view someone's calendar and see when the person is available in hour increments, which seems to make folks book an entire hour for meetings. In my opinion, for most meetings, that's way too long.
I want to underscore why I think you should pre-set most meetings to 30 minutes or less and have an agenda you send out prior. In 30 minutes you should be able to:
1. Prepare yourself for a fast-moving pace.
2. Make decisions on the spot, or commit to making the decision in a specific timeframe.
3. Get to the bottom of an issue.
4. Ask what you need to do to make your attendees successful.
5. Tell your attendees what they need to do to be successful.
6. Get what you want out of the meeting.
Meet adjourned.