Gert Franssen, Policy Advisor at a Dutch Municipality, on Why He Can Finally Focus in the Room
Gert Franssen, Policy Advisor, Dutch municipality
Gert Franssen's job is to improve the lives of the people in his city — and it generates a relentless volume of meetings.
As a Policy Advisor for local government in a medium-sized Dutch municipality, Gert researches and advises on policies affecting local welfare and wellbeing. His work takes him through gatherings, conferences, internal coordination sessions, and multi-stakeholder consultations. He also handles administration and coordinates several colleagues. On any given week, the meetings pile up — each one generating decisions, action items, and context that he needs to track, verify, and act on.
"I have too many meetings and too many action points are mentioned in them," he says. "I can't keep track of all of them."
That sentence captures a problem most professional note-takers know well. It's not that the information isn't there — it's that the volume exceeds what any single person can reliably capture, especially while also participating in the discussion.
The trust problem with your own notes
There's a second, subtler issue Gert names that's less often acknowledged: the uncertainty about whether your notes are even accurate.
"I do not always recognize the notes made on a certain meeting," he says, "so it would be nice if I have an easy way to verify the notes are indeed correct."
This is the gap between documentation and confidence. You took notes. But were they complete? Did you capture the right things? Did you miss something that was said quickly, or while you were writing something else? Notes taken under pressure, in a fast-moving meeting, are inherently partial. And partiality, in policy work, can mean real consequences.
Gert came across TicNote through a YouTube video. His primary use case was clear from the start: upcoming meetings where he needed reliable records. But the feature that genuinely surprised him was translation.
"I am very intrigued with the translation options and the possibilities of it to make it useful when abroad," he says.
The kind of modern civic environment where Gert's work takes him — multi-stakeholder gatherings, conferences, and consultations
For a policy advisor who attends international conferences and works in a multilingual environment, the ability to capture and understand content across languages isn't a secondary feature. It's the difference between full participation and partial access.
What he found in practice
What TicNote changed for Gert isn't just the quality of his records. It's the quality of his attention.
"I can focus better on the meetings," he says, "since I know TicNote is taking care of minding the details and creating the overview."
That shift — from actively managing documentation to trusting that documentation is happening — unlocks a different mode of presence in a meeting. When you're not splitting your cognitive load between listening and writing, you can listen more deeply. You can ask better questions. You can follow the conversation rather than chasing it.
The Shadow AI feature also made an impression early on. "The Shadow AI has made a good impression on me, will probably be using it a lot," he says. The ability to interact with recorded content — to surface insights, make connections across meetings, and find information from earlier sessions — is particularly relevant for policy work, where decisions made months ago often resurface with renewed importance.
Still experimenting — which is itself a signal
Gert's responses are candid about where he is: recently onboarded, still building his workflow, not yet drawing on a year of daily use. "I just received it, and am experimenting with it," he says.
That honesty is worth noting. He isn't describing a finished story. He's describing a professional who identified a real problem — too many meetings, too many action points, unreliable notes — and found a tool that addresses it directly. The value isn't hypothetical. The need was real before TicNote arrived. The tool met it.
For other public sector professionals navigating dense meeting schedules, complex multi-stakeholder processes, and accountability for what was decided and when — that match between problem and solution is exactly what matters.
Gert Franssen is a Policy Advisor at a Dutch municipality, working on local welfare and wellbeing policy. He uses TicNote to capture and verify meeting records and is exploring its translation capabilities for international work.
