Is the time right for a "no laptop" rule? [BT broadband office]

Is the time right for a "no laptop" rule?

Posted 19 March 2008 at 8:12AM by Ian Betteridge in IT systems and support

If you've attended any meetings lately (and if not, you're fired!) you'll probably have noticed a creeping tendency: the ever-open laptop. Where once, everyone wrote notes in little notebooks, or - if you were the boss - a large, luxurious leather-bound portfolio, now people type notes directly into a machine.

And, of course, that's often not the only thing they do. If they've forgotten to turn the sound down, you might here the occasional "bing" sound as email arrives, and they start to read it. If the meeting's really boring, you'll probably hear them continuously typing, probably IMing their friends to say how boring the meeting is.

The result, if you have lots of people doing it, is like talking to a set of people with shields in front of them. Their attention is constantly shifting from you to the screen and - if you're lucky - back to you. At no point are they actually giving you 100% attention.

But perhaps it's time for a backlash. Blogger (and Yahoo! engineer) Jeremy Zawodny has noted an increasing trend for "no laptop" rules in meetings - forcing people to actually pay attention to what's being discussed.

It sounds like a great idea, but what's interesting is some of the comments left by others on his post. One commentator summed it up nicely: "Most company meetings I've ever been to have been useless. It should come as no surprise to anybody that people would rather do work."

So perhaps the issue isn't just laptops - but meetings which pull in too many people simply so that the meeting runner can be seen to be "consulting" with everyone. With meetings, maybe less is actually more.

Tags: bt, bt broadbandoffice, laptops

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Comments

1. At March 19, 2008 8:37 AM, Anonymous wrote:

I have a hour long meeting every week with my superior and fellow workers and I for one would rather work. I find that after the first 25 minutes the agenda is completed and then we here the "empty vessles making the loudest noise" again. Dont get me wrong though, occasionally (1 in 4) meetings are worth the while.
Pehaps a monthly or fornightly meeting would better suit our workplace but no, management keep saying these meetings need to take place weekly, boring.

2. At March 19, 2008 10:08 AM, Anonymous wrote:

I have a daily meeting for about 20 mins. with a colleague to discuss what needs doing during the day. I find it focuses us very well, especially as the colleague is my daughter & work is my own business & there are only two of us!

3. At March 20, 2008 3:12 PM, Pat wrote:

My colleagues and I get together one lunchtime a week for a working lunch for an hour. We get to chat, and realign, and focus on the needs and the goals for the week.

4. At March 23, 2008 1:04 AM, Penny Harvey wrote:

I have to say that I personally find it very distracting when people are involved on their laptops. I know they do take notes, and I've just finished a conference where a common wiki was used to stimulated dialogue and so people were summarising content, uploading notes and posting comments while everything was going on. It's like kids of the 'Net Generation' who multi-task on multi-media all the time. I do, however, find that the dynamic that is created in the room makes it very difficult to keep attention. It may be that it's okay for some meetings - where wiki activity is important, or where a person's involvement in the meeting is by necessity sporadic (ie some areas are relevant and require input, some not). However, the value of a face to face meeting is to create quality discussion around important and relevant topics - so I would agree with the point that if meetings are being used for other things then they should be questioned. If it's just about 'information transfer' or getting individual comments this can all happen by other means. We need to get more discerning about purposes of communication, realise that face to face meetings can be costly in time (and travel) but are extremely valuable (and in fact essential) for the right things - discussing/exploring complex problems, gaining commitment to a way forward, getting shared clarity at key points in a project, building relationships, creating new ideas...). If we had meetings for the right reasons, with the right people there, and they were focused and well run (and all concerned took collective responsibility for this!), then perhaps laptops would not be the problem they are.

5. At March 24, 2008 7:53 AM, Patricia Palmer wrote:

As a former medical secretary in the old days I used to take the minutes in shorthand. Before I left the profession I found it easier and quicker to take the minutes on my laptop and just complete them, amending typing mistakes after the meeting.

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