Laptops
The always-worth-reading Rands on laptops in meetings
The solution here is simple. If you’re in a meeting where you have no role such that you’re tempted to stare at your laptop: stop going. If you’re running a meeting infested with laptops and, after repeated gentle reminders about your no-laptop policy, there are still laptops: remove the laptop offenders from the meeting.
This brute force approach strikes me as being a violation of the Rands “Don’t be a prick” policy, but frequent readers know that not being a prick is always trumped by the even more important policy of “Don’t waste my time”. Besides, being a prick is going to have some interesting side effects.
It’s worth noting that “don’t waste my time” is a proper subset of “don’t be a prick.”
August 31st, 2007 at 11:46 am
You know. I never get this. I bring laptops to meetings some of the time, but the only time I’ve used it for something other than the purposes of the meeting has been one of those “all hands” meetings, where everyone needs to be there and they speak real slowly to make sure everyone understand (and those I’d gladly not attend). The “Don’t be a prick” policy should be sufficient to ensure that people do the right thing. If it isn’t, it isn’t too hard to embarrass someone who isn’t paying attention at a meeting….
September 1st, 2007 at 8:17 am
Agreed- sometimes I’m amazed at how little actually gets accomplished at meetings because key contributors are off in some other dimension rather than participating.
So more meetings get scheduled.
And the people justify bringing their laptops, because they never get any work done because they are always in meetings….