“No Laptop” Meetings: Baby and Bathwater?
March 13th, 2008 (11:00am) Mike Gunderloy 17 Comments
Yahoo’s Jeremy Zawodny recently blogged about a proto-trend he’s seeing in the workplace: meetings that advertise and enforce a “no laptop” rule. The idea behind this is that if people don’t really find a meeting important enough to pay attention to, they shouldn’t be there, and that we’ve reached the point where such common courtesy needs to be demanded rather than assumed.
It’s an attractive idea to anyone who has ever attended a meeting at which most of the people were paying more attention to their screen and keyboard than to the presenter. But in our view, this seemingly innocuous rule just makes the laptop a scapegoat for the underlying problems, which have little to do with laptops (or other devices) themselves.
There are two problems here. First, issuing a blanket ban on laptops at meetings ignores the very real benefits that they can bring to meetings. As typing dominates our working day, many of us take better notes on the keyboard than with a pencil and paper. Meeting presenters, of course, use the laptop to hold their slides and examples. At other meetings, it’s a real time-saver to be tied in live to an issue tracking database or a corporate calendar, so that information can be brought in and decisions recorded in the appropriate system quickly.
Second, if a meeting doesn’t demand the attention of the attendees, why blame the attendees rather than the meeting organizer? If people are distracted during your meetings, it’s time to consider the possibility that you are having too many meetings or inviting too many people. Attention doesn’t seem to be an issue at the truly important meetings in many organizations.
Of course, to some extent web workers have an advantage here: as long as you’re using a teleconference instead of a videoconference, and have a reasonably silent keyboard, no one can tell if you’re bringing your laptop (or even your desktop!) to a meeting. But it ought to be possible for reasonable adults to be engaged in a meeting whether they happen to have a laptop, a notepad, or a bagel in front of them. If they can’t, look to the underlying social and process issues, not to the handiest technology in the room, for the blame.
17 Comments Post your own comment
rick gregory says: March 13th, 2008 11:11am
“if a meeting doesn’t demand the attention of the attendees, why blame the attendees rather than the meeting organizer? ”
I dunno Mike. It seems like everyone wants all of the meetings (and lectures and conference presentations) that they go to to entertain them and if it doesn’t do that they feel perfectly justified in hanging out on Twitter, IMing friends, etc.
“t other meetings, it’s a real time-saver to be tied in live to an issue tracking database or a corporate calendar, so that information can be brought in and decisions recorded in the appropriate system quickly.”
Sure. But not everyone in the meeting usually needs to be tied into these systems. If it’s valuable for the meeting participants to see the issues database or corporate calendar etc, bring it up on screen. Everyone doesn’t need to have it on their personal laptop.
I think what has Jeremy up in arms is that people who are paying attention to their laptops aren’t focused on the meeting. If the meeting is worthwhile and you invited them because you really need to have them there, then it’s flat out rude for them to do something else during the meeting. And in the vast majority of cases it IS something else that more people end up doing, not work that’s relevant to the meeting they’re in.
Chris Lopez says: March 13th, 2008 12:01pm
I agree with you, Mike. I think the real issue it that most meetings are either boring or unnecessary. But unlike Mr. Gregory, I do not see it as a matter of being entertained, but rather one of relevance. If the meeting organizer feels the subject matter is important, then it is the organizer’s responsibility to ensure that the attendees understand how the subject relates to them or what they do.
Similarly, it seems many meetings are convened for the purpose of conveying information that could just as easily be disseminated via e-mail or some other means.
jtpratt says: March 13th, 2008 12:30pm
While people should certainly pay attention, and the speaker should strive to hold their attention – I can’t count the number of meetings where the guy beside me had the audacity to read email, IM someone, and even check his “matchmaker.com” messages while in a staff meeting. I think that Jeremy thinks that the only way to curb bad behavior is to eliminate the source of the problem – “the laptop”.
Brian Carnell says: March 13th, 2008 1:15pm
Yes…I’ve been in meetings with “no laptop” rules and you see the glazed over looks of the folks about to fall asleep during yet another pointless meeting rather than doing something productive on their laptop.
I couldn’t imagine instituting a no-laptop rule. It’s really a crutch for weak presenters and folks who insist on calling meetings for no real reason or inviting people who don’t really need to be there.
kathryn says: March 13th, 2008 1:17pm
at my old job, we were a six-person team, two of the attendees routinely worked through entire meetings, paying little attention to the presenter (and looking sheepish when asked for input, having to ask for the topic to be repeated). we instituted a laptops-only-for-meeting-related-work (presenting, notetaking). it didn’t work. these laptop addicts kept bringing their laptops, under the guise that it was work-related.
the problem had nothing to do with the presenter or meeting topic, and everything to do with an addictive quality in these people’s relationships to their email. when someone is an addict, and they are abusing, you take the drink out of their hand. looking back, i wish our boss had had the nerve to set a firm no-laptops policy, despite the objections of the two addicts.
i believe that in addition to having more effective meetings, we would have had shorter meetings, with everyone eager to finish the business of the meeting and get back to their computers.
bob says: March 13th, 2008 1:32pm
While I agree that laptops are not the real problem, relevant meetings are, the best solution is eliminate the laptop. When laptops are brought to meetings, there’s no incentive to be efficient. When meetings drag, no big deal, I’ll just check my email, IM the person I should be talking to, check my stock portfolio, etc. When laptops are gone, the attendees start asking “what’s the purpose?” and “how can we resolve this?”
Timmy says: March 13th, 2008 1:45pm
But how else could you IM trash talk the presenters ideas to your homeys in the room?
I totally agree that laptops are a distraction in meetings… but maybe a no-wifi rule would remove much of the distraction while still allowing for note taking (though one could still catch up with mail offline).
If a laptop ban is imposed, what about blackberry/iphones??
rick gregory says: March 13th, 2008 2:23pm
Sure, meetings need to be relevant and far too many places have useless meetings. That’s certainly a fault of the company or at least the people calling those meetings.
But far too often the response to this kind of proposal (no laptops in classes/meetings/eetc) is that it’s the presenter’s fault, as if the people in the event have no responsibility to pay attention even if the presenter isn’t award-winningly engaging.
Presuming that the meeting is needed and you’re there for a reason – pay attention.
Lawrence Salberg says: March 13th, 2008 4:44pm
Some commenters here have already touched on my central point: Eliminate ALL Meetings.
Yahoo is great, but make the jump to hyperspace. At 38 years old, working for dozens of companies (and clients) in my life since the ripe age of 18, I have yet (!) to be in a meeting that was worthwhile.
I’m still waiting for it. Conferences can be good. Personal connections is great. A meeting led by a big cheese imparting his brand of knowledge or what-have-you to his underlings is and always will be a complete waste of time.
The costs of meetings are astronomical when you count up the salaries (times 1.5 for benefits/taxes). It is public school mentality that lets us sit still in our seats and listen to someone drone on while little dumbo in the corner derails the central points (if we can be so polite as to call the information ‘points’) with his or her comments and questions. Just like junior high all over.
There is no reason for anyone to have a meeting. So, save the ‘no laptop’ rule Jeremy. Start a ‘no meeting’ rule. If there is ANY other way to impart the information, the organization of the 21st century will use it.
Jim says: March 13th, 2008 5:20pm
Lawrence… I was hoping someone would say that. I’ve never been to a necessary meeting… including the many that I myself have called.
Roberto says: March 13th, 2008 6:33pm
I kind of see the point. Some people take better notes with a keyboard, but we’re all capable of taking good notes with pen and paper, and draw boxes, diagrams and sketch flow charts much more easily.
And if the meeting gets boring you can always doodle city-stomping dinosaurs or draw caricatures of your colleagues (not always a good idea).
What’s true is that meetings should be very short and very focused.
Brendan says: March 14th, 2008 2:10am
I agree with Lawrence a no more meetings rule. The second one would be a no more obnoxious people rule. I notice that those people that are always busy on their laptop are also the most rude when they are not working on their laptop.
Barry says: March 14th, 2008 7:29am
I started a new job a few months ago and the culture is that everybody brings a laptop to meetings. Very different, but I’m beginning to get it. Stay in contact via IM with people across the country or across the room, access information from company DBs or Internet during the meeting for reference, field urgent customer requests, take notes directly to PC avoiding duplicate effort copying them later. All while participating in the meeting.
Wonder if it is a generational thing? Are people over 40 (myself included) less comfortable with laptops in meetings? If you grew up with computers your whole life, maybe that makes you more comfortable having them with you everywhere you go. Just a thought.
mb says: March 14th, 2008 7:58am
After my first year in college I was on academic probation, and I was required to take a class in college study skills. This was the single best class I took at college, but the one thing that I thought of while reading this article is something the instructor told everyone in the class:
“The best students are NOT looking at the professor while they speak. They’re looking down at their notes trying to get a lot of the ideas they need.”
So I’ve always thought of that in each meeting I’ve attended. I’m not looking at the presenter, I’m annotating the handouts or otherwise taking notes.
Paul says: March 14th, 2008 8:02am
Having worked briefly for a company which had a “more meetings == good” mentality, I’m not surprised that people zone out, or find other things to use the time for.
The only useful meetings I’ve ever been to, anywhere, were discussions among devs regarding design and implementation, and the managers weren’t even involved.
If people aren’t paying attention, perhaps they should be back at their desk, getting things done, instead of stuck in a meeting that’s clearly of little relevance to them. But then that would upset the type of incompetent PHB who calls such pointless meetings in the first place.
c says: March 14th, 2008 12:46pm
Ditto on the no meetings thing. I’ve never been in a meeting that couldn’t be accomplished much more efficiently over email, phone or IM. Having said that, I always enjoy the muffins, diet coke, and time to daydream.
Judi Sohn says: March 15th, 2008 11:10am
mb, I think that’s a really good point.
I know that if I have my laptop and internet access, I will often look something up in a meeting that is relevant to the topic. It often happens that someone will be talking about a subject, it will sound familiar and sure enough I will figure out on the spot that it has already been done and/or considered by someone else. That saves us all time in the long run.
The more important the meeting, and the more I have to focus on the topic, the more likely it is that I will bring my laptop. Not less.
So just because my head is down and I’m looking at the screen, it doesn’t mean that I’m not fully engaged in the meeting. I don’t have to see lips moving to be listening. ;-) If I have my laptop, it means I can turn talking points into action plans without having to wait until later.