How to Use a Smartphone During a Meeting

Alex Williams wrote "At Meetings, It's Mind Your Blackberry or Mind Your Manners" for the New York Times.

Is it really either/or?

Williams describes a person who took up space at a meeting thumbing away for an hour and a half, playing a racing game. This type of person, I suspect, will soon be rendered moot in the hungry riptide of savvy, talented and creative people who are starting to shape the Imagination Age.

The article goes on to review the mix of reactions various companies have to the use of iPhones and BlackBerrys. One company advises its clients to have its employees turn off devices during meetings (strategic error--why not try taking breaks for checking smartphones periodically instead of cutting employees off from any and all chance of attending to business and/or achieving a work/life balance?)

This made me laugh:

"Beyond practical considerations, there is also the issue of image. In many professional circles, where connections are power, making a show of reaching out to those connections even as co-workers are presenting a spreadsheet presentation seems to have become a kind of workplace boast.

Mr. Brotherton, the consultant, wrote in an e-mail message that it was customary now for professionals to lay BlackBerrys or iPhones on a conference table before a meeting — like gunfighters placing their Colt revolvers on the card tables in a saloon. “It’s a not-so-subtle way of signaling ‘I’m connected. I’m busy. I’m important. And if this meeting doesn’t hold my interest, I’ve got 10 other things I can do instead.’"

Like the cocky thumb-racer on the edge of extinction described above, this kind of worker will soon also be baffled, on the sofa, wondering how it all went downhill so quickly. The point of smartphones is not braggadocio, although we've all seen the type, as if touching a device connotes someone-more-important on the other end. Sometimes this type of person seems like Tom Cruise playing Ben Stiller in a movie, or the other way around, I often find.

The point of devices is the depth of the connections that get facilitated by their existence. The people who understand this will dominate the new economy and culture through authentic engagement.

As for the meetings where speakers are being drowned out by typing--you'd better hope your audience is tweeting your comments and giving you your own hashtag, otherwise maybe they really aren't interested, and its time for new content.