My personal war against Crackberry
by Todd WilkensIn this age of wireless Internet and mobile email devices, having an effective meeting or working session is becoming more and more difficult. Laptops, Blackberries, Sidekicks, iphones, and the like keep people from being fully present. Aside from just being rude, partial attention generally leads to partial results. Multi-tasking is a myth (and there are lots of other articles corroborating Merlin’s points). This is especially damaging in highly collaborative and interdisciplinary fields like UX. Here at the office, we’ve begun to make most of our meetings “topless” (i.e. no laptops allowed). I’ve gone a step further by trying to ban any form of networked communication from the working meetings I put together. While my colleagues here at Adaptive Path have been tolerant of my eccentricities, it’s not so easy when working with clients whose companies have a culture of being always connected and checking. So, I thought I’d share a few tips I’ve picked up for getting people to put down their Crackberries and actually do some work.
- No rules without reasons. Don’t just ban laptops and handhelds with no explanation. Make sure to point out how important it is that the group focus on the task at hand. It’s very hard to argue with that.
- Be the bad guy. Someone has to be the one to stand up to the social pressure. It can be an uncomfortable prospect but it is necessary. Luckily, you’ll find that many people secretly want to have the excuse to disconnect and focus. They just don’t want to take the risk of making people upset. Don’t be afraid to make people a little uncomfortable in the name of productivity.
- Consequences. You don’t need a slap on the wrist or a time out to make this work. Social pressure is powerful. No one wants to be called out in front of a group. Make sure they know you are not afraid to do this if you see them breaking the rule. (Note: I learned this trick teaching sociology to undergrads.)
- For short sessions: point out that there are few things that you will get via email that can’t wait until the end of an hour meeting. If you need to deal with a phone call or urgent message, get up and leave the room.
- For long sessions: include regular 15-20 minute breaks and let people know these are there explicitly to give them time to check in on things.
- Out of hand, out of mind. Have everyone put their phone/mobile device in a box or on a counter in the corner of the room. We all know that it is nearly impossible to ignore a vibrating device in your pocket. Just admit it and account for it.
- State the costs. If you are a consultant, remind them that they are paying you $XXX an hour to watch them check their email. I’ve found that to be extremely effective.
I can’t tell you how many times I have had people actually thank me for being such a hard ass about these things. The above list has just a few of the tricks I’ve used to combat the insidious, addictive power of Blackberries, etc. It’s no where near complete, so please add your thoughts and experiences in the comments.
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November 15th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
what about note taking ?
November 16th, 2007 at 4:06 am
Good reading!
Enjoy having wireless access at a conference, especially when traveling to the US from Asia — but admittedly you find that you only have half your attention on the content being delivered. Then throw in IM, Twitter etc and you have an interesting attention issue.
November 30th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Hans: that’s what pen and paper are for.
November 30th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
In my case, it would be a personal war against meetings. If most places are like the office where I work, the reason people bring their laptops and Crackberries to meetings is that the meetings are essentially a superfluous waste of time in the first place. Except for the people conducting the meeting, each person is needed for about five minutes (a different five minutes in each case, of course). In the rare case where the meeting is really necessary, people bring notepads instead of laptops.
November 30th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Interesting. More than anything this emphatically demonstrates the controlling, insecure personality of the meeting-giver. Have a nice day!
November 30th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
[...] hours, and reminding clients that they’re paying you to watch them check their email. Heh. My personal war against Crackberry [Adaptive Path via [...]
November 30th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Charles:
If I were to take notes on paper, then there truly would be a lack of attention. Alas, I type approximately 10 x faster than I take notes and then the lost time from later transcribing the notes into readable actionable data points in my laptop make it a huge waste of time if my laptop is not present.
Yes, you need to have discipline for sure, and I know some people CAN’T have their laptop on without checking email/IM/etc but that doesn’t mean the adults in the room should suffer..
November 30th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Better yet, here’s a good strategy. Every meeting is optional for everyone. If no one shows up, then you know there was no reason for the meeting to happen in the first place.
If somebody’s completely disengaged from the group, it’s obvious. Let them know that it’s optional that they’re there, and if there’s something more important that they need to attend to, please do so (outside of the meeting space).
Thankfully I don’t have to attend meetings in my current role. In my last life, I attended very few meetings that were more than somebody just wanting to hear themselves talk in front of an audience.
November 30th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
I tend to agree with Larry, many meetings tend to go on and on about subjects that have no relevance to your work. With the increasing demand on the American workforce to do more with less, most people have no choice but try to multi-task.
I would love to work in the Utopian office world that everyone speaks of in these blogs, where you have time to review your email leisurely at your desk, map out project plans that will really complete on time and under budget and not be sidetracked by executives who do not really understand the formula of time equals money.
I can probably clean up 25 emails on my Crackberry while people are babbling on about why their team is better than mine.
November 30th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
[...] and reminding clients that they’re stipendiary you to analyse them analyse their email. Heh. My individualized struggle against Crackberry [Adaptive Path via [...]
November 30th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
During the typical poorly designed meeting, I like using my laptop and having my cell phone on vibrate. My time is being wasted. What does it matter how it’s wasted?
But meetings don’t have to be a waste of time. Productive meetings have common characteristics: They are designed. They have a purpose. They have the right people and not too many of them. If someone isn’t focused, it’s obvious to everyone. That type of meetings doesn’t require the banning of devices.
I find it instructive to sometimes start a meeting by asking each participant to answer the question, “What prevents you from being fully present at this meeting?” I’ve discovered that sometimes people have solid reasons for wanting their devices, such as having their cell phones on vibrate. For instance, they are expecting a call from an important client or, even more important, their spouse or child is ill and they may need to attend to them. These are all legitimate reasons for needing to have a cell phone on vibrate.
I agree with your complaint; devices can distract meeting participants. I want participants to focus. And I want to treat them as adults rather than children. Banning devices may not cause someone to focus one bit more. Instead of playing with the device, they doodle on a paper. The best means I know for gaining focus is investing time to design a meeting that creates a return for each participant and for the group as a whole. Meeting can be made functional. Organizational leaders can stand up and say we are tired of our people’s time being wasted and we are going to make our meetings productive.
December 1st, 2007 at 1:17 am
[...] Todd Wilkens » My personal war against Crackberry multitasking is a myth… trying to ban any form of networked communication from the working meetings I put together (tags: internet gtd wireless culture future) [...]
December 1st, 2007 at 6:18 am
How would you feel about a tablet PC in the meeting room? I use one along with Microsoft OneNote to take all of my notes and I honestly don’t know if I could go back to plain ol’ paper now. I can take handwritten notes and convert it to text if necessary. It indexes even the handwritten stuff so it’s searchable. I can tag an action item as a to do and it shows up on my list instantly. It’s nice when my boss starts handing out tasks because they are already on my to do list with zero extra effort.
I don’t think the problem is the technology. It’s the people. They are overworked, and quite frankly, rude. Even if I’m bored to tears in a meeting, I take notes so at least I’m focused on capturing any relevant information that comes along. Maybe we need to start looking harder at the purpose of meetings and put more emphasis on quality content and trimming the particpant list down to minimum number of folks who actually need to be there.
December 1st, 2007 at 8:55 am
Why would anyone want to do that? Laptops are a lifeline that help you endure long and normally fruitless meetings…
December 1st, 2007 at 12:36 pm
I agree with the majority of anti-dictator comments. Notebooks are much better (for touch typists, at least) for taking notes than pencil and paper, and though you regard people ignoring you as rude, I consider people demanding my time without demonstrating value to be far ruder. Calling a meeting is an admission of failure and nearly always a spectacular waste of organizational resources.
The more of your transactions with other people are voluntary (except, perhaps, when parenting), the better you’re living your life. Let go of your desire to control other human beings and you’ll be a happier person.
December 1st, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Good luck with your quest to ban networked communication from meetings. I’m sure as time goes on and tech advances that it will only become easier and easier…
Steve comes the closest to making the argument that takes this strategy out. Here’s how it breaks down in my mind:
Is it possible to take effective notes on a laptop? Yes.
Is it possible to not pay attention even if you have no objects to play with? Yes.
(In fact, laptops can sometimes even be important for meetings. Shocker, I know.)
What do we do with people who can’t pay attention to important information? Usually they’re replaced or trained to not donk off during important-information-exchange-sessions.
The problem doesn’t lie with the laptops. That’s like saying we should get rid of cars to stop car accidents. Clearly that would stop car accidents but going around banning things willy-nilly because they can be used for evil is the wrong approach. Despite its being couched in seemingly moderate rhetoric the whole thing is eerily reminiscent of Ludditism.
And we all know how things worked out for the Luddites.
It seems to me that there are two long-term solutions to the problem of distraction in meetings (or at least ones that address the root of the problem and not a symptom):
1. Better meetings. Meetings that present information in an easy-to-digest and, dare I say it, aesthetically pleasing way, and are designed to foster streamlined exchanges of ideas aren’t be that hard to pay attention to. It should be a test of the skill of the presenter and not the patience of the observer.
2. Better listening skills. People who don’t pay attention when they have a computer are doing the same thing as people who can’t pay attention when they have any other toy. We should teach ourselves to be responsible computer-users, and be ready to be replaced, retrained or reprimanded if we aren’t.
December 1st, 2007 at 6:37 pm
Darren,
Don’t fool yourself — very few people (probably none) take notes significantly faster on their computer than on paper, even considering transcription time. This is both the most common, and least convincing argument for having laptops in meetings.
December 1st, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Time would be better spent finding ways to encourage people to not schedule long useless meetings in the first place.
December 1st, 2007 at 7:23 pm
I have my cell phone with me because I have kids in school and when they call to tell me a child is sick, you better believe I need to answer it.
Also, I take my notes better on my laptop. Period. My handwriting is nearly unrecognizable.
December 1st, 2007 at 11:57 pm
First, to all of you telling me to give up control, no. Lack of structure and control are exactly what makes for pointless and ineffective meetings. Remember that control != dictatorship. Good meetings are not given by a speaker, they are facilitated by a leader. Facilitation means setting the goal(s) (generally with the group), planning the activities that will get the group to that goal, and making sure that the group stays on track. That is often impossible without some level of control and leadership, especially if the group is larger than 3.
Second, the technology IS to blame, at least partially. Blackberries, Treos, Sidekicks, etc. and laptops are networked devices that for the most part are PURPOSEFULLY DESIGNED to attract our attention without regard for the place we are or the activity we are engaged in. This is especially true in this age of email, IM, and twitter. These devices are not the problem so much as the networks they are connected to. For example, taking notes on a laptop or tablet is great but only about .001% of people take notes with their wireless card turned off or network apps shut down. Of course, there are two sides to this coin. This distraction thing requires a person that can be distracted, which brings me to…
Third, people are habitual creatures. It is technically possible for people to resist the pull to answer that IM window that just popped up or that email that just came in. But the fact is most people don’t resist. Why? Because they have been trained by companies that expect them to respond to everything RIGHT NOW to focus most of their attention on what is new at the expense of what they might have been engaged in before the new thing popped up. They are also trained by poor meeting facilitators to understand group activities (i.e. meetings) to be pointless or at least only marginally relevant to their jobs. People need help to break out of old habits. That’s why it helps to be a little extreme the first few times you try to break the viscous cycle.
I work very hard to make the meetings I call meaningful and effective. First and foremost that means that the meeting isn’t about me. It’s about the group and a common task or goal. I make sure that I have a specific role in mind for every person that will be present. I also make sure that we all know what each of those people is hoping to get out the time they are giving to the group. I plan the activities carefully. Despite all the preparation, I also stay flexible to let the conversation go where it needs to in order to serve our group goals. That often means scrapping 50-75% of what I had planned.
But all of that means that I need people in that room to be involved. If not, there’s really no reason for us to be there. To avoid wasting everyone’s time, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that people put down their freaking laptops and phones in order to participate.
December 2nd, 2007 at 12:10 am
“I work very hard to make the meetings I call meaningful and effective. First and foremost that means that the meeting isn’t about me. It’s about the group and a common task or goal. I make sure that I have a specific role in mind for every person that will be present. I also make sure that we all know what each of those people is hoping to get out the time they are giving to the group. I plan the activities carefully. Despite all the preparation, I also stay flexible to let the conversation go where it needs to in order to serve our group goals. That often means scrapping 50-75% of what I had planned.”
Um, no, you’re not. If the meeting was actually relevant and interesting to those involved, they wouldn’t all be using their Blackberries and laptops. Dull people with pointless agendas who invite half the world to their meetings then like to complain that everyone’s ignoring them for the network device. Well, duh.
“But all of that means that I need people in that room to be involved. If not, there’s really no reason for us to be there.”
Yes, exactly! Your team is voting with their network devices on whether or not they really need to be in the room. You’re just choosing to ignore the obvious.
December 2nd, 2007 at 3:47 am
[...] Via: Adaptive Path [...]
December 2nd, 2007 at 10:09 am
I usually have my laptop in meetings, never check my email though as I tend to turn off wifi etc. as the battery lasts longer. However on the train back to my office I can send the client a copy of the detailed notes I have taken (on my laptop) as I can quite happily note take without paying much attention to my typing during the meeting. I would have to concentrate on my notes if I were writing longhand AND would then have to type them up afterwards so that everyone has a copy of what was agreed, assuming I could read my writing!
I agree with the sentiments of many here - if there are people chatting/IMing/checking email/falling asleep/gazing out the window in your meetings …why are they there?
December 2nd, 2007 at 10:22 am
I was rereading the comments to this post and I think I should clarify a few things here because some of the comments make some dangerous and erroneous assumptions. It seems that many people have interpreted my post as saying “Woe is me. No one pays attention at my meetings. It can’t possibly be my fault so it must be that darn technology. To combat the evil technology and the annoying fact of human free will I will enact harsh and totalitarian controls to ensure my dominance and power.”
The decision to keep laptops out of meetings was one made by EVERYONE AT ADAPTIVE PATH and I wasn’t even the one to suggest it. We just realized that our meetings and working sessions were suffering from partial attention. So, the statements I am making are my own but much of the sentiment is shared by my coworkers. I will admit that I am taking it farther than others with my attempts to limit the use of iphones, treos, etc. but that is only because their presence defeats the purpose of the laptop ban.
Also, we’re not talking about a strict, mindless, and bureaucratic ban on laptops and mobile devices. If someone gets an urgent phone call or text, they are free to leave the room and deal with it. If you’re using a laptop for something directly related to the meeting, please use that technology for all of our benefit. But don’t sit there staring at your iphone watching your twitters come in or playing Bejeweled. Don’t try to book your hotel for the business trip next week. The very act of checking an email to see if it is urgent distracts you from the task at hand. But it’s sooooo hard not to check. If something flashes on the screen you WILL look at it. So, why not remove the the temptation, just for a little bit.
It’s funny that so many people have gotten so upset by a post aimed at making meetings work better. The fact that so many people are reacting so vehemently to the post shows that I have hit on a sore spot with people. It’s interesting though that the negative responses just seem to assume that meetings and the people who run them are boring, stupid, pointless, etc. rather than taking a group view. The people attending the meeting are also responsible for its success or failure. If it isn’t working, talk about it. Offer suggestions. Get it out on the table to talk about it.
I know that laptops and cell phones are only a small issue that exacerbates underlying problems. They are not the cause. However, solving those underlying problems is completely impossible if no one is bothering to pay attention. Checking out or simply complaining is not the answer. You don’t make change by checking out.
December 2nd, 2007 at 10:23 am
I am probably guilty as most checking email and im during meetings at work mostly because many meetings are a huge waste of time and i am supposed to be there. They reoccur and people just have expected them to happen as a regular operating mechanism… What successful project is successful without daily/monthly reviews? (Sarcasm)
When i run a meeting though i always send out an agenda with any objective, keep it small and short, and follow up with meeting notes (ie action items). Those action items go into the @waiting category in my gtd system.
December 2nd, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Spencer,
You have got to be kidding! Nobody can type faster than they can write? You’re so wrong! Are you a hunter/pecker? Most people use two hands and ten fingers while typing. They become quite fast at it after surprisingly little practice. I can type faster with two thumbs on my Qwerty Blackberry than I could ever write legibly. Heck, I can type faster on a numeric keypad than you can write.
Try using ten fingers. You’ll like it. (Apologies if you’re missing 8 fingers, or if you were trying to be sarcastic in your post.)
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:42 am
We use laptops in meetings all the time, we don’t have many Blackberries were we work. Their appropriateness depends greatly on the task at hand, but generally they are positive. We use Wiki extensively to keep notes and minutes of the meeting, so we need a connection for that. Often we will need information from outside the group, so we will compose group emails during the meeting time requesting information. Also, we have used them to pull up machine specs, estimated prices, etc.
I’ve also used the laptop in boring meetings I am required to attend, particularly to keep the email beast at bay, deleting and filing them, which takes little effort or concentration to do.
I also (as a rule) do not use IM, Twitter, etc.
I also do not keep paper notes. Everything goes somewhere online, where is it automatically backed up and not dependent on any physical object.
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:45 am
I just read the further information you put in the comments.
We have complaints of “a lack of meeting space”, but no one seems to think “we have too many meetings”. I’m relatively sure that if we adopted a “silence/non-attendance = agreement” policy, we would have a lot fewer meetings and a lot more would proceed forward.
December 3rd, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Meetings are generally a waste of time because they easily get sidetracked by dominant personalities that want to go off on some tangent or another. It’s frustrating and counterproductive to force people to deliberately be non-productive in order to make the “leadership” feel like they have a handle on things. Banning laptops is a bad approach. A good approach, one that I have seen work, is to have a strong moderator who keeps everything on track and keeps those co-workers who try to justify their existence through verbosity in check. Amen! Keep the laptops, get a moderator, coordinate with each other, and get the heck out and back to work.
December 3rd, 2007 at 9:21 pm
Maybe people are checking their email and Blackberries because you/your meetings are super boring. Shorten up the meetings and make them interesting and people won’t have time to check their email. By banning laptops and Blackberries you just look like a luddite.
December 4th, 2007 at 9:32 am
Pen and Paper! Are you serious? I use Mind Mapping software to take notes and to run my own meetings. We have a great online collaborative environment (perhaps yours just — isn’t that good). I have found that having people connected to the network during meetings facilitated the meeting by enabling them to have access to our library’s and collaborative workspaces. Basically, they can verify ideas, look up company information, fact check, etc.; all on the fly.
I don’t like the blackberry and cell phone use either, but I only ask that they turn off their ringers (and don’t leave them on the table to vibrate (the AADD people love this).
I find you lack of faith in technology disturbing.
December 5th, 2007 at 1:00 am
When attending a meeting don’t forget the most important piece of equipment. For those who have missed it: it is called a brain. They say it is very effective and efficient in dealing with the very complex tasks of getting the most from a meeting. Some even find that it is very pleasing and most giving to entertain their brain during the inevitably - even during the very best of conducted meetings - dead moments.
PS If you bring a brain remember to install CommonSense 2007
December 6th, 2007 at 12:55 am
[...] person on the other end so important that you can’t focus on your boss for 5 minutes? I saw this article a few days ago about having meeting without the distraction of laptops, cellphones, or [...]
December 6th, 2007 at 1:06 am
@everyone: It’s easy to tell if someone’s laptop use is contributing to the meeting (looking up relevant things, taking notes) or distracting from it: You can tell from the body language of the people who are there to listen (and honestly I invite a lot of people to meetings because I want them simply to hear stuff),and from the words and ideas of those who are there to contribute. It’s nothing new — it’s good old-fasioned unprofessionalism. “Pay attention to your teammates when they speak”– respecting the time of your colleagues — is just Business 101. So is “Listen carefully to what your boss/client says and don’t offend them by ignoring them”. You don’t need a no-laptop rule to detect and police rude and unprofessional business behavior. It’s generally obvious. Todd, your suggestion to simply be bold enough to request respect and attention from would-be multitaskers — forget the techology-based laptop rule — is advice enough. As a wise man once said, “If you’re here and I’m here, then doesn’t that make it _our_ time?”
December 6th, 2007 at 8:03 am
“Monkeytasking” is my preferred term for all this “polyphasic activity.”
December 6th, 2007 at 8:20 am
We have a small group of people trying to implement something similar to this. It’s difficult but it gets closer each meeting. It’s almost like a culture change.
December 6th, 2007 at 8:47 am
To the 6th point in Todd’s post:
If I’m running a key brainstorming, training session or time-crunched meeting at my company I bring an old catering basket with me. At the beginning of the session, I tell everyone I’m doing some late-season “‘berry” picking. The unexpected humor of the basket gets their attention. I keep the tone light, but I’m careful to explain its purpose: I need everyone’s full attention so we can have an efficient meeting. I find it helps to set the right tone for the participants–they understand right away what I’m trying to do and it tells them that the meeting time will be purposeful. It works well for me, even with the more conservative folks. Really.
December 6th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
[...] volunteering to go to the front lines in Todd Wilken’s war against blackberries in meetings. Lifehacker and the NYTimes have taken on similar issues before, and I’m all for [...]
December 7th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Forget email - I bring my laptop with me so that I can continue to write code while you talk. I’ve done it in front of the CTO and the company president, and they haven’t stopped me. If they asked me to stop, I would, but I might well fall asleep. it’s happened before.
In a meeting where I am the center of attention, either because I’m doing the speaking or because I’m being interrogated for something, of course I’ll stop coding and pay attention. But for the vast majority of other meetings where I am simply there to voice an opinion in case someone is about to do something stupid, I can do that with only part of my attention.
December 7th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Has the concept of community disappeared from this world. It sounds like half the respondents forget that what ever the hell they’re doing that’s so important has NO VALUE absent its relationship to the rest of the world…and the rest of the world starts with those around us.
I live by my laptop and smart-ass phone device which keeps me in touch with other human beings.
None of the technology, and none of my production, means a damn without its human context.
Chill the $%^&*() out boys and girls.
December 8th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
You should not bring anything to a meeting except a clear mind. Not your phone, your laptop, not even a pen and paper. Even taking notes distracts from your purpose at the meeting, which is to contribute to the brainstorming or the decision making. Any other role is a sign of an unhealthy meeting.
Read more on my blog response at:
http://www.robbyslaughter.com/blog/?2007-12-08
December 8th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Meetings are where the PHBs get to perform for their workers, and pretend that they are not completely incompetent. It’s just an amateur theater piece, by sub-par amateur actors. We already know the PHBs are incompetent, and we know the meeting is a meaningless and completely pointless activity. We do our jobs *despite* going to meetings are receiving the morons’ perspective on something he or his best-boy read (and didn’t understand) in a magazine.
December 27th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
It has been my experience that those that are on personal wars against laptops in meetings run bad meetings. This might not be you, but…
April 15th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
[...] will criticize it. The good news about that concern: That’s when it truly gets exciting. Take Todd Wilkens piece about Crackberry for example. If you read the comments, you’ll notice it was terribly unpopular with a lot of [...]
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:09 am
I’m definitely on the ‘dictator’ side. I love meetings where everyone stands and where people risk getting shot for picking up their cellphones.
That’s probably why I don’t have any staff…
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:59 am
[...] las ik op http://www.adaptivepath.com/blog/2007/11/15/my-personal-war-against-crackberry/ een leuke blogpost. Via een of ander Internetforum kwam ik daar terecht. Het is in het Engels en [...]
May 11th, 2008 at 10:34 am
I allow note taking. But the condition is that the note taker can be called upon at any moment to read his or her notes. Since “note taking” is almost invariably an excuse for checking mail or fiddling with a document, this generally causes the laptops to close. On the few occasions they stay open, the note taker really does get called at some point. One of two things follow: either the “notes” are useless because they were competing with other demands for attention (in which case the behaviour is never repeated) or the notes are genuinely useful, in which case the group has gained something.
June 9th, 2008 at 11:14 am
[...] Links Die 7 Topless-Regeln von Todd [...]