Laptops and meeting etiquette
Having the word "manager" in my job title naturally means I'm attending a lot of meetings these days, though that's a fact of life for almost everyone I know that works in large team; rule of the thumb: the more cross/multi-prefixed adjectives needed to describe your team, (e.g. cross-functional, cross-product, multi-disciplinary, etc.), the more meetings you will need to attend. :) What struck me in many of the meetings I did end up attending though was the number of people who brought their laptops to there meetings and then had them open right through. This wasn't just "keeping it open to take minutes/notes" open. This was "doing work, answering email" open. They'd drift in and out of the meeting as required (someone else would typically keep the agenda/main conversation going.) There's the obvious etiquette dilemma. My default for the last few years has been to shut the laptop down once someone started talking. It seemed like t...