My old pal Steve Crescenzo has reversed course recently and said on his blog it's okay to "diddle your Dingleberries" during his seminars, and, as long as you're accurate, "live tweet" his shows too.
Steve's out there doing seminars all the time, he's probably the most in-demand speaker on the corporate communication circuit and obviously he knows which way the wind is blowing. He's also a hopeless ADD case himself, and can clearly empathize with diddling tweeters everywhere.
But to the extent that I can imagine a conference and a college classroom world where the students no longer feign attention, I can also imagine many burnt-out teachers who stop pretending to give a flying fuck, and do a five-minute intro and then turn it over to Q&A.
The purpose of a conference and a classroom is as much social as informational. There's no best-practice that you can learn at a conference that you can't learn by reading an industry newsletter, no facts that you can learn in a classroom that can't be found in the text.
The reasons we have these events are 70 percent social. And social means more than networking. It means sitting together with people who do what we do, and all listening to the same speaker at the same time. Getting excited together, getting bored together, getting pissed together, sitting up straight together, slumping in our chairs together, being overwhelmed together.
If half the assholes are going to be checked out reading their e-mail and surfing the web, then we're not together at all, are we?
And whether the instructor minds it or not, the rest of us are missing the whole reason they came.
If I'm overstating the case, I'm sure everyone will let me know.
We are victims of our own success. With so much out there that’s good to read (or “engage with” or “connect to” or whatevs), of course it’s hard to focus. It’s like going to a banquet so you can eat the main dish, and eschewing all the yummy sides.
I agree that it’s rude, so I try not to do it myself, but I sometimes fail.
And whose fault is it? Mine, of course, but partly it’s the fault of our profession, which gives us all this amazing content dangling tantilizingly at your fingertips at all times.
It’s a bigger problem. People go to lunch and dinner together, ignore each other, and stare at their phones, as though what’s out there is more important than the human being in front of them.
As for Steve’s column, he’s right — if he were to complain about it, they’d just all tweet what a jerk he’s being for complaining. Even if he’s right. Right doesn’t mean much.
This is really quite simple – either you respect the person sitting next to, or across from, or in front of [in the case of a conference/seminar] or you don’t.
We all know when we are being rude or inconsiderate, and sitting across a table from someone but staring at your iPhone or Blackberry is rude and inconsiderate. We’ve just rationalized reasons why it’s okay to be rude and inconsiderate more in the online era we now live in.
We can make all the excuses and justifications in the world for this bad behaviour. They sound good, and some of them may even be true. But the bottom line is, it’s still rude and inconsiderate bad behaviour, and the more we rationalize and accept treating our fellow humans badly the more we entrench a type of society that will validate the belief that it’s okay to do other inconsiderate things on a larger scale.
Like it or not, these sorts of societal changes have a ripple effect. Today it’s texting while you sit with your significant other at dinner, but eventually it turns into bigger, more problematic things because it’s a mind-set that says: “I’m more important than anyone else – even people I say I care about”. Call me an alarmist – go right ahead! Sociology and Anthropology bear me out.
I promise you, hell I GUARANTEE it!! The world WILL NOT come to an end if you shut off your iPhone for the two hours it takes to have dinner with someone or sit through a conference session. No, REALLY – it won’t!!!
Come on, Kristen. How can you be so sure it wont?
Oddly enough, the world has managed not to end despite far more focused and determined efforts, of people like Ghengis Khan, Nero, and Hitler. So I’m confident some guy’s turning off his iPhone for an hour or two isn’t’ going to best their efforts!
What can I say – I’m an optimist!
Hmmm. I have another view. Social networking and in-person networking is where you go to meet and interact with others who are interested in the topic, for the purpose of making contacts and sharing more about that topic. The seminar and the class are NOT really the venue for that– they are for information absorbtion (and you’re right, you could get that just as easily from a webinar, a book, etc- though the richness of the in-person communication transfer has been supported in studies). I have been to motivational and inspiring in-person seminars but have had no real connection with or reason to network with the person next to me other than surface small-talk. I’m not offended by people using their PDAs. If they can multi-task like that during a meeting, fine. If they are so distracted that they’re asking stupid redundant questions, that’s another whole matter and THAT deserves a whack up the head.
Diane, there’s a difference between absorbing information from a book and absorbing it in a class. That difference is social–a more subtle socializing than actual networking. It’s social learning, which involves laughing together (or not) at the seminar leader’s knowing remarks about the subject, it’s getting frustrated together at the speaker who is going on too long on a subject or glossing over something important, it’s getting inspired together when the speaker really strikes a chord.
When you learn like that, you get the courage of your convictions; you go back to the office and when the boss tells you you’re crazy for sharing a perspective or idea you picked up, you know she’s telling you all 40 of your classmates are crazy too.
That is why we go to seminars rather than read manuals. And Dingleberry diddlers deflate the phenomenon, however subtly, by not being fully present at the seminar with you.
Pulling out your blackberry during a meeting or presentation is akin to holding up a sign that says “What you’re saying is less important than this other thing I’m doing,” even if that other thing is sharing information you’re learning from that meeting/conference. If it’s all that important, remember the factoid and share it with folks later.
I’m with you on this.
David, blame Mark Ragan for firing this thread back up.
Of the “Dingleberry” crowd, what percentage do you think are taking notes, versus some other unrelated activity?
Half the time I will be on my Windows Mobile phone, scribbling away notes into Evernote (WinMo has supported a pretty powerful transcription algorithm for years), or banging away at my keyboard dropping in the best nuggets.
The other half of the time, I will be taking notes on Twitter, where they are out in public even faster.
Now… if you catch someone surfing Woot or something completely unrelated, that is rude. However, you have no grounds to assume the activity in question is a distraction, when in fact it might very well be supplementing that individual’s experience or leading them to pay better attention.
Ike: Taking notes helps me pay better attention too. That’s why I do it with a pen, and a notebook. (I call these tools my “silent laptop.” Whatever you’re doing, hammering away on a keyboard next to me IS distracting.