Laptops Aren’t the Problem: The Meetings Are
24th March 2008
Jeremy Wagstaff is always worth reading.
The bigger solution, of course, is to ditch the whole ‘presentation thing’ in favor of participation. I know my class are more attentive if they know I’m going to ask random questions of them. An audience is going to be more attentive if the speaker is not merely droning on but offering a compelling performance and engaging them as much as possible. A meeting leader is going to have the attention of the room if s/he doesn’t waste their valuable day giving some PR schtick but keeps it short and genuinely meets the other participant, rather than lectures them.
The truest thing you’ll read today. Nobody checks e-mail in Kingsfield’s class.
This is where a tablet PC comes into its own. Not only does your note-taking (or whatever else you’re doing) look like traditional scribble-on-legal-pad activity, most tablets come with an unobtrusive built-in microphone quite adequate to capture a speaker or lecturer. Run the result through a program like Dragon Naturally Speaking and you have a verbatim transcript of the talk. Meld this with your notes in a program like OneNote, and you’re shiny.
Which is why I’m waiting for Apple to come out with a decent tablet. C’mon, Steve, get on the stick. And I want at least a 14″ screen.