by John J. Walters
I cannot take credit for this title. That honor belongs to Dan Saffer, who created the term “topless meetings†in 2008 to refer to meetings where laptops (and other technological distractions) are forbidden.
I know, I know. I was a little disappointed too. This is, after all, the internet.  Yet while you never know what you’re going to find on the high seas of the unpoliced web, I can assure you that I will be keeping the lasciviousness on this blog to a bear minimum. Pun very much intended.
I thought it was fitting, since we talked last week about using technology to help you get your meetings in order, to talk about the flip side of the coin this week. Technology can be a great way to help you get organized but it can also be a horrible distraction. This is where topless meetings come in. The goal is to remove all the distractions that come from wading into a meeting with your laptop and your cell phone.
To do this requires preparation not just on the part of the meeting creator but on the part of each attendee. You can’t just show up, armed with all the data contained in your laptop and on the internet, expecting to just fudge it until you can catch up with the conversation and contribute something you just pulled up. You need to know the subject backwards and forwards, much like was necessary when you took a test or gave a presentation in front of the class (back when you were in school).
Actually, I am surprised more people don’t make this standard practice. In spite of their usefulness, laptops and cell phones have very few places in a meeting. Sure, it’s reasonable for someone to be using a laptop for a presentation or for someone else to be taking notes (only one person need take notes in a meeting — having as many sets of individualized notes as there are attendees is unnecessary, provided you have good communication and follow-up after the meeting concludes), but aside from that the primary job of everyone else in attendance is to pay attention and contribute what they can. Not to answer emails, not to “look†busy as they type away on their little keyboard, and definitely not to surf the web as I saw so many students doing when I was in college.
They may require some extra preparation and they may be met with some initial resistance, but topless meetings can help your team communicate better and faster if implemented properly. Isn’t that worth it?