Meeting Etiquette

An interesting observation from a meeting I recently attended at work.  Someone had flown up from California to specifically give a presentation to some of us in the Seattle office in person.  There were about 15 of us in the meeting.  The presenter was using slides, yet I couldn’t help but notice that every single attendee in the meeting apart from me had brought their laptop and had it open and was looking at that instead.  Some were just looking at the same slides, even though they were right there being presented in the meeting, and others were actually typing away on e-mails or working on something else.  But not paying attention.  It was so disrespectful, I was quite shocked and embarrassed.  I don’t know whether this is a cultural thing – virtually everyone else in the meeting was Chinese – but it was obvious and noticeable.  I have no desire to give these kind of presentations and training myself, but if I did I would make sure that everyone put their laptops away before starting.  I definitely have some opinions on being part of a group and department that is majority Chinese – none of them particularly good - but that is for another time.