RESEARCH
TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. (AP) As Chuck Musciano moves from meeting
to meeting through the business day, he totes a wireless laptop
that he pops open to keep up with the world outside the room.
While the meeting rolls, Musciano taps on his keyboard to check
what's being discussed against internal data or information on
the Internet. He can ask a colleague outside the meeting for help
or a decision.
He'll also
check e-mail to make sure he's not missing something and that's
when he has to make sure his post-modem etiquette doesn't fail
him.
"It is
possible to be impolite," admits Musciano, vice president
of operations for the American Kennel Club in Raleigh. "I'm
conscious of that. I'm careful of not being overwhelmed by e-mail."
Already pervading
colleges, coffee shops and airports, high-speed wireless Internet
networks are increasingly being installed in offices.
Just as it
took a while for most cell phone users to realize what's rude,
the business world is confronting an etiquette learning curve
for balancing increased efficiency with manners.
Because they
create the capacity for quiet side conversations, from cracking
wise to confirming production schedules, wireless laptops, cell
phones and personal digital assistants are changing the dynamics
of the business meeting. The technology allows contact with the
outside world through e-mail, instant messaging and the Web, enabling
an instant decision or easy distraction.
"When
I speak to a room of people with laptops, they all have their
heads buried in their laptops," said Brian
Grimm, a spokesman for the Wi-Fi Alliance, the standard-setting
group that promotes wireless fidelity, one type of wireless technology.
"Many of them are taking notes of what we're saying, but
I think many of them are just trying to catch up with their e-mails."
Wireless capability
threatens the top rule in meeting dos-and-don'ts, which is paying
attention to the speaker, said Sue Fox, author of Business Etiquette
For Dummies and a manners consultant for many Silicon Valley executives.
"I think
people are pretty aware that they're not going to do a report
during a speech," Fox said. "If you're doing other work
- talking on a phone, working on a computer -I think it's ill
manners. It's very rude"
Ron Sperano
says he's seen the clueless disrupt an entire meeting by typing
incessantly or failing to mute their laptop's audio and letting
it bing and buzz away as messages flow in and out. He's been so
distracted by e-mail he didn't hear a question asked of him by
a vice president. (The screen closed unexpectedly on Sperano,
who looked up to find his boss smiling at him and the room silent.)
On the other
hand, "if it's a two-hour meeting, I don't need to be attentive
for those two hours," said Sperano, who heads wireless solutions
for IBM'S laptops and other personal computers. "I'd be the
first to tell you I do e-mail at a lot of the meetings. But I
have to do that because I've got to do more with less. That's
how I do more with less."
Sperano's
developed a vocabulary for the dynamics of meeting where some
stay connected. He admits to being an outlet hound - those who
walk into a meeting and immediately scout out a power outlet they
can plug into.
Watch out
for the "basement meeting" - that running commentary
of confidential reactions to the company line carried out via
instant messaging, he said. People who aren't paying attention
to the meeting around them display a "cache deficit"
and have to ask for a repeat of the discussion's last 20 words.
Then there's
the annoying "Google-It-Alls" - those "people who
use the Internet connection to look up the answer to every single
question and respond like the kid in class who always raises their
hand first," Sperano said.
Sperano believes
that meeting etiquette will evolve as wireless networks - which
use radio waves to broadcast signals back and forth to strategically
placed antennas - build a pervasive information environment.
Laptop developers
are anticipating the use of wireless in ways that include adding
tiny lights to illuminate the keyboard in a darkened room, quieter
keypads and a one-button mute to silence the babel. A 180-degree
hinge allows display screens to lay flat, removing a physically
small but psychologically important barrier to eye contact around
a conference table, Sperano said.
Besides using
common sense, courtesy and discretion, Sperano said his main advice
is to get your laptop or PDA configured and working before you
walk into a meeting, not while people are trying to talk.
Businesses
are adopting wireless because it can increase efficiency for workers
who spend a lot of time at meetings, away from their desks or
on the road.
Semiconductor
maker Intel last year tested the value of an office wireless network
on about 800 employees from engineering to sales. The employees
found they had 23 minutes extra per day to accomplish their work,
said Brian Tucker, an Intel marketing manager for mobile equipment
who conducted the study.
Intel estimated
only 11 minutes of additional productivity per week was needed
to break even on the cost of setting up a wireless network. Fitting
out 1,000 employees at a total cost of $400,000 would deliver
a benefit of $5 million over three years.
By last year,
Intel had equipped almost 5,000 users across the company in 80
buildings, Tucker said.
"We're
a highly mobile workforce," he said.
Like technology,
etiquette is something that changes with the times, Fox said.
"The basis is the same, though," she said, "respect,
self respect, respecting others."
