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In some business situations, multitasking is a professional faux pas.
By JOSEPH R. PERONE
Some people don't realize the planets revolve around the sun -- not them.
But tell that to the self-absorbed among us who fire off text messages during business meetings. Those multitasking meatheads really get under Michael Horn's skin.
Horn, 65, can't fathom why they would thumb-wrestle a tiny keyboard. A partner at the Newark law firm McCarter & English, he says they ask rudimentary questions after a presentation because they were not listening.
"At a meeting, it is impolite and disrespectful to engage in text messaging," said Horn, a former New Jersey state treasurer. "You don't have their undivided attention."
Heather Sachs, an information technology professional for Accenture in New York, admits to texting friends and co-workers several times an hour. She is more flexible on whether the practice should be allowed during a meeting.
"If it's meeting-related, it's acceptable," said Sachs, who is 25. "If it's personal, it's not acceptable."
Electronic messaging has become ingrained in office culture as people use personal digital assistants and cell phones to send e-mail and text messages to friends and colleagues. Some professionals insist it makes them more productive, but others say it is disruptive for employees who already have attention deficit issues.
The switch to electronic messaging results from greater demands on workers to be more productive, said Karen Pretorius, global solutions marketing manager for Dimension Data, an information technology company based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
"People have become more comfortable sending e-mails, and that probably has something to do with texting," she said. "We've all played telephone tag. But with text messaging, people can respond instantly."
Dimension released a survey in August showing 70 percent of the people who were polled say electronic communication such as e-mail makes them more productive.
However, the e-mails people send from their BlackBerrys do not necessarily speed up the time to complete a single project, said Marshall Van Alsystne, a professor of information economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"Projects actually take longer," he said. "But it turns out people who do this are able to multitask and juggle more projects at the same time. So, in that sense, it is more productive."
GENERATION GAP
Millennials, born between 1981 and 1999 and also known as Generation Y, Nexters, and the Nintendo Generation, are big fans of text messaging.
"This is a young person's version of e-mailing," said Dave Campeas, chief executive of PrincetonOne, a recruiting and human resources consulting firm. "It's quick, and there is no need for pleasantries. In their overscheduled world, it's very efficient."
About 47 percent of instant-messaging users ages 13 to 21 engage in text messaging and mobile instant messaging, according to a 2005 survey by AOL. About 24 percent of those ages 35-54 said they send messages from their cell phones.
Roughly 33 percent said they send text messages from their cell phones once a week, according to the survey. That represents a dramatic increase over the previous year when just 19 percent said they did so.
Lindsey Fleischhauer, 27, of Jersey City, typically sends one text an hour. An account executive for mktgpartners, a New York events and promotional management firm, she finds it useful to text her colleagues while attending concerts in her line of work.
"I use it at work when I'm in a loud environment and I need to get information back to the office," she said. "It's much easier to sit in a crowded bar and send a text message than trying to find a quiet place to make a call."
She has sent messages to colleagues during conference calls and has fired off quick ones during meetings. "It takes three seconds to tell someone the meeting is going great," she said.
Paul Rosengren, a spokesman for PSE&G in Newark, remembers the time he attended a meeting with two companies that planned to become partners. A vice president at one company continually text messaged other people instead of listening to a crucial presentation.
"Everyone noticed, and it set a horrible tone," Rosengren said.
Still, he said short messages can be extremely useful. His BlackBerry is almost always by his side.
"If you are monitoring a crisis, it allows you to go to a meeting you might not otherwise be able to attend," he said.
Others say it is just plain arrogant of people to sit in a meeting while they are having a virtual conversation on their phone. Marie-Paule McNeice, a principal at Boyden Global Executive Search in Summit, recalls one meeting during which she heard a frog croaking.
"It was faint, but I know I heard it," McNeice said. "I turned instinctively to look behind me, expecting to see a frog, when I saw a somewhat embarrassed colleague mouthing, as he typed away, that his daughter changed his text-message notification to a frog's croaking."
She wondered how he could find his cell phone screen more compelling than what was going on in the room where he was sitting.
"It were as though he had let an uninvited guest into the meeting, and it was clear that he intended to be fully engaged in another meeting -- one he was not physically at," she said.
TO THE POINT
Proponents of text messaging find beauty in its brevity, said Michelle Gillin, vice president of global business development for PrincetonOne in Indianapolis.
"The benefit of text messaging versus a phone call is that these are staccato messages that are very pointed," said Gillin, who is 35. "It is much more productive than making a call and listening to someone who starts to tell you a story or goes down a path that takes a long time."
Some workers might find text messaging addictive, which can be distracting to colleagues, said Lynn Brown, market vice president for the New Jersey operations of Right Management, a Parsippany employment services company.
"All of us get personal calls, but if you text all day long, it can bother co-workers," she said.
Some companies allow text messaging, but not cell phone calls, during meetings, Brown said.
As for the protocol of texting during a meeting: "If you have to respond to your clients, then go ahead," she said. "Otherwise, restrain yourself and wait until after the meeting."
Not everyone in the text universe is young.
Robert Blackwell, 53, sends text messages constantly. A partner at Levine, Jacobs & Co., a Livingston accounting firm, he started texting two years ago to keep in touch with his children. His firm has guidelines restricting cell phone use in the office, but he doesn't have to follow them.
"They don't apply to partners because that's the only way clients can get a hold of us," Blackwell said. "Sometimes, I will send messages to others, but they might be meeting related, such as, 'I'll be there soon.'"
BlackBerry e-mails and cell phone texting can be effective for people who are stuck on a train or at an airport, said Amy Glass, an expert in communication skills with Brody Professional Development, a Jenkintown, Pa., workplace training organization. "But if you spend two hours a day text messaging, it is obvious that is not what the company is paying you for," she said.
Employees often have difficulty focusing on more than one task, she said.
"We can jump between tasks, but our brains have not evolved enough to think other than sequentially," Glass said.
Some companies "fine" employees for keeping cell phones on during a meeting, Glass said. One company, which she would not identify, had a rule that if a phone rang during a presentation, the worker who owned it had to sing a song chosen by the presenter.
"Guess what? They don't have any cell phones going off anymore," she said.
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Copyright © 2010 PrincetonOne
When texting turns evil
November 4, 2007
In some business situations, multitasking is a professional faux pas.
By JOSEPH R. PERONE
Some people don't realize the planets revolve around the sun -- not them.
But tell that to the self-absorbed among us who fire off text messages during business meetings. Those multitasking meatheads really get under Michael Horn's skin.
Horn, 65, can't fathom why they would thumb-wrestle a tiny keyboard. A partner at the Newark law firm McCarter & English, he says they ask rudimentary questions after a presentation because they were not listening.
"At a meeting, it is impolite and disrespectful to engage in text messaging," said Horn, a former New Jersey state treasurer. "You don't have their undivided attention."
Heather Sachs, an information technology professional for Accenture in New York, admits to texting friends and co-workers several times an hour. She is more flexible on whether the practice should be allowed during a meeting.
"If it's meeting-related, it's acceptable," said Sachs, who is 25. "If it's personal, it's not acceptable."
Electronic messaging has become ingrained in office culture as people use personal digital assistants and cell phones to send e-mail and text messages to friends and colleagues. Some professionals insist it makes them more productive, but others say it is disruptive for employees who already have attention deficit issues.
The switch to electronic messaging results from greater demands on workers to be more productive, said Karen Pretorius, global solutions marketing manager for Dimension Data, an information technology company based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
"People have become more comfortable sending e-mails, and that probably has something to do with texting," she said. "We've all played telephone tag. But with text messaging, people can respond instantly."
Dimension released a survey in August showing 70 percent of the people who were polled say electronic communication such as e-mail makes them more productive.
However, the e-mails people send from their BlackBerrys do not necessarily speed up the time to complete a single project, said Marshall Van Alsystne, a professor of information economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"Projects actually take longer," he said. "But it turns out people who do this are able to multitask and juggle more projects at the same time. So, in that sense, it is more productive."
GENERATION GAP
Millennials, born between 1981 and 1999 and also known as Generation Y, Nexters, and the Nintendo Generation, are big fans of text messaging.
"This is a young person's version of e-mailing," said Dave Campeas, chief executive of PrincetonOne, a recruiting and human resources consulting firm. "It's quick, and there is no need for pleasantries. In their overscheduled world, it's very efficient."
About 47 percent of instant-messaging users ages 13 to 21 engage in text messaging and mobile instant messaging, according to a 2005 survey by AOL. About 24 percent of those ages 35-54 said they send messages from their cell phones.
Roughly 33 percent said they send text messages from their cell phones once a week, according to the survey. That represents a dramatic increase over the previous year when just 19 percent said they did so.
Lindsey Fleischhauer, 27, of Jersey City, typically sends one text an hour. An account executive for mktgpartners, a New York events and promotional management firm, she finds it useful to text her colleagues while attending concerts in her line of work.
"I use it at work when I'm in a loud environment and I need to get information back to the office," she said. "It's much easier to sit in a crowded bar and send a text message than trying to find a quiet place to make a call."
She has sent messages to colleagues during conference calls and has fired off quick ones during meetings. "It takes three seconds to tell someone the meeting is going great," she said.
Paul Rosengren, a spokesman for PSE&G in Newark, remembers the time he attended a meeting with two companies that planned to become partners. A vice president at one company continually text messaged other people instead of listening to a crucial presentation.
"Everyone noticed, and it set a horrible tone," Rosengren said.
Still, he said short messages can be extremely useful. His BlackBerry is almost always by his side.
"If you are monitoring a crisis, it allows you to go to a meeting you might not otherwise be able to attend," he said.
Others say it is just plain arrogant of people to sit in a meeting while they are having a virtual conversation on their phone. Marie-Paule McNeice, a principal at Boyden Global Executive Search in Summit, recalls one meeting during which she heard a frog croaking.
"It was faint, but I know I heard it," McNeice said. "I turned instinctively to look behind me, expecting to see a frog, when I saw a somewhat embarrassed colleague mouthing, as he typed away, that his daughter changed his text-message notification to a frog's croaking."
She wondered how he could find his cell phone screen more compelling than what was going on in the room where he was sitting.
"It were as though he had let an uninvited guest into the meeting, and it was clear that he intended to be fully engaged in another meeting -- one he was not physically at," she said.
TO THE POINT
Proponents of text messaging find beauty in its brevity, said Michelle Gillin, vice president of global business development for PrincetonOne in Indianapolis.
"The benefit of text messaging versus a phone call is that these are staccato messages that are very pointed," said Gillin, who is 35. "It is much more productive than making a call and listening to someone who starts to tell you a story or goes down a path that takes a long time."
Some workers might find text messaging addictive, which can be distracting to colleagues, said Lynn Brown, market vice president for the New Jersey operations of Right Management, a Parsippany employment services company.
"All of us get personal calls, but if you text all day long, it can bother co-workers," she said.
Some companies allow text messaging, but not cell phone calls, during meetings, Brown said.
As for the protocol of texting during a meeting: "If you have to respond to your clients, then go ahead," she said. "Otherwise, restrain yourself and wait until after the meeting."
Not everyone in the text universe is young.
Robert Blackwell, 53, sends text messages constantly. A partner at Levine, Jacobs & Co., a Livingston accounting firm, he started texting two years ago to keep in touch with his children. His firm has guidelines restricting cell phone use in the office, but he doesn't have to follow them.
"They don't apply to partners because that's the only way clients can get a hold of us," Blackwell said. "Sometimes, I will send messages to others, but they might be meeting related, such as, 'I'll be there soon.'"
BlackBerry e-mails and cell phone texting can be effective for people who are stuck on a train or at an airport, said Amy Glass, an expert in communication skills with Brody Professional Development, a Jenkintown, Pa., workplace training organization. "But if you spend two hours a day text messaging, it is obvious that is not what the company is paying you for," she said.
Employees often have difficulty focusing on more than one task, she said.
"We can jump between tasks, but our brains have not evolved enough to think other than sequentially," Glass said.
Some companies "fine" employees for keeping cell phones on during a meeting, Glass said. One company, which she would not identify, had a rule that if a phone rang during a presentation, the worker who owned it had to sing a song chosen by the presenter.
"Guess what? They don't have any cell phones going off anymore," she said.
Executive Search | Recruitment Process Outsourcing | Contract Staffing | College Recruiting | Site Map
This site is optimized for 1024x768 resolution and Internet Explorer.
Copyright © 2010 PrincetonOne