What do you think of laptops at meetings ?
There was is an interesting article in the New York Times today regarding the phenomenon of people bringing and using their laptops at meetings. It is from the perspective of a high-level manager at Microsoft.
I know that I originally felt that it was extremely rude to be reading from your laptop (when it was obvious that you're not taking notes). However, with time, I started going with the trend and used the time to catch up on emails and maybe some surfing. I do try to limit my distractions to when I am sitting in on a (large audience) presentation to generally avoid it when I am in a smaller meeting.
How do you handle this issue as a participant ? As a presenter/meeting leader ?