Frankly, if I choose to attend an event such as this or even if I’m required to attend an event, it is basic respect to pay attention to the presenter.

And if I’m paying for it, why would I want to dilute it’s value, impact, etc. by splitting my attention with Twitter (or anything other than taking some quick notes)?

As for people “justifying” Tweeting because they are not “engaged” with a presentation…that’s just lame. All of life will NOT capture you on the same level, but a lot of times it’s YOUR fault because you’re either not paying attention or expecting too much.

Business presentations may be entertaining, or not. But they are not entertaiment, stop expecting to get the same “jolt” as you might from something else–focus on actual content. Maybe if people learned how to pay attention, by doing it, and spent less time thinking about other things and focusing, they’d get more out of any presentation.

And if you think it’s a bad presentation, make notes on how to make it more relevant, etc. and share those in a professional and respectful manner with the presenter or host during a break.

And if you aren’t interested in the presentation, just leave.

FYI: Good idea to offer the event recordings Jonathan. However, for some people, knowing it’s available…just gives them a license to not pay attention.

By the way, just because an event is live, doesn’t mean it should necessarily be open to the public, which is what, in essence, Tweeting does. A presenter has the right to control access to what they are presenting.

And others are right, we should even be debating this.

For all the plusses of social media, far too many people have abandoned commonsense, good manners and professionalism so they can basically act like kids who can’t sit still and pay attention for more than a few minutes. Just because you have a thought, doesn’t mean it’s worth sharing or should even be allowed.

You wanna share? Share after the event.

These gatherings are NOT the equivalent of a press conference or open to the public meeting.

Show some respect for the presenter.

The bottom line, I think, is to be reasonable and flexible. If we all know why the presenter or attendee is doing what they’re doing, everyone ends up in the best place.

It’s the presenter’s decision about whether to ban the use of phones, laptops or any other devices at their presentation. Of course, if they are going to prevent me from using a laptop to take notes, I’d like to ban them from using a laptop and abusing us with poorly done PowerPoint presentations. (I’m not saying all PPT presentations are bad, but we’ve all seen some winners and some losers.)

It would be great, however, to have some sort of punishment available for people who haven’t figured out how to put their mobile phones on vibrate or silent so we don’t have to hear ringtones in the middle of a presentation! LOL

On a side note, due to some sort of nerve issue in my hands, I cannot take notes with a pen for more than a few minutes anymore, but typing doesn’t seem to bother them. I know some people probably think I’m being rude by typing during a presentation, even if it’s just to put notes into a Word document, but I really don’t have a choice.

It’s easy to think about what you, personally, would or would not do. And, as a presenter, you might simply choose to focus on the members of the audience who are engaged and let the others do as they will.

But I don’t think that choosing to ban a particularly pervasive and easily abused tool constitutes ‘judging someone’s methods to be wrong’, does it? If you were at Jonathan’s event and he said “no Twitter!” would you raise objections of ‘right and wrong’ or would you just find an alternative? I’ll bet you’d simply type your notes in a Word document.

And I’ll take this moment to promote my favorite note-taking tool: my Sheaffer fountain pen and a notepad.

When I’m an attendee, I use my laptop to take notes. If I’m going to be typing important points and highlights, why not just type them into Twitter instead of on a Word document? That way, I can help my followers who may have wanted to attend but couldn’t due to money or time constraints.

I’ve had people react to my tweets from conferences, helping me craft questions for the speaker. I’ve also found it as a great networking tool while at the conference. People who also are on Twitter have sought me out, and vice-versa, based on tweets sent from a conference session.

Having said all of that, I do agree that people who are checking email, surfing the web and doing other forms of multitasking are being rude to the speaker.

The points being made about focusing and being in the moment are valid, but one way for me to do that is to take notes. People learn in different ways and none of us should judge anyone’s methods as being the “wrong way.”