Here’s a little bit of light relief at the end of the working week in the form of a Dilbert strip I spotted, which really made me chuckle.
Last week, I wrote a post about this very topic – multitasking on conference calls – which was intended to give some food for thought on how to multitask on calls whilst inflicting the least damage possible on the productivity of the meeting itself. One thing that post did not cover, however, was which side we fall on the trade-off between the engagement that is lost in meetings when multitasking takes place, versus the additional productivity that’s gained from multitasking for the individual who engages in that activity. It’s interesting to consider, and we looked at it in more depth when we proposed that video conferencing is failing to penetrate the mainstream because people like to multitask, but are obviously unable to do so on video calls, and so they shy away from video conferencing (to simplify the argument somewhat). That said, no matter which side we fall on this trade-off, it’s pretty clear that multitasking is rife, and the genius of this comic lies in showing just how common it is!
What do you think? And do you really think conference calls are a case of others’ inane babbling competing with your own personal productivity? We hope not!
