According to Infommersion (via ZDNet IT Facts), 71% of managers have felt sleepy during a presentation and 43% of respondents have caught other people dozing. The survey of 382 business managers showed that they had the most difficulty staying awake during individual speeches (35%), followed by training sessions (23%) and then general meetings (16%).
I find that shockingly rude – not only that people would doze off while someone is speaking to them, but also that presenters would concoct a presentation with such a high coma factor and then require people to sit through it. What a waste of time.
Also from that same survey was the finding that Webcasts were found to be easiest type of conference to people to stay alert throughout. Only 11 percent of the respondents said they found them difficult to sit through.
Not in the survey, but in my experience, I’d also say that conference calls are probably more productive and palatable than meetings because the attendees can multitask. In my case, when the conversation turns to topics that don’t directly affect me, I listen, but instead of taking notes, I take care of the handful of brainless activities that necessarily populate my day -- clean spam out of my inbox, tidy my workspace, make lists and notes for follow-up emails, etc. Yes, it’s still a little rude to not pay 100% attention to the speaker, but at least I’m not dozing off.
How about you? Would you replace your meetings with Webcasts and conference calls?
View Comments
There are currently no comments to display.
Post a Comment
To post a comment, you must be a registered user of FCW.com and be logged in. Use one of the forms below to login or register for FREE to FCW.com. To protect your privacy, you can use an alias as your username.
