I read an article in Asahi news paper that introduced about "Topless meeting" the other day. I thought "Topless meeting" means having a meeting with top off and I was interested in it so much.
Unfortunately, the meaning of "Top" is Laptop PC. In fact, it means a meeting with no laptop pc. So it means that people join the meeting with only pen and paper and debate genuinely. This phrase was born in Silicon Valley and it was nominated for word of the year 2008 and it climbed onto the shortlist. I think it would be good idea.
What concerns me is no one see the main screen during a presentation or a report in the meeting these days. That is because most of the people stare at their own computer screen that they bring in. Most of the people make their own documents or deal with their e-mail which are not related with this meeting they are having. Originally, the purpose of a meeting is to debate with each opinion and lead to their direction.
However, it's disappearing with improving IT. To tell the truth, when I bring my pc in a meeting, I do same thing carelessly.
Also, power point documents are becoming increasingly silly that is beautiful at first glance but it has a lot of unnecessary pages and it lacks focus. It is becoming popular that people use power point and projector on their presentation for paper saving. They make a meeting note by their pc and distribute it by e-mail on time. It gives us huge convenience, but debating and discussing quality are undergoing regression.
Not only a meeting, but also office environment was changed by IT improvement. Most of co-workers spend all day in front of the display monitor and then conversational voice disappeared from the office. From the management point of view, it became difficult to see who is busy and what kind job they are doing. On the other hand, it's good situation for goldbricker, because no one will ever know even if they spend one hour to make one e-mail that can finish in five minutes if they talk directly or they are just netsurfing on their computer.
One laptop per person situation became common thing in 90's. Then progressing of IT in office accelerated rapidly.
It became a common thing that people use e-mail to share their information. Power point helps everyone to make a beautiful document easily and we can have a meeting without moving by using video conference system. A lot of efficient ideas became widespread to the office. Then IT became an essential thing to make more efficient in office
However, it made a lot of IT addicted workers at the same time.
They can't make the document without pc.
They add a lot of unnecessary information without deep thinking.
They can't communicate with others without using e-mail.
They tend to use "copy and paste" for their documents.
Increasing number of people have such kind of case these days. Then, some people start to find out that using too much IT sometime cause an inefficient situation.
Power-point is improving their function year by year, but it's getting inefficient. There are too much adding unnecessary shadow and animation which make documents more confusing. We have to learn the new functions if the new version of power point is released. In addition, many pages of document by using copy and paste tend to make the document unclear and it makes the meeting longer.
As for e-mail, it has already reached a limit for as a communication tool.
No one can deal with the tons of e-mails that they get in one day.
According to some people, 80% of e-mails are junk mails. So many companies installed a spam e-mail filter by using their cost. However, they can't prevent from inside spam e-mail. CC mail that is used as for your information. It's used to prevent from getting told off by their boss like "I didn't hear it" or " I didn't know it" One of IBM co-worker stopped using e-mail and started to use SNS that can share information with a lot of people such as twitter.
I'd like to introduce one pity opinion of IT addiction that I found on the internet.
"IT is really convenience tool. However it included the meaning of easy pass that is caused by "convenience" The quality of work should be judged by people's performance, but in some cases it's judged by IT quality. If we use IT as a tool, the efficiency would be improved. However, it's not the quality of work.
If we seek for the efficiency with leaving the quality, there is the risk that depth and naivety of the work will be excluded from the office even it is very important thing. The convenience that come from IT leads to easy pass and then the efficiency could cause a decline of the quality."
In conclusion, I think the main purpose of IT is creating time. For instance, finish the work in a short time and doing more high quality job or going on-site or meeting someone using created time. However, do you stick to a PC all the time?
As a result, the Three Reals Philosophy’(Sangen shugi), which means Go and see by yourself and understand the situation that is starting to disappear.
IT is the essential thing in business, but it's about time that people who use IT should rethink it is just a tool to improve efficiency not improving the quality of the work. The point is how to use. Thus, I hope that my company will introduce the topless meeting.
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