• by Beverly Weinstein , August 3, 2009

PDAs are standard business issue. The devices follow employees into business meetings, business lunches and even to the bedside table at home. If we've set guidelines for casual Friday, shouldn't there be some sort of rules in place for emailing and texting anytime and anyplace?

To find out, I started by asking the experts: Peter Post, great-grandson of Emily and a director of the Emily Post Institute, and Barbara Pachter, author of "New Rules @ Work," president of Pachter and Associates, and a frequent speaker on business etiquette.

New Technology/ New Rules< "Every time we come up with new technology, we have to form conventions around that technology," explained Post. There's no standard for PDAs yet. Generally, the etiquette rules have to start at the top of the organization. If the boss is e-mailing in the meeting, everyone else will, too, he added.

"There's a learning curve in terms of etiquette," said Pachter. "For example, I don't have to remind people to turn off their cell phone, not to use all caps when emailing or even talking slowly when leaving a voicemail messages. We're beginning to get guidelines for PDAs as well. I know a corporate president who puts a toy cubby outside of the conference room where his senior executives have to leave their Blackberrys."

The Message "When people sit at a conference table and put down PDAs, what they're saying is 'I'm so ready to drop you. You'd better keep my attention.' It's rude," said Pachter.

Post agreed. "If you choose your PDA over the people you're with, it's putting them down; it implies they're not important. Etiquette is all about building relationships and being more successful. If you "dis" someone, well, you're hurting that relationship and you're going to have to build up their confidence in you all over again."

Guidelines<.b> To sum it up, think about what you're doing and how it will affect other people -- and whether you would want them doing it to you. With new technology, it's a learning curve. "Eventually, it will get better but we're not there yet," concluded Pachter.

Reality Check: For Now, It's PDA's Out Etiquette experts might condemn the use of mobile devices in meetings, but what are people doing in reality? An informal check with some media execs in the digital and traditional space indicates that PDA usage in meetings is the norm. Some people thought it was rude, but it didn't stop them from emailing. They even admitted to texting co-workers in the meeting while it was going on. Other people (mainly from sales) said they were in a business where clients expected them to be available, and they had to be responsive. In a wireless environment, laptops come into the meetings as well, ostensibly to take notes or have important information available. But do people check and answer e-mails? Absolutely.

Are there exceptions? Just a few, but I suspect the number is growing. Senior managers indicated they ban PDAs or laptops from meetings. One exec that travels internationally told me that in Europe, mobile device use varied by country; however in Japan, you would never consider bringing anything but a pen and paper to your meeting. Remember those days?