socialmedian: How to Deal With a BlackBerry Junkie

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Source: HarvardBusiness.org

Nov 02, 2009

Summary

Hey, you! Pay attention! Now! Two Northwest pilots had their licenses stripped away because they reportedly flew off-course, incommunicado, while scheduling future flights on their personal laptops instead of paying attention to their existing flight. Can you believe it? I do.

Mobile devices are the great distractions — and distractors — of the Information Age. I've heard nurses whisper about doctors who check their Blackberries in the middle of laparoscopic procedures and anesthesiologists who fiddle with their iPods while monitoring vital signs. We want what we want when we want it and we want it now! Even if that means we (inadvertently) overfly Minneapolis by 150 miles.

Netiquette is nice and multimedia manners are marvelous but the central issue here is performance and productivity. The same laptops those pilots were allegedly using to debate scheduling seniority can also be used to real-time recalculate fuel level reroutes. When you toss in a laptop or mobile device, anyone — in theory — can become more efficient and effective. That's as true for neu

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