Not to get too philosophical about meetings or technology but for me it’s a matter of learning style. In all honesty I was conditioned by my corporate background to feel obligated to have a notebook with me at every meeting and to furiously capture what was going on via that medium because that was what was expected. However, what I found was the fact that I became so immersed in capturing the events that I often didn’t participate as I could/should have. For me that was too distracting.

However, what I found was that I didn’t need any notes or tools to capture the more salient points of the meeting…I have an auditory learning style which simply meant that I could literally remember what I needed to by participating and simply listening. Over time, I learned to use that to my advantage and became a very active participant and still walk away from a meeting having contributed and actually capturing what I needed to.

As I became more proficient, I’d take mental snapshots of feelings, thoughts or ideas via one medium or another, Twitter just happens to be one of them. For me, the moral of the story is what works for one doesn’t always work for others but that doesn’t make it right or wrong. It simply makes it a cognitive/learning/work style difference. At the end of the day, there is rarely a meeting that I attend that I don’t participate in fully, I’ve just learned to balance my need to participate with my need to capture what I am thinking, feeling or seeing as I do.