Super Villains Week: The BlackBerry-er

So Iron Man this weekend totally put me in the mood to mix a bit of higher ed and comic book-dom (The Brand Builder Blog mixes Iron Man and marketing). The theme this week is super villains, and each day, I'll cover a different adversary you may run into during your work life.

Today is the BlackBerry-er.

Let me start out by saying that I'm sure BlackBerries and other personal assistants are probably helpful devices. I'd like to think they are, because none of my encounters with them has ever been positive.

So the BlackBerry-er ... it doesn't matter if it's a meeting you scheduled or the BlackBerry-er themselves scheduled. It could be about something trivial or a meeting to decide the fate of your school's logo.

Whatever the case, during the course of the meeting, you'll notice the BlackBerry-er's head dip and you'll begin to hear this clicking noise, like a small wheel being rotated. That means this super villain has reared its ugly head in your meeting!

And to help you spot them and make this perfectly clear, allow me to model what the BlackBerry-er looks like:

That's it! Their attention has been diverted, and you are not likely to get it back. This villain can derail meetings and just make all the speakers feel pretty darn crappy because apparently the BlackBerry-er doesn't even have enough courtesy to pay attention to them.

How can you vanquish this foe?

Well, the BlackBerry-er thrives on the illusion that he/she is inconspicuous when checking said device. The best you can do is to call them out on it and show them that, in fact, everyone can see them plain as day ignoring the conversation.

After finishing a sentence, you can try, "Karen, what do you think about it?" Or, if you've really got stones, you can try halting the entire meeting and saying, "Pardon me, Richard, but I think we should reschedule this meeting for a time when you can fully participate in the discussion."

Or, if you're interested in being more discreet, talk with the BlackBerry-er in private. Set up a meeting and pitch it as you've just warning them about this behavior because you've heard a few comments about it and you wanted to let them know in private before it became a major problem.

And if you are a BlackBerry-er -- Don't bring your device to meetings! Out of sight, out of mind. And if you do use the BlackBerry because you get bored in meetings, use the low-tech strategy of "zoning out" while making sure to at least glance at the speakers occasionally. Zoning out is so much more fun than reading work e-mails. Wouldn't you rather mentally be on a beach sipping a Mojito than reading about the latest Web site snafu? And if all your meetings are boring, that means you probably shouldn't be in them! Scale back what you're invited to and attend. You should have a stake or interest in what's being discussed -- that should be enough to hold your attention.

Granted, if you have to have your BlackBerry with you during a meeting because you're on call or to are waiting for an important e-mail, please announce that at the beginning of the meeting so people are not offended. If you don't, you just give the impression that you're scrolling through because the whole situation and speakers bore you.