I watched with amusement as people grew more and more impatient in the checkout line. It was a busy day and nothing was moving fast. In the queue next to me, a man stood immobile, staring at the screen of his handheld device, motionless as those behind him fidgeted, willing him to close up the two and a half feet between him and the customer in front of him — as if someone would swoop in from another line and fill that gap; as if the cashier would mistake that space for the end of the line and close the lane making refugees of them.

The man with the handheld was oblivious to the simmering fury rising to a boil behind him. Blackberry Blindness. Lost in his own little world. Out of touch with the point of purchase opportunities an arms-length away. Out of tune with the ritual cash register line dance.

Hello… Earth to Blackberry Guy… Wake up…

This is the ethos fueling the Topless Meeting movement — the banning of laptops and third screens from company meeting spaces as a return to civility and mutual productivity. The lure of the screen is presumed to be irresistible (Crackberry!) and no one can tell for sure what we’re doing on those screens. Taking notes? Writing letters? Sudoku?

“Think of the beauty of going topless,” Marc Browstein intoned in AdvertisingAge (Go Topless!: Ban Laptops and Third Screens From Your Meetings), promising:

• Your colleagues no longer will ask questions that have been already asked and answered, because they are paying attention.
• Productivity will increase, because more ideas will be exchanged and problems resolved.
• Rudeness levels will sink dramatically, and respect in the workplace will soar.
• Face-to-face meetings will once again have relevance.

Really, Marc? Because my colleagues pay attention in meetings. And if any of us gets lost momentarily it’s probably because we paused to think more deeply about the subject at hand, which sometimes causes the whole meeting to take half a step back and reconsider the matter to be sure we’re acting with purpose.

Most of the meetings I go to include only people who are invested in the outcome of that particular gathering. I and others I know, excuse ourselves (and each other) from meetings that squander our expensive attention because we have nothing to contribute.

I was in a meeting last week during which I checked the availability of URLs for 3 or 4 new products in real time, without losing focus or hijacking the meeting — thus helping us settle on working titles that make these initiatives seem all the more original and achievable because they have real names.

My MacBook and iPhone are not toys. They are tools of my trade and extensions of my brain, my ears, my eyes and my imagination. I assume the same can be said for your PC and Blackberry (or whatever hammers and nails IT allows you to work with since, apparently, someone left them in charge).

Ban those assets from meetings? Are you kidding? At the meetings I go to, if someone needs something repeated, we oblige, because some of us process best with our ears, some with our eyes, some with a sheet of paper in front of us, some with a Word doc or PDF open on our laptops, some with a white board marker in our hands, some taking notes by hand, some typing notes on a keyboard, some drawing pictures, some creating OmniGraffle diagrams, some looking out the window, some pacing back and forth, others seated, eyes closed, fingers laced thinking very hard.

You can see where this is going. If people are zoning out or veering off course, it’s not the siren call of their little screens… You want better meetings? Design and lead better — smarter, more purposeful, focused, engaging and productive — meetings.