[Isamu]

Depends on the workplace, and specific behavior.

At my current workplace it is perfectly fine to bring in your laptop and continue work in a meeting. The context is that this is an engineering organization and everybody is cranking on their laptops all day and we expect work to get finished. In a meeting you are expected to pay some attention though, and contribute. It would be rude if a high-level executive were running the meeting though.

It is rude if you are completely engrossed in your laptop when somebody is speaking to you directly. One fellow (now gone) would sometimes ask a question to me and then become engrossed in his laptop when I replied. That was rude, but rare. And it is just basic listening skills.

At my previous workplace we generally didn't allow open laptops in meetings, and that made more sense as there were more meetings with other non-engineering groups that didn't have the same work culture.

[hammock]

If you wouldn't act that way with a high-level executive why act that way with your coworkers- do you respect them less?

It's as easy as saying "Do you mind if I take notes on my laptop while you answer your question" if you really have to.

[Isamu]

Again, depends on the workplace. And the meeting context.

I walked into a meeting today and said “some people think it is disrespectful to have your laptop open during a meeting” and everyone laughed. And it was a diverse group, men and women, a wide age range, from different parts of the world. People are professional, respectful and notably productive in that meeting. With laptops.

Regarding a high-level executive, it’s just that those kinds of meetings are not engineering meetings.