[mcdougle]

As others have said in this thread, it's entirely possible (and, in a corporate setting, very probable) that he could've been writing an email during a time in the meeting where is attention wasn't needed.

I can tell you that there have been plenty of meetings I've been in where I'm hard at work on something actually important while listening at the same time, because I know I'm not missing anything. I know which meetings are important and require my full attention (a requirements meeting for a new project, for example) compared to something I can just kinda half-listen to (e.g. the weekly team meeting where everyone discusses what they've worked on since the last meeting)