Finally, here's a story about a technology you don't need: The Swiss-developed, electronically-controlled meeting table. You can see it
at the vendor's
home page.
It's an oblong table with attached, motorized chairs, that slowly moves people around the edge. You stay in your chair, and you're constantly moving slowly to your left. And that part of the table with your notes, or your meal, moves with you, so you still have your personal meeting "space." The idea is to position you across from and in direct eye contact with everyone else in the meeting.
At only $675/seat, we think it a bit of nonsense. But, if it's a gag, it's an expensive one; they have a movie on their site showing participants in the meeting moving slowly 'round the table.
The Cheaper Alternative
If you're having trouble engaging other people in a meeting, get up and move around! Good meeting facilitators always have a handy set of well-worn exercises they can use to engage people in meeting one another and increase the level of energy and interactions. In our meetings, we encourage people to get up and move any time they want, if only to relieve their tingling legs.
When we facilitate new groups, we use breaks and other interruptions in the agenda to accomplish the same thing as "the table of the movable feast." We announce a break (say, between agenda items) by asking people to pick up all their stuff and put it somewhere else, so they'll return to sit next to different colleagues. Sometimes, that change in perspective (say, from the foot of the table to along one of the sides) can draw out a shy person, or provide them with a sense of support. You can do the same thing in the classroom, of course: Keep the participants moving at each opportunity, and you'll notice there're new pattern of interactions; it shakes people out of their comfort zone, helping them learn and participate more.
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