I’m at the Cloud Computing expo preparing for my talk and observing my fellow attendees. Interesting stuff.

The gentlement seated on either side of me at the last talk were Japanese. As I fumbled around with my blackberry and iPhone while trying to get Wifi to work on the laptop and reading email, I noticed the rapt attention paid by these gents to the speaker. Both listened attentively and took photos of every slide with their ever-present digital cameras. One took copious notes while the other not only took notes but also recorded the audio.

This has me wondering - are the Japanese simply better listeners that we are? Are they less afflicted with crackberry syndrome? Or does the fact that they had to fly half way around the world to attend a conference naturally orient them to paying more attention? Or, are they taking copious notes to share with their colleagues back home in order to justify their presumably expensive trip?

Culturally aware readers of this blog, I’d like to know: are the Japanese always this polite and attentive? Surely they’re not lacking in the number of attention grabbing gadgest available to them, so how do they manage to keep focus?