The Ugly American, or `Will You Shut Up Already!'

I've been to two professional conferences this week, one in Harrogate in Yorkshire Monday through Wednesday (more later). Yesterday and today, I'm in Paris. I've been to literally hundreds of conferences in my life, all of them until now in America, and not a one has ever run on time. Over here, I've noticed, however, that things run more or less on schedule: Speakers rarely talk more than their allotted time, and Q&A stays in its allotted five or 10 minutes.

Unless Americans are involved.

This week's conferences have featured half a dozen speakers from the States. In four cases, the speakers went five to 10 minutes longer than scheduled. Another point: The Americans are the only attendees who use Q&A time to make speeches, rather than ask questions. Please, folks, when in Rome ...