In case you haven't seen this yet, someone tried to charge his cellphone on stage at a performance of “Hand to God” on Broadway. Details are unclear, but apparently a man in the audience jumped onto the stage to plug his cellphone into one of the electrical outlets on the set. The only problem was that the outlet was a prop in the scenery -- not a real outlet. Actually, that wasn't his only problem. Suffice it to say that I don't think he got to see the show.

I admit to charging my phone in a public place. It was a restaurant. I was out-of-town and desperate. I asked first.

This brings me to the topic of charging phones -- and accommodating the charging of phones. More and more conference rooms are equipped to handle laptops. Certainly a recognition that more people bring laptops to meetings and expect to use them. We accomodate laptops.

Most people don't think twice about asking for access to Wi-fi and I doubt that many offices don’t provide access to guests.

Will asking for a charge become as commonplace as asking for Wi-fi? Should the host's greeting before a meeting be “can I get you something to drink and an outlet?”