Cell phone users can set phones to vibrate so that incoming calls won't disrupt a meeting. This is fine if you are an observer. However, if you are a meeting participant when the phone rings and you want to take the call, you must speak to the caller upon answering. How many times does someone walk out the door with their hand cupped over the phone trying to tell the caller to wait while they step outside?
Meeting Mode solves that problem. In meeting mode, the phone still vibrates, but when it is answered the caller hears a pre-recorded message that says something to the effect of "Please give me 10 seconds to step outside so I can talk to you." The message could be inserted at the factory, or it could be set up to allow the phone's owner to record his or her own message.
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I like this idea. Next step would be to have an embedded rules engine on the phone to handle rules such as: "If the call is from my wife, let it through in meeting mode, otherwise, play message 23"
To take the idea further why not have the phone learn from your habits. Perhaps a Bayesian classifier that would observe your actions and mimic that action in the future. In other words, it would observe which calls get received in meeting mode and allow those to go through in the future.
Never let a "machine" override a face-to-face meeting. Have wireless "machine" issue a recorded message :"In a meeting...leave your number...I'll call back."