Take a look at this Balancing Contributions During Face-to-Face Collaboration and see what you think.
My first reaction was one of horror. But when I read the actual paper An Interactive Table for Supporting Participation Balance
in Face-to-Face Collaboration, I calmed down a little.
The researchers seem to know what they are doing and recognise the limitations and pitfalls of this sort of technology.
Though I'd still rather that people better understood their own conversational styles and were more aware during their conversations so that this type of technology was never needed.
On thing, I think never works, whether its a facilitator or technology, is trying to explicitly draw the quieter people into the conversation. In my experience if they feel they are being coaxed, encouraged or otherwise manipulated, they withdraw even more.
I think the best approach is simply to create an ultra-safe environment, sit back and wait. If they are ever going to, they will emerge in their own time.
