A meeting effectiveness indicator provides information to participants of a meeting. The information includes messages that the meeting has gone off topic, and resources are being wasted. Participants within a room or local vicinity of the indicator used wired or wireless transmitters to send indications that the meeting is going off topic. Remote participants linked to a network also send indications via a network interface. Once a total number of indications reaches a warning threshold, the indicator warns the participants that the meeting is going off topic with a warning message. If additional indications are received, then the total number of indications will reach a tangent threshold, and the participants are alerted using a tangent message that the meeting is off topic.