Back in the 1970s, at the time of the first “oil shock,” when gas prices spiked, researchers at the Institute for the Future conducted a study of what was then being (optimistically) called the “telecommunications/transportation tradeoff.” The hope was that virtual meetings could take the place of the real thing, thereby saving money as people substituted electronic media for physical travel. However, the study concluded that there was no tradeoff. In fact, the opposite was true: The more people communicated with others, the more they wanted to travel to meet in person.

Why? While telecom (conferencing, texting, email) is useful for routine communications, there appears to be some kind of deeper connection that happens only when people meet in person. And when something difficult or sensitive needs to be discussed, there seems to be no substitute for doing it face to face. (As one frequent participant in remote meetings told me, he wanted to be able to pound on the desk of the person to whom he was talking to drive home an important point.)

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