In this era of tighter travel budgets, there are still reasons to meet face-to-face, or so it says in an article in today’s New York Times, E-Mail Saves Time, but Being There Says More. The article quotes a hard-traveling lawyer about how sometimes one needs to do business in person:
That’s an important message that does not necessarily come naturally to a lot of younger people today who have grown up with so much of their communications being by texting and e-mail. I tell our younger lawyers, if you think you are going to have a difficult interaction with a colleague or a client, if you can do it face to face that’s better, because you can read the body language and other social signals.
In texting and e-mails or even videoconferencing, you can’t always gauge the reaction and sometimes things can have a tendency to be misunderstood, or they can ratchet up to a level of seriousness that you didn’t anticipate,” he added. “In person, you see that somebody reacting in a way that you didn’t expect. Then you can stop and figure out what’s going on, and adapt.
All of the modern communication tools at our disposal make it so easy to do business on a global scale that time becomes a more important commodity than money. We can’t be everywhere at once, but we need ways to communicate that convey more information than email or the telephone. While there is nothing like actually being there, and being able to have an informal discussion over coffee, a meal, or a beer, videoconferencing fills an important gap between email and phone on the one hand and an in-person meeting on the other. You can indeed be face-to-face without being there in person.
