The Industry Standard - When face time is a matter of life and death - Comments

This is great, Jessica, but

Gil Friend — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 09:25:25 -0700

This is great, Jessica, but the list of reasons for f2f doesn't include the hard-to-calculate value of building relationship: the sociality, the chats during the breaks, the drink after the meeting, the early morning hike, not to mention the side chatter and body language that nothing virtual has the bandwidth to convey.

I'm all for virtual (for all the above reasons, plus climate change and personal wear and tear), but I keep finding that sometimes nothing can replace face time. Sampson's flow chart gets close to including that, but doesn't quite get there.

I've just made some fuzz

jansegers — Thu, 22 May 2008 05:54:41 -0700

I've just made some fuzz about this article via my microblog network - http://jansegers.gnn.tv

Very nicely put, Jessica. I

Roger W. Farnsworth — Mon, 19 May 2008 12:44:58 -0700

Very nicely put, Jessica. I linked to your thoughts in my blog today and also included a link to an interesting study published a few years ago in the EU that researched the impact that advances in ICT might have on teleworking and business travel.

Back then the researchers at ITS Leeds predicted a 20% reduction in business trips would occur by the year 2010 if electronic communications technologies improved as expected and travel expense and inconvenience increased by 20%.

http://ciscoetl.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/coming-face-to-face-with-the-re...

Hope you find it as interesting as I found your opinions.

Hi Jessica, you've got some

Sam — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:41:36 -0700

Hi Jessica, you've got some great links here. I especially enjoyed Sampson's flow chart. You should also check out a recent post on the Workstreamer Blog about the 'socialprise revolution'...there is a lot of overlap:

http://workstreamr.com/blog/2008/05/18/socialprise-revolution/

Mindopening article Jessica!

Oscar Berg — Mon, 19 May 2008 07:42:54 -0700

Mindopening article Jessica! The kinds of examples that you provide here show that we should really reflect on why we need to meet and what it means to meet in a certain way - before we meet! Too often we just act by habit, without thinking about the consequences it might have. Although is not a matter of life and death for most of us, the consequences might be unnecessary CO2 emissions, lost productivity or that you impose unnecessary stress to an already pressured life situation.

When face time is a matter of life and death

Jessica Lipnack — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:07:23 -0700

“Many people have been killed going to meetings in Iraq.” It was an offhand remark made by a US military advisor in a casual conversation about virtual work -- its benefits, its pitfalls, its resisters, its committed participants. Until that moment, it had never before crossed my mind that traveling to a face-to-face meeting could be lethal.

Turns out Army commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken measures to reduce travel. “One of the first things I did here was set up a collaborative network to offset the fact that we couldn't travel easily or safely," Lieutenant General Jim Dubik explained in an email to me. "Needless to say, doing so contributed hugely to the coordination of our work.” Dubik is Commanding General of Multinational Security Transition-Iraq. Dubik’s work follows a decade-long history of Web 2.0 and other media experimentation in the US Army (see The Social General).

But war zones aren't the only place benefiting from the virtual workplace. Energy prices are skyrocketing and glaciers melting, making virtual work an increasing necessity for a profitable and responsible business. The Guardian reports on a British study in which executives predict an “exodus from traditional workplace to more home-working.” Three-quarters of those surveyed say their firms will have virtual workforces within a decade. Many already do.

What about you? Could you discharge less CO2, experience less stress, put yourself at lower risk, and make it cheaper all around by staying put? Last fall, The Content Economy, a Swedish blog, picked up on a suggestion on my blog to develop a checklist before traveling to the next face-to-face meeting. Here, for example, are a few questions from the checklist:

Do you need a day or two of continuous work together?
Do you have to share “things” that would be difficult to experience at a distance, like touring a facility or using a piece of equipment?
Have you calculated the true cost of the meeting in terms of direct expenses and personal wear-and-tear?
Have you done a back-of-the-envelope calculation of the meeting’s contribution to CO2 emissions?
Do you sometimes travel because you like it or get the feeling that you are important for doing so? Is the meeting you’re planning one of those?

Next, Michael Sampson, a New Zealand collaboration specialist, turned answered the question, “When Do We Need Face Time?” with a flowchart.

Calculating the true benefit of collaboration-at-a-distance does not easily lend itself to traditional return-on-investment calculations, as numerous studies, show. It’s simple to add up the cost of a meeting: consider that a face-to-face for ten people, four from Boston, three from New York, and three from Seattle traveling to Silicon Valley, for a three-day meeting comes to about $10,000. Now make that a meeting for 100 people from more distant locations and you see how that number quickly adds up to astronomic costs. There are other benefits too, like being able to share a market-breaking idea in a conference call, instead being tied up in an airport. Or including experts in meetings who normally couldn't make it in person. Their critical advice might be the difference between a failed venture and a market success.