Difference between revisions of "Face-to-Face Meetings"

5 reasons why face-to-face meetings are still important

After a 2-day workshop in Bangkok, I wondered why, in this age of videoconferences and social networks, we still subject ourselves to the hassles of traveling including security checks, tourist traps and time away from our families.

At the end of those 2 days, I got my answer.

1. Benchmarking. Travel allows us to gauge our country’s (and our company’s) performance against others. We can see what they are doing right, what we can improve on and what we should avoid. These things are sometimes evident as soon as we arrive at our destination’s airport. If we’re truly serious about improving our situation then we can use travel as an additional opportunity for reflecting and as a springboard for action.

2. Personal connections. There’s nothing like being face to face with your friends and colleagues from other countries. Seeing the look of genuine delight on their faces upon seeing you again can make the trip worth it. You can’t fax a smile or email a handshake.

3. Best experienced live. There are some things which are best experienced live, like watching a cultural performance, seeing an artist work his magic right before your eyes or listening to a brilliant lecturer. One of our guest speakers, Dr. Anil Tendulkar from Mumbai, was simply a joy to listen to. His topic was cardiovascular surgery (tough topic) but throughout the presentation, he kept his audience’s interest and clarified a lot of things for me. As he was concluding his talk I was actually sorry to see him go.

4. Instant feedback. If you have questions, for example about your foreign counterparts’ key to success, now’s the time to ask them right there, right now.

5. Cultural enrichment. This is an opportunity to learn about other cultures. Our differences may be apparent from the beginning. But we may also be surprised to learn about our similarities. This will make you better equipped during your next visit. As Renato Echivarre of Educated Minds would say, “True freedom begins with an educated mind.”.

Technology may be a great enabler and we now use it in ways that we may not have imagined possible before but it still can’t replace good old personal time. Not yet anyway.

Face-to-Face Meeting is Still Best for Relationships

We're all looking for better ways to connect with other people so we can have great experiences.

The options for electronic connections has grown tremendously from the telephone and e-mail to include instant messaging, SMS text messaging on our cell phones, and social networking Web sites like MySpace and Match.com. Let's not forget about blogs, where comments can be a conversation. And, the newest way to share everything about your life, Twitter.

While most of these services can help grow online relationships, their most valuable uses are to share information and arrange face-to-face encounters with another person or group.

Tony Karrer links to a post by Kathy Sierra (Face-to-Face Trumps Twitter, Blogs, Podcasts, Video...) on attending the SXSW conference that covers online communicating. She said:

Bottom line: Face-to-Face matters, and the more people we meet online, the more people we now want to connect with offline. She points out that one of the reasons people attend face-to-face events is the emotional energy of being around others who believe as you do. SXSW attendees believe in the power and benefits of online communication and media. And they came together face-to-face to learn from each other and support each other.

Another powerful motivation for attending face-to-face events is physical touch. Whether it's a hardy handshake at business events or a friendly hug or kiss at social events, physical touch is key to great relationships.

By the way, she also listed 10 great ways to get people together face-to-face.

The chart highlights how to choose whether to hold an online event or a face-to-face event. If it's only for information sharing, especially among people who already know each other, hold the meeting online. However, if the attendees need to build relationships and become motivated, face-to-face is still the best way to meet.

So, when you’re deciding whether to have an online meeting or a face-to-face meeting, consider whether the relationships everyone will form are more valuable than everyone's cost of traveling to the meeting.