Why is meeting someone in person still important? With phones, Skype, text messaging, email and online video conferencing, why do we still need the face-to-face meeting?
It’s a good question. Now that technology enables us to meet “virtually”, why bother meeting offline?
Simply put, “you can’t fax a handshake or a smile”, as someone once stated. The face-to-face meeting allows us to display our social skills, show our human side, size up the other person, communicate more effectively, and much more. Some believe face-to-face meetings allow you to learn from and support each other. Some say there is an emotional energy created from being around others having similar interests. Eye contact, gestures, posturing, tone of voice, all play a role in our face-to-face meetings and are often lost in virtual online meetings.
I recall a co-worker in sales at a former job explain how he once flew from the US to Korea, followed by a long car ride from the airport to the client site, for a half hour face-to-face meeting. He complained about the trip, but never doubted its purpose which was to obtain face-time with a client. Shake hands, size up each other, and start to build trust.
As another example, I once worked as an associate at the law firm Winston & Strawn, which had a NYC office and a Chicago office. The Chicago office had a cafeteria open for lunch. I believe it made a difference being able to dine with the other attorneys at the firm on a regular basis. You either sat with attorneys you’ve never met before and learned about them and their practice or you were able to catch up with attorneys you worked with or knew before. It provided a synergy even though we all were always a short hallway, phone call or email away from each other. There’s an ebb and flow in any face-to-face conversation that allows participants to better communicate their thoughts and more effectively follow the other person.
Although we have members posting Public Invites for online meetings or teleconferences, MeetingWave’s core focus is to facilitate the arrangement of face-to-face networking meetings to help people expand their real-world contacts for business, professional or social purposes. Members post invites for coffee, lunch, dinner, drinks, jogging, golf or any other networking activity. We enable members to meet the people they want to network with anytime, anyplace because we believe the face-to-face meeting is still the best way to build real world contacts.
Regards, John
Founder, MeetingWave.com
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