There is a mentality that with the modern workplace, a person’s physical location doesn’t matter, especially when talking about IT positions. All we IT folks need, apparently, is a computer with a webcam and a network connection – we can log into to do our work, and teleconference in for meetings. We can use jabber instead of talking to someone in person. The next time you think about saying something like this, please stop and think a little bit. Yes, this works in a pinch, and will get the job done. However, it’s really not a good solution long term.

I posit that no matter how good the technology has gotten, nobody has thought up a good-enough replacement for being able to walk into someone’s office and ask them to bounce some ideas off the wall. Or to walk into your supervisor’s office, close the door, and ask questions that you don’t want to have go on the record. Or really get into a technical discussion with a group of people that don’t agree with each other, and try to diagram stuff on the whiteboard. Yes – there’s ways to handle all of these, but they come with a lot of friction that needs to be overcome. It’s a lot less difficult to have the conversation face to face many times than it is to have it electronically.