Face to Face still trumps Technology
March 16th, 2006
I’ve been spending a fair bit of time recently working from my home, for my business Shift Control. This has some advantages, but frankly I still prefer to work out of an office. Why?
Well, at first I wasn’t sure, since I always had this idea of working from home as being an excellent way to work. However, having done it for a while now, I figured out that I miss the human interaction with the people I work with. Now, while at home I am often on the telephone to them, or at least swapping emails and instant messages. So I’m in touch with the people I work with, but I can’t see them, there is no face to faceinteraction.
With this in mind, we’re getting a small modest office. This will allow us our own space to meet and talk, plot and plan, encourage and criticise. Having this face to face time is super important, in my opinion.
Apparently, Hamish seems to think so too. In his post, he speaks about re-connecting with his ‘tribe’ - the people he works with.
When he says, “Information exchange at a distance is good, but the bandwidth up close and personal is different.” he speaks the truth.
A Basic Truth.
We are human, and to varying degrees, need human, or face to face, interaction. This allows us to do our best work, come up with great ideas together, perhaps even to survive.
What do you think?
[Update, 22nd April 2006] I’ve just read an excellent post by Kathy Sierra called “Why face-to-face still matters!”. It contains some really interesting points on how the human mind works when communicating with others. This isn’t just ‘touchy-feely’ stuff, this is how our brains are wired. It’s the neurochemistry, man!