I enjoy Full Gesture Communication™ in Unaugmented Reality™ (#fauxtrademarks). As amazing as social media is becoming, it's still no full substitute for eye-to-eye interaction. I met the co-founding CTO of Yammer this week, Adam Pisoni, and our conversation came to life immediately in a way that I don't believe would be as easy to kindle pixel-to-pixel.
Here's an interesting question I think. Can you distinguish in your mind the kinds of online relationships you have with people you see physically from time to time from those you've yet to meet? I believe you probably can, and probably do.
This topic just cropped up again for me this morning. It may be a sixth of the way through 2013, but Dell has just published a little slidestack quoting some pundits, including yours truly, on some development aspects of social media this year. Geoff Livingston is quoted as saying: "I really believe in events. Online becomes much more substantial when someone meets you face to face. Try to create ways to meet your stakeholders in person so you can cultivate a deeper substantial relationship."
Do you think digital technologies can help crack this nut? How? When?