When I talk with colleagues and friends about the New World of Work (NWoW) a common fear is that social cohesion disappears. The fact that everyone can do their job anywhere and anytime means that not everyone is at the office from nine to five. Several techniques make it possible to communicate and collaborate virtually. A good example of virtual communication is videoconferencing for meetings. A funny video about the advantages and disadvantages videoconferencing can be found below.

In the video is shown that video conferencing can save a lot of money (flight tickets, time, etc.). On the other hand, the video shows that the fear to lose social cohesion is not strange at all. In fact, it definitely happens when there is too much focus on being productive instead of being social. But when are you social? There are people who believe that when they have a lot of friends or followers on social network sites, that they are very social. Of course via social network sites like Twitter, Yammer, LinkedIn, Hyves or Facebook you can be social. However, the biggest pitfall is a lack of face-to-face contact. With only virtual communication and collaboration you cannot be social. For social cohesion face-to-face contact is essential, because the viscosity of such a face-to-face relation is much higher than a relation based on virtual communication.

Therefore it is important to see these aspects in the right proportions. Face-to-face communication is essential for social cohesion and social network sites and solutions like videoconferencing are supportive and can for instance take away geographical distance. And most important, you need a good balance between being productive and being social.

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Tags: Face-to-Face, NWoW, productive, social networking, Social on, videoconferencing