BuzzFeed had a great post comparing expectations vs. reality when traveling for business. I will only be highlighting one of their comparisons but I’ve linked to the full article up above. Ashley Perez leads off with “expectation: exciting travel to glamorous places vs. reality: Ohio”. I was hooked right from the start, know why? I spent 2 days this week in Ohio for business…
Joking aside, traveling to Ohio with Nick Brown, my account manager, was my first “official” business trip and I would have been excited regardless of the destination. Oddly enough, we traveled to Girard Ohio, which is only odd if you know my last name, which happens to be Girard. Girard, Ohio is the corporate headquarters of Caster’s subwoofer and speaker client SVS. As their PR firm, Nick and I were invited out to participate in their annual planning meeting.
This post isn’t about regaling you with tales specific to my trip, but rather why the trip was so important. The article is a couple years old, but in 2011 Business Insider wrote an article entitled Why Face to Face Meetings Still Matter and since then Forbes has done some research on the matter, as well as Hilton Hotels. Since these articles were written, the world has gotten increasingly more technologically advanced and so these points are just as important now as they were two years ago, if not more important.
I am the most recent addition to the SVS PR account, making myself, along with a couple new SVS hires, the most recent additions to the team. An unavoidable side-effect of being new to the team is not knowing the rest of the team. Sure, I’ve communicated with the SVS team via email from time to time, and even spoken up on SVS PR calls but that doesn’t mean I know the team, or that they even know me. My physical presence at the meeting allowed me to put faces to names and emails, interact on a personal level and really get to know each member on the team, better understand the role they play, and feel like a valued member of an internal team, even though Caster is technically an outside consultant.
My role and what I would have gotten out of the meeting had I simply called in to listen would have been minimal at best. Physically being present forced me to be engaged and observing others engage made me want to participate when I felt I had something worthy of sharing. A side from my experience, the case for face-to-face meetings is pretty strong:
They help to capture attention – According to Beth McEuen, attendees at virtual events are more likely to multitask and filter certain information out. “[Multitasking] engages a different part of your brain, and information doesn’t make it into long-term memory.” The President of SVS, Gary Yacoubian said “today is not a multitasking day” as he requested people power off their laptops unless they were taking notes. The simple action of asking those in attendance to disconnect and focus on the purpose of the meeting made us likely twice or three times as productive as the group would have been had everyone remained wired in.
They inspire positive emotional reaction – interacting with other people in the flesh creates a positive emotional experience and that’s contagious! Positive emotions become attached to those involved in the event and make attendees more open to new experiences.
They build networks and relationships – sharing information is easy, that’s something that can be done virtually. However, creating networks or relationships is still something that requires an in-person interaction. Before the meeting, I was simply sharing information with the SVS team, but attending the meeting and engaging them face to face has allowed me to begin building relationships with each member of the team and as McEuen notes, “trust is built more effectively face-to-face.”
Recent advances have helped bridge the gap a little bit between working inclusively online or in person, and these are excellent, often times cost-effective, tools. The next time you have the opportunity to attend a meeting in person, jump on it! While it’s not always a possibility, the benefits of a face-to-face interaction are truly remarkable.
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