It's good to talk

Earlier this week I was lucky enough to travel to London with a colleague. It was 2 hours spent with no distractions from other colleagues, no phone calls or email on our blackberry's (it was an early train and we where in a quiet coach).

It was lucky as we had 2 hours of really productive conversation covering a wide variety of topics. We caught up on movements of people, got some valuable insight and advice on new roles and discussed new approaches to challenges. We resolved a number of issues and got to know a little bit more about each other as individuals.

It was a really productive value adding journey.

It made me wonder if all the social networking, email, instant messaging and 4th generation collaboration tools such as Google Wave are actually the best value adding communication. Don't get me wrong these are all very useful and welcome forms of communication

- Blogs – I write this one, I read others to;

- wikis – I have been looking into setting up our Enterprise Architecture as a wiki and look at wikipedia's popularity;

- email – Which I use everyday;

- Instant Messaging – I am a big fan of this for quick questions and answers across a disparate and virtual community;

But sometimes it is just plain better to talk face to face. If that is not possible on the telephone. For example immersive video conferencing in an organisation is usually extremely popular. I have tried it and it is truly amazing. Is it's popularity due to being able to actually talk to someone “face to face” in real time?

Whilst thinking about this I came across a Harvard Business Review Analytic Service looking in to the importance of business travel in building and maintaining business relationships. It stated that 79% of respondents said that in-person meetings are the most effective way to meet new clients to sell business. 89% agreed that face-to-face meetings are essential for 'sealing the deal'. And almost all (95%) said that face-to-face meetings are a key factor in successfully building and maintaining long-term relationships.

So if you are trying to embed Enterprise Architecture into the heart of business thinking then you may need to do more than quote facts, figures, analysts, produce presentations and send emails. You should sit down and talk to the organisation.

And next time you are on a train search out a colleague, when in the office pick up the phone rather than send an email or just get up and walk to see the person.

After all it is good to talk.