Why physical connection is essential in a digital working world

This week the launch of the block-buster video game Call of Duty had a large celebrity gathering plus queues at stores to get the game. Yesterday the Social Media Club had it’s fifth birthday at a party in Boston. Twice a month a bunch of staffers and freelancers in my company IBF gather for a day in London’s Covent Garden. What all these examples tell me is that in an increasingly digital working world, the physical meetings become essential. They “ground” us in a tangible, personal connection with others and are proving vital in an online world. Each day 50 of us in my company work ever more in richer and more intense Digital Workplaces. This needs to be balanced and supported by physical meetings at customer events, team days, dinners. The MOW 3 example shows that this applies in the online entertainment world too. You can happily spend whole days of time gaming online so long as there are rare and high profile times when actual people actually meet. In fact most gamers willl never attend these gatherings but the gatherings have a halo effect and ground the digital experience anyhow for everyone. What is online must at times become offline. What is also interesting is that it takes a small dose of in person connection to enable a large amount of digital work. Most organisations have the balance upside down totally where the offline is everywhere – this is out-dated, habitual and no longer useful. As the Digital Workplace fills more and more of our working days and as offices and the likes start to shrink, wither or disappear, the need tor occasional “physical touch points” will increase. As I often quote the great and late Timothy Leary who said 30 years ago “in the future physical meetings will become rare, sacred” – this seemed ridiculous at the time but not feels spot on.