Resources
Face to face interaction
The Role of F2F in Virtual Communities
By Sue Boettcher, Guest Expert
Summary: Meeting people face to face can enhance virtual communication.
Virtual communities are, well, virtual. By definition, in a virtual community, people communicate around the globe using tools such as e-mail, message boards, chat, and sometimes telephone and videoconferencing. And I often extol the advantages and the virtues of virtual communication for business. So a discussion of face-to-face (F2F) meetings might seem out of place. Not at all. Depending on the mission of the virtual community or work group, face-to-face meetings can bring a group together and provide a richness of experience that virtual communication can't match.
Get Real
Face-to-face meetings can be planned before a community or a work group launches, or they can happen spontaneously during a community's lifetime as members decide they want to meet. Or your community might consist of members of a local organization where face-to-face encounters occur regularly, supplemented by virtual tools between meetings.
Planned meetings before the launch are usually used to kick-start a virtual work group, to let everyone meet one another in person, to put a face and a personality to the e-mail address, and to work on the initial project. Participants then go their respective ways and continue work using virtual tools, enriched by the experience and carrying with them a more holistic picture of their work partners. Other gatherings can be planned for specific intervals as work progresses.
Meetings organized by the community members are usually signs of a healthy community. People generally don't travel across the country - or around the world - to meet people unless they feel strongly connected to them. It's a sign of bonding, and any community worth its salt will find its members planning get-togethers as the community grows and matures. You can encourage these by providing physical space when available, posting notices of events, and reminding members of safe ways to meet people they know only from online.
Mix and Match
In other cases, the community exists simultaneously in virtual and physical realms. A local activist group might have an online presence and encourage networking among members. A church might have a number of e-mail discussion lists. In these cases, usually the virtual component is used as a supplement - to provide additional information, to remind members of upcoming events, and to give people a means of interacting and connecting when schedules don't permit them to attend face-to-face events.
Clearly, in these situations, the virtual component enriches the face-to-face component. In more far-flung communities, the face-to-face component enriches the virtual component. Either way, your community will be richer and better connected with a regular dose of F2F.
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