101 Tips for Telecommuters—Successfully Manage Your Work, Team, Technology and Family

59. Determine the Need for “Live” Interactions

Now that you've mastered the fine art of virtual interactions and have discovered the wonderful levels of efficiency you can achieve through the avid use of technology for communication, you'll need to counterbalance this with the occasional need for “live” interactions. Whether these be “live voice” (e.g., phone or videoconference) or face-to-face interactions, some situations will warrant your investment of time, effort, and money to connect with people on a realtime basis. While there are no hard and fast rules about when you should get involved in a live interaction, it's clear that neither too much nor too little emphasis on real-time communication is a good idea.

Some telecommuters initially ...