The field of information technology is one of the fastest growing innovations in the world. Among the many innovations is the advent of the internet, which has brought many changes in to our society today among them being virtual-meeting technologies, digital document processing and telecommunication advances.
New technology tools such as the email, intranet, fax, video conferencing, chat or mobile phone conversations have contributed a lot in advancement of communication. This essay gives an insight on how the future of large face-to -face meetings is likely to be affected by more innovations in information technology.
People hold meetings to discuss different ideas and aspects concerning them. Face to face, meetings are important as they help in building trust and confidence among the individuals involved. However, these meetings are currently becoming outdated with the advent of virtual meeting technology and expansion of social media like Facebook and twitter.
This is because they enable a faster way of communicating with people far away and help to save on time. Face to face, meetings are costly as people have to travel from one destination to another, Food, accommodation has to be availed to those attending, and organization of the venues may be very complex.
Many companies have cut down these costs because of virtual meeting technologies. Technology has made it possible for some companies to import cheap labor from employees oversees as they do not necessary require them to be on site to carry out their responsibilities.
Invention of webcams has caused video conferencing to be more preferred than face-to-face meetings though they were initially considered as an extra cost by some companies. Contrastingly, some information such as one’s feeling is well communicated through facial expressions or hand gestures.
In addition, some situations may not be handled perfectly through the social media or virtual meetings, as they need coordination, consensus, timing, persuasion, or even negotiation. These situations can only be achieved best through a personal face-to-face meeting.
Negotiating for important contracts such as building and construction requires all the parties involved to meet and discuss elements of the contract that may not be clear. Signing an agreement with minor mistakes can lead to serious consequences.
Recruiting the best employees is the ultimate goal of any human resource department in any organization. This may not be easily achieved if carried out over internet as the employer may be looking for a certain character that can only be drawn from ones behavior during the interview.
Holding a conversation with a person face-to-face may enable one to draw many conclusions such as the person’s passion, motivation, strengths, and weaknesses. This information is very valuable as one is able to understand clearly the individual he is dealing with.
Some business entities are still adopting large face-to-face meetings though with well-defined purpose for long-term results. Although tight budgets may be a great constraint, they put more emphasis in establishing the impact of the meetings.
They count their profits in terms of the outcomes in productivity achieved from those who attend the meeting. Some prefer to incur some losses at the beginning but gain good profits in future as an outcome of the ideas exchanged during meetings.
In view of the above, the number of large face-to-face meetings held by different organizations has drastically reduced with the advent of information technology.
Although some companies believe that integrating face-to-face meetings with internet technology would be only best option to be adopted in future, I strongly believe that more is yet to be discovered in the world of information technology. My opinion therefore is that these large face-to-face meetings will be eliminated by virtual meeting technology and social media in future.