Is the world so virtual?

[Bruce Wayne]

I was speaking to a friend today and she was set to fly off to China for a meeting with a university regarding a potential partnership deal. She also flies around the world for conferences etc. It must cost a fortune and as she's an academic all of the money comes from EU grants etc.

With the web and video conferencing easily available surely there is excellent reasoning to conduct meetings virtually. You save money on travel (not to mention time and environmental savings). Am I being tight here or do other people share these views?

[miclason]

Our company does a lot of tele/video/conferencing, but, there ARE times when it's just not appropriate...(for example, with our new systems provider, most follow-up meetings are videoconferences, but, if there are major problems, people actually MEET in person)...we also need to actually send people whenever there are systems cutover and stuff like that...so there is a lot of traveling, too!