Is the value for face to face communication growing?

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John Hagel, now with Deloitte's Center for Edge makes an interesting point in this podcast. John suggests that the increase in the flow of information in the world has paradoxically increased the need for face to face conversations.

As the amount of the public information increases, the value of tacit or experiential knowledge increases. In John's language, this would be the 'edge'. The interesting thing about the current time is that the nature, scale, and pace of discovery of these edges is only growing as the cost of learning and experimentation goes to zero.

Take a look at the Shift Index Report 2009: Measuring the Forces of Long-Term Change document from John's group. He suggests that the democratization of technology has intensified the competition in the market place, and therefore the returns on assets have dramatically dropped. What surprised me is that this is not a story from the last decade but rather a story of last 40-50 years. The report has rich commentary on how value flows are shifting in these times. Must read. Will post more later.