“Among the changes she experienced for the first time was people emailing or IMing each other across the room. It’s no different from working at home, she concluded. And she’s considering doing exactly that.”

It’s true, I talk as much, or more, with project team members now that I work from home than I did in an office. Not only is working from home becoming more intimate with the tools available, including screen sharing, IM, voip, etc but a lot of office environments are becoming less intimate for the exact same reasons. Tools and technology will never build you a team or a community.

In the last office I worked, I used to love suggesting that we ban email and IM within the office. If you’re both in the office then you have to go talk with the person, or at least pick up the phone. I’m willing to sacrifice so-called productivity in order to build community.

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