We are assured by the experts that we are, as a species, designed for face-to-face communication. But does that really mean having every meeting in person? Ask the bleary-eyed sales team this question as they struggle 1LABOUR through their weekly team building session and that answer is unlikely to be in the 2AFFIRM. Unless you work for a very small business or have an 3EXCEPT high boredom threshold, you doubtless spend more time sitting in meetings than you want to. Of course, you could always follow business guru Archie Norman’s example. He liked to express 4SOLID with customers queuing at the checkout by holding management meetings standing up. Is email a realistic 5ALTERNATE? It’s certainly a powerful tool for disseminating information, but as a meeting substitute, it’s seriously flawed. Words alone can cause trouble. We’re all full of 6SECURE that can be unintentionally triggered by others and people are capable of reading anything they like into an email. There is also a 7TEND for email to be used by people who wish to avoid ‘real’ encounters because they don’t want to be 8FRONT with any awkwardness.