Many years ago I was involved in releasing a beta test software upgrade to just a few customers. We kept in touch via written reports (via a private pre internet intranet) and weekly telephone conference calls. One customer kept reporting a particular problem that we couldn't understand or reproduce. We simply could not understand it, or its importance and impact to the customer. This went on for some weeks. As part of my job I visited all our beta test customers so I eventually found myself in a small town in Wisconsin, USA. Within 5 minutes of our first meeting I understood the problem, its impact on the customer, and the necessity to modify our product.

The lesson? There is no substitute for face to face communication, no matter how swift email and telephones (including visual) are; the problem you solved for me would have been resolved almost immediately had we been in the same room.

Whether or not business men are conciously aware of this the rise in business air transport can be, at least partially, attributed to this need for full communication.

This life lesson also explains my, and the general, dislike of veils and hijabs. A good book describing interpersonnal communication and the latest scientific support is Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman.

(Alternatively, the explanation may just lie in my inability to put my thoughts into written form.)