Thanks for your post and reminding people that technology isn't the answering to everything. I agree that face-to-face will always be needed and if we forget that we WILL miss out. I also think there are ways we can better leverage the newer collaborative technologies. For example, the "test" you refer to talks to the correlation between "good relationships" and "face-to-face time". It could be argued, that one seeks more 1-1 time because they have a good relationship. In other words if your boss was a 'jerk', you would purposefully avoid them. In any regards, let's assume that face-to-face leads to higher employee value. Why is that? Possibly a part of that is because of the stronger relationship that is built overtime priarily through informal communications. A genuinely concerned and interested boss can be a wonderful boss. Can you get that informal interaction without co-location? Would you send an "e-mail" to your boss or your team just saying "So how's the family?"... Likely not. That kind of communication typically happens through informal interaction... Enter the world of social networks (ala FaceBook), we are now creating webspaces purposefully designed to have no "agenda". There is not topic heading. It's just an informal, on-going, virtual water cooler. Could this be used in a way to improve informal interaction and therefore relationships? Possibly. As I mentioned at the top, I do however that it will not be prefect and we still need face-to-face. If interested, here is a link to an article I wrote on this topics as well. http://rexsthoughtspot.blogspot.com/2007/04/collaboration-future-gartner-predicts.html