Each time I engage in a conversation about communities, I am asked about blogs, discussion forums, podcasts and wikis. What I find interesting is how few ask about the use face-to-face meetings and conference calls in building communities. It is almost as if people believe that as corporate communities get created, physical meetings and the use of phones (cell or land lines) will disappear.

Now, I recognize that I am not the same age as my two sons who do everything using Facebook, eBay and text messaging on their cell phones for all their social and business interactions. But then again, everyone that I know over the age of 30 still relies on such age-old communications like face-to-face meetings and phone calls to start their conversations, even if they transition to the online world after that.

The good news is that I am not alone in thinking that these channels -- physical and virtual will be integrated. Comments by other bloggers like me understand this.

Source

So when you think about building a community for your company, think about how you create personal relationships. You probably start with either a phone call or a physical meeting. Once you know the other person and understand their wants and needs, you probably transition to online. And that's how other industries have done it -- including banking (e.g. physical tellers to telebanking and then online); retailing (which now combine store fronts, catalogues and online commerce); and publishing (books, books on tape and now online manuscripts through wikipedia).

In short, building quality and enduring communities will mimic how we do it in our personal lives -- they will combine physical and virtual communication channels to build trust. Who knows, maybe one day, even Facebook will have physical events that bring together our kids. match.com does.

Barry