Grayling Blog

Mind-Tripping

Posted on 29.04.2010 by Christine Boehlke

There’s more than one way to travel around a volcano.

I’m a big mind-tripper. In fact I can’t even remember what it was like to only be able to go places that required bringing my body along. Not that there aren’t plenty of situations where the body comes in handy, but not as many as one would think. And anyway – if a body appears bigger than life on live streaming video for a major global executive meeting, is it any less bodyful?

And does anyone really care that much anymore about bringing the body along on a business trip?

The vast majority of global business meetings are done by teleconference – giving a new literal meaning to the phrase - “a meeting of the minds.” Of the several hundred people I work with most regularly, I’ve only ever met about 25% in person and seen another 30% on video screens ranging from tiny, wobbly webcam images to full screen, full motion productions. I’ve hired people off intimate 1:1 cross country video conference interviews over a TV screen. And I’ve led brainstorms of teams spread across places like San Francisco, London, Sydney – movie star size people all lined up in a row across a theatre screen, all bubbling over with ideas and trying to talk at the same time – bodies and minds traversing the world in perfect synch.

I only ever know what some of the other half of my global business associates look like if I get curious enough to check them out online. But most of the time it doesn’t matter, because when it comes to getting the best business return, it really is about mind over matter.

And then there are the virtual events. I’m proud that our client, ON24, has pioneered and defined them. If you’ve not yet been to one – you owe it to yourself to try it out.

Whether you are an exhibitor or an attendee, you trade up the meager informational value of a name tag at a physical event for a complete data analysis of each party’s background, buying history or selling advantage as matches your own needs. This is the ultimate match-maker meeting of the minds, where the computers talk to each other on your behalf before advising you whether to talk further and if so, about what.

Or maybe the computers tell you to move on to another virtual “booth” that will be much closer to what you had in – well – “mind”.