Again, by designing group communication processes, online communities can be created that sustain trust and retain personal presence through interaction. Working online fosters the feeling of communicating with a computer and not with other human beings. Individuals need to understand this phenomenon and guard against it. Managers, colleagues and human resources professionals must learn to police, accommodate, and counsel, as the situation demands, when someone sends inappropriate messages. Time, effort and bandwidth are often wasted in online conferences and forums that are stillborn because the organizers overlook basic principles of need and relevance, and are unaware of the special techniques required to sustain online dialog.
Experiential knowledge exists for making online conferencing work in a variety of situations.
As with all online collaboration and communication, organizations must make a learning investment in order to reap the considerable business value. Travel continues to be a major barrier to distributed work. Extensive travel wastes time, consumes money, disrupts families and has only episodic value. The knowledge and skills to meet online can be learned by everyone in the organization. Online communication can unite the organization, but it can also highlight fundamental cultural differences.