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The digital workplace and digital living room are creating an interesting phenomenon of transforming our normal day-to-day communications to a combination of status updates, tweets, texts, blogs, and chats. While these advances in technology have enabled new forms of digital communication that are valuable they also have a created a number of drawbacks and hazards on how we effectively interact.

So what can we do to put the “F” back into social? First, let me explain that the “F” stands for face-to-face communication. Why is face-to-face communication important you ask? Here are some real benefits to consider:

• The experience is truly synchronous; it is real-time.
• There is tone and reflection in the voice of the speaker that allows emotion to be shown, interpreted and understood.
• Allows body language to be shown, interpreted, and understood.
• A sense of trust and respect is established through the combination of physical, emotional, and intellectual interaction.
• Experiences can be interactive and collaborative.
• Large amounts of information/data can be shown, discussed, and analyzed by all participants (i.e., think of a full wall whiteboard with post-it notes, diagrams, images)

Most of our own experiences will echo that there is no substitution to having dinner (and a few drinks) with partners/co-workers to build a deeper relationship, form a bond, and truly connect on a personal level.

As we have rapidly embraced and adopted all manners of digital communication, one of the golden lessons to keep in mind is “when starting major initiatives, communities, and projects then start with a series of face-to-face encounters to support the subsequent digital interactions.” As we transition to a more digital workplace, there is a real need to retain some of the key aspects of face-to-face communication. Listed below are three ideas to consider adopting as part of your digital workplace strategy to humanize the experience:

•  Leverage video enabled communication as this provides the ability to see the individuals allowing body language, facial expression, environment, etc., all to come into play. With the advent of desktop/mobile solutions such as Skype, Microsoft Live Meeting, and Apple FaceTime there are many options to choose from in this space. Consider making one of these solutions available on every employee’s computer to use to communicate.
• Create social profiles inside your enterprise to allow people to connect by following and being followed. Make profiles personal with pictures, about me, interests, skills, etc., that can be viewed and searched. Many relationships are built based on mutual interests that are as simple by what music they listen to, what books they read, what their favorite movies are, hobbies and interests.
• Invest in solutions that allow real-time collaboration across physical locations. There are a wide variety of collaborative solutions covering documents, mind mapping, diagrams, file sharing, etc. A few well-known examples are Adobe Connect and Google Docs.

Remember, kick-off any important work with face-to-face experiences then provide digital workplace solutions that will provide features and functionality that create, extend, and emulate these experiences.

What are the best practices you have used to create a digital workplace that humanizes the experience of communication, sharing, and collaboration?