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I’M WRITING this on the train to
Cambridge, on my way to a symposium on “The Virtual University”. This is causing
me cognitive dissonance. As my mother said five years ago when I told her I was
travelling to an Internet conference in Paris: “But . . . why?”

Why did I spend a lot of 1999 on trains and planes all over Europe going to
face-to-face meetings to advise the European Commission about the communications
revolution? Is there something uniquely valuable about face-to-face interaction
for learning or business? I don’t think so.

The main reason why virtual meetings—and virtual…