Initally, there was an first-come, first-serve bruhaha in Baltimore and two weeks later, there is a ‘symposium’ in LA. One person attending both these events was in Gerogia in early April and will go back in June. Another person involved in both events will be in Seattle next month. A third person involved in both events will fly to Kansas next month. This doesn’t even address the trips by various folks from the beginning of the year until March.

Is this really worth it? True, unity shouldn’t have a price tag. I’d hate to be someone to say ‘no’ for purely financial reasons when there is a greater good possible. My question is, how many trips should someone take in a year? Isn’t there another way? These days it’s cheaper to rent a videoconference room for $100/hr at Kinko’s than to fly someone back and forth somewhere and put them up in a hotel. Email is relatively free. Even calling long distance with a good cellphone is very inexpensive.

Sure, I’d love to do everything in person. When I travelled as a consultant, I didn’t enjoy the customers that called me constantly, but didn’t want me to visit. It was very inconvienient. However, they were my customers, so I couldn’t force an in-person visit on them if they didn’t want to have me. Besides, it was much cheaper to call, so they had no real reason to fly me in. After a while, they even gave me VPN access to their network. I didn’t need to visit them at all.