Last weekend I held a big event, coordinating dozens of performers and a large audience. The end result was fantastic, but exhausting. I planned for six months, and everything still happened at the last minute. Why?

Because electronic communications are changing what communities are.

For months, I used email and Facebook messages to recruit, coordinate and motivate dozens of collaborators. Phone calls and texts were very specific, i.e. “Can I use your garage while you’re away?” Longer exchanges happened via email.

My communication is mostly virtual. My closest friends and collaborators may live 10 miles away, or 100, or more. Most of my friendships are maintained through Facebook, email, texts and phone calls.

My communication is mostly unsyncronized. I can email a friend at midnight and they can respond at noon. We both participate in the conversation, but not at the same time.

My communication is mostly inclusive of the group, meaning it’s impersonal. If I ask for something, I tend to ask everybody. To do otherwise would feel like an imposition on one person.

Each of these factors greatly increases my options. Technology allows me to collaborate with more people under more circumstances.

Yet all work is ultimately physical (it has to happen somewhere), and all work requires time, and all work requires the collaborators to impose on one another.

Communications which are virtual, unsynchronized and impersonal are at least three steps removed from this moment, here and now, where all work will ultimately get done. By changing the times and places where work can get done, electronic communications create the optimal environment for procrastination.

Getting together is inconvenient, of course. Living 100 miles away from my collaborators would end the collaboration if we couldn’t share ideas electronically.

And the work does get done. Unity of purpose does not require adjacent cubicles.

But electronic communications can drain a project of its momentum and satisfaction. Work done toward a physical goal is best done physically, with a feeling of exploration and invention. Work done toward a social goal is best done socially, with a sense of shared risk and shared benefit. Work done toward an personal goal is best done personally, with a clearly expressed sense of individual purpose, security, and welcome.

And when communications are virtual and unsyncronized and impersonal, then communities are virtual and unsyncronized and impersonal. The most basic component of community may be overlooked as I again reach for my phone.

As much as I love my distant friends and my expansive community, I’ll build future collaborations on in-person meetings, direct communications, and work done with others in the same room. And that’s also where the fun is, which makes it  the best place to start.