I've had so many instances where we've been trying to crack a problem, going back and forth over emails and WebEx calls for months. We finally get back into the office and have a person-to-person meeting, and it just...gets resolved. Like magic. You could say that those previous discussions just laid the groundwork for us to crack it, but it's more than that...having one more WebEx meeting wouldn't have fixed it, or two, or three.

There's something about the personal interaction - physically pointing at the screen, having multiple laptops open, pacing back and forth, whiteboarding - that can be magic for brainstorming.