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Erik: How are you learning to better manage long-distance relationships?
Ross: If we're talking about business which we probably should be, there's an extent to
which I think there are some things that I do that my peers don't do or certainly people
who are slightly younger than me don't do, which is that I email as infrequently as possible
and I get on the phone as frequently as possible. I think that distance isn't just physical
distance, I think it's about an emotional disconnect between people. I think that from
a client-services perspective, so what I do which is I talk to clients and I help them,
do this—get to a design outcome. A lot of people these days will do that almost all
electronically, right? And I think that's awful, that's really, really bad. For a start,
it makes it really, really easy to sack you. Right? If a person who has never spoken to
you or has never seen you in person, or does it very, very infrequently, will not consider
you in making their decisions. If you are just, you know, if you are just a username
on pivotal, or if you are just someone on base camp, or just an email, I think you're
setting yourself up for an amazing risk of all kinds of failure. So I make a lot of phone
calls even to people overseas. I set up a lot of meetings—I will go, you know, I will
fly into state for a half-hour meeting, sometimes. I realize it's kind of, you know, maybe irresponsible
but the—if I don't do that, eventually you just become one of another—a bunch of things
in somebody's inbox. So I guess, you know, I have this idea that all forms of communication,
even more useful now than they have ever been because they're so infrequently used, I figure—you
know, if you want to get somebody to remember you, write them a handwritten letter, right?
Nobody does that anymore. If you want to—If you want to be remembered, you stand out.
I think you should do that with, you know, with business relationships over distance.
I think you should do that with personal relationships, you know. I think gestures are important,
you know, I think it's important to send a postcard to somebody, send them something
physical. I think that matters and it matters a hell of a lot more than, you know, just
sending them an email or becoming a Facebook friend or anything like that. I think that's
what it is.