Scientists used to complain about being involved in too many meetings.

These days, they more often complain about being summoned to too many telecons, videocons and immersive remote-attendance meetings of all sorts. And some of the software systems developed to make all of this somewhat less painful are not too bad, actually.

And so I find myself attending, along with my boss sitting atop a Hawaiian volcano where he is observing at a telescope, the first meeting of the HELP consortium taking place in Brighton, Sussex, UK.

This got me thinking about how we as humans crave in-person contact, and how mundane and disconnected we feel when communicating through a computer screen. That is why I think it’s important for companies to read resources like this page in order to get acquainted with what’s needed to satisfy customers and coworkers alike.

Here’s a sneak peek at our humble objectives.