CSCMP's game-changing CEO Rick Blasgen really nailed it in his latest Direct Connection segment in the Q2 issue of Supply Chain Quarterly (www.supplychainquarterly.com).  The general point emphasized the value of face-to-face human-level communications in an age of instantaneous electronic communication via numerous media.

Even the Millennial Generation, btw, recognizes this value, despite its fondness for electronic access to all manner of information (and entertainment).  My deep suspicion is that way too many people of all ages like to hide behind the impersonal facade of email, texting, tweeting, twittering, flittering  - anything that buffers them from interactive personal contact.  But, that reflects a personality disorder rather than a generational "preference."

Rick went on to promote the idea that communications leads to collaboration, which can be transported from individual application to organizational relationships.  I take heart - when our profession's leaders get the picture this clearly, there's hope that the profession itself will follow.

Things get tricky at this point.  Organizational collaboration can't really be - as in the George Gershwin song from Porgy and Bess - "a sometime thing," done when it's convenient for one supply chain partner or another.  It needs to be part of day-to-day, and everyday, transaction execution within business relationships.

Now, the hard part.  Collaboration doesn't just happen; relationships don't blossom just because they're planted and watered occasionally.  All this is part of conscious investment of time and resources in  creating the right kind of relationships with the right kind of partners, and all with a business purpose.

The investment, consuming as it may be, is where the big payoff in supply chain management is, though.  It transcends momentary gains and losses when designed to deliver sustainable end-to-end marketplace advantage.  And, the wunderkind at the end of the table who's texting while you're talking is part of that set of organized relationships.