So how’d we fare this time around? Well, we’re glad to report that the removal of cold, impersonal email from our workplace reminded us of the value of getting up and talking with each other, reforging lasting connections that will do far more for us than any fancy software system could ever do. Yeah right. And then we went out and planted a tree.

No, what really happened was a day of false starts, fluttering hands and embarrassed shrugs, vaguely agonizing and occasionally amusing. […] Those with email also became lifelines for meeting organizers — because our calendars are all tied into our email, most of our schedules were instantly erased, leaving harried-looking meeting organizers trying to find people with working email who could peek at the organizers’ schedules, or who’d been invited to a meeting and could reply-all to the invite as a method of reconstructing the list of attendees.