My colleague, Bryan Williamson, and I have been leveraging a site called Thepoint.com to help raise money for the Make-a-Wish Foundation. It all started during a casual conversation when I mentioned I needed a haircut, and Bryan asked if he could shave my head (I happen to have a thick, long and luxurious head of hair). I said he could for $1000 bucks.

We bantered back and forth and one of us came up with the idea of raising money for a charity and the highest bidder would get to shave my head. We set a goal of $2500 and started to leverage our social networks.

Surprisingly, we only raised about $300 during the first two weeks we were working our online networks. Then one day, during a departmental meeting, we mentioned the fundraiser and the donations started pouring in. That helped us quickly hit our goal.

I’ve been wondering why our online efforts garnered little traction. And what I have concluded is that nothing beats face-to-face communication — when you can look someone in the eye and connect. That’s why I think online face-to-face experiences will continue to increase and webcams will become ubiquitous. I think sites like Tokbox.com will push the envelope and soon we won’t ever have a conversation where we are not looking someone in the eye.

By the way, you can still donate to the cause here: http://tinyurl.com/ygbqoa4. Remember, it supports the Make-a-Wish Foundation.