collaborative and distance communication tools

I am getting married in may, and my husband to be has accepted a job out in NYC. As a PR major, I figured the big city would be a perfect start to my career as well! As I started searching for jobs, I found the one that I KNEW I wanted. Ever since I started in my field of study, numerous people have asked me “so what do you want to do with PR” and the answer is always the same--something with the church of jesus christ of latter day saints. There it was, an internship ad for my dream job. In New York. for the church. starting in september. Could this opportunity be any better?

As I looked farther into the internship, the more excited I got. However, as I read the final details something caught my eye. “This is a distance branch public affairs office of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints” A distance branch? what does that mean? As I researched a little more heavily, I realized. The main source of communication to and from church headquarters is done through video conferencing and phone calls, allowing the NYC office to only house about 10 employees total. “

Is this as good as working in the REAL office? “ I asked myself. As I did some more research about video conferencing and distance branches, I learned how important this internship would be not only to my career as a PR professional, but in my awareness of the up and coming ways to communicate from a distance. From an article I found online at http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/00/19/14/PDF/reffay_chanier.pdf It states how collaborative and distance communication tools are an area that present employees sometimes still have problems with. People want to hold to their traditional ways of communication, However, how much more effective of an employee would this make me by having such interaction with different ways other than traditional communication? Also, an article found on http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=62267 states how some teachers already feel threatened by how much of life you can live online, including your education! This is a serious wave of the next decade, that we should all become more familiar with!