When two colleagues suggested we pow-wow about forming a self-employed writers' network, I faxed them directions to my house without a second thought. I lived in a three-bedroom production version, the vinyl siding type with paint peeling from the door--a detail I recalled when I opened the door to greet the first colleague, only to see him wiping the blue paint flecks off his knuckles.

Things got worse when the second gentleman pulled out the kitchen chair that had broken just the night before and planted his rump before I could stop him. Acquaintances who end up sprawled on your kitchen floor generally don't remember you for your professional approach.

As we delved into our discussion, my neighbor's teenage son decided it was a perfect day to work on his NASCAR-wannabe. The revving engine shook the walls and killed all conversation. My colleagues left two hours earlier than we'd anticipated--and the big contracts we'd discussed previously on the phone never floated my way.

Still, I was lucky.

Suppose Mr. Kitchen Floor had broken his back, suggests John Frank, who isn't known as the "father of the virtual office" for nothing. This principal with Chicago-based Actoras Consulting Group is the man responsible for sending nearly 25,000 of IBM's employees to home offices at the beginning of this decade. "Would it have been a worker's comp issue or health and medical?" he asks.

The possibilities get darker when you consider sexual harassment and rape. "Meetings in a home put everyone in the 'he said/she said' category," Frank says. "The risk of physical and mental liability on all counts is too high."

For reasons of liability in general, State Farm Insurance does not allow its telecommuting employees to hold meetings in their homes, says Terri Brenneman, the superintendent there who helped build the pilot program nationwide.

Home workers have to be aware of legal issues but they aren't the only ones with meeting-space problems. As corporate America continues to take a hard look at real estate costs and the ways precious floor space is used, some companies are reducing the number of conference rooms. The result is that groups and departments are competing for conference-room time, sometimes reserving rooms six months in advance.

Technology Steps In

Meetings don't have to be an obstacle to home workers and the lack of meeting space doesn't have to be one to office workers, especially if we start thinking about meetings as having less to do with physically "meeting" and more to do with getting the work done. In many instances technology can help us get the work done, albeit in slightly different ways than traditional meetings have.

According to the National Statistics Council, 37 percent of employee time is spent in meetings. Says networkMCI's latest study, Meetings in America, we hold 11 million business meetings every day to brainstorm, sell, negotiate, bid, brief, collaborate, present, and strategize. Busy professionals attend more than 60 meetings a month and say they still can't attend all the ones to which they are invited. "Is it any wonder that 91 percent of meeting attendees admit to daydreaming during these times, and more than a third actually have dozed off?" asks Jay Crookston, vice president of U.S. sales at networkMCI.

He knows his business firsthand: Crookston's typical day includes a sales presentation in Atlanta, two staff meetings in Chicago, a client meeting in Texas, and an interview with a reporter in Indianapolis. He uses technology tools instead of a Superman cape. Here's how you can, too.

E-Mail Meetings: Richard A. Johnson runs Arden Services, a business writing agency in rural Pennsylvania whose clients are in California, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan and even Argentina. He wouldn't recognize any of them from a Fuller Brush representative if they knocked on his door. The entire bulk of his services--from sales to introduction to research to brainstorming to delivered product--moves through e-mail and occasional telephone conversations. "There has been no reason I or my long-distance clients felt we needed to meet. The topic has never come up," says Johnson.

According to the American Management Association, 36 percent of people use e-mail as their preferred way of meeting. E-mail has overtaken the telephone as the most frequently used communications tool among human resources executives in particular.

There are obvious advantages. Recipients read your messages at their convenience, so "meetings" aren't as time intrusive. In addition, filed e-mail messages allow you to remember details more clearly in the future. Furthermore, e-mail allows you to edit your words--a luxury that the spoken word doesn't offer. Emoticons (those keyboard smiley faces) make misunderstandings less likely.

Telephone Conferences: Even in today's electronic world, 80 percent of us think an audioconference is a button on the phone rather than a business tool, MCI's Crookston says. In reality, it's the ability to hook up thousands of people on one call using a central connecting point. The possibilities are endless. Groups of telecommuters and their bosses can meet simultaneously over the phone and companies can conduct entire information seminars, press conferences, and industry conferences with this tool.

Frank doesn't always get this fancy with his group calls. Regional companies like Ameritech now offer residential three-way calling options on a per-use charge. The quality beats shouting into a speakerphone--or driving from Columbus to Indianapolis, for that matter.

Net Conferencing: The Lotus Notes, networkMCI Net Conference, and Hot Office Suites software programs offer geographically dispersed people the chance to discuss, hammer out, and refine computer documents and projects in real-time. "It's very powerful stuff, and the market is only beginning to realize the potential," Crookston says. Customers are using net conferencing to invite clients and prospects to a virtual meeting at an appointed time for network presentations.

Videoconferencing: Despite the fact that 75 percent of us are visually oriented and videoconferencing has been available commercially since the early '90s, experts agree it hasn't caught on yet. For starters, it's expensive, starting at about $2,595. "Even if you gave the equipment for free, people need to get used to the videoconferencing concept," admits Hans Van de Ven, general manager of Philips Electronics' videoconferencing group. And as it was with the fax machine, being the first on your block to own one isn't admirable--it's lonely.

JULIE STURGEON brings 15 years of professional writing experience to her meetings, which she plans to hold at a nearby hotel's indoor swimming pool this winter.