My 17-year-old son needed some community service hours for school, so he signed up to serve lunch and dinner at the Catholic Action Center downtown this past weekend, and I went with him. The food there is for anyone who chooses to come to the facility; about 40 percent of the people are homeless, the rest low-income, and there seems to be varying degrees of mental illness across the group.

Most people were very courteous and grateful for the food. Others seemed accustomed to the center being their main source of meals and appeared nonchalant about it. A couple of them were hostile, such as the man who got a piece of fried chicken that was smaller than he expected and started cursing and threatening to "turn this f***ing place upside down" (he ultimately calmed down and ate his chicken).

What I think left the most significant impression on me were the three people we worked with at the center. All three are volunteers.

- Gary. About 64. He was a jump-master in the Army for 25 years, teaching soldiers how to parachute out of aircraft (his son is now a three-star general who commands Fort Bragg in South Carolina). Despite having major surgeries over the years and a lot of metal put into his body (including 2 bullets in Vietnam) the effects of which now make it difficult for him to move around, he works at the center cooking and preparing well over a dozen meals each week. While volunteers like us serve meals, he sits near the serving line and keeps order, e.g. making sure no one cuts in line, snags extra food, etc. He told us that when he was growing up on a farm about ten miles away, he would never have come into the run-down part of town that the center is in. But now, he said, he's more than happy to do it because "most of these people just took a wrong turn in life or had something unfortunate happen to them, and it could happen to anyone."

- Bev. About 60. She works full time at the University of Kentucky in a clerical role. Then she comes and spends up to 20 hours a week working alongside Gary -- cooking, preparing, cleaning. She's the person who got cursed at for giving the wrong piece of chicken, but she seems to take it all in stride.

- [didn't get his name]. About 45. He cleans pots and cooking utensils, all the food-preparation surfaces, and the tables where the food is served and consumed and the areas around them. He is a very large man and formerly worked as a bouncer in local clubs. Not sure what he does now for work, but he comes to the center multiple times each week to give this service.

I expected that working at the center would be a good experience for my son, and I went there mainly to support him. But I left there very appreciative of being reminded that the 'have-nots' in our community can benefit so much from the willingness of the the 'haves' to share time and abilities. It was a great experience, and I fully plan to do it again soon.

When Webex had their IPO at the turn of the century and people really started paying attention to web conferencing, I figured that business travel would start declining markedly. After all, while videoconferencing had already been available -- albeit at a high price and via largely proprietary, challenging-to-use systems -- web conferencing essentially allowed us to share the same material, e.g. PowerPoint slides and white-board drawing, that we'd share if were in a client's meeting room or office. It seemed so much simpler and cost-effective than going through all the hassle of packing and driving and flying and lodging and dining. When analyzed on paper, it certainly appeared so.

But the death of business travel has been greatly exaggerated. So long as humans are still making decisions about how money is spent (how much, with whom, by when, etc), other humans will still need to get out and connect with them face-to-face. How else can you build a client's confidence such that she will choose what you're offering over someone else's offer? Much as industry tries to mechanize purchasing, e.g. via Ariba or other such platforms, and remove the human factor and its accompanying emotion from the buying equation, the fact is that people are making the decisions and these people are ever-influenceable (yes, we all are). The people who want to sell to them therefore need to create reasons and opportunities to get in front of those human decision-makers and connect to build confidence and trust.

A prospective client recently told me over dinner, "I'm trying to be dispassionate in making my decision." I understand why, because he needs to be able to justify his choice to his management and they will expect to see his analysis of how what I'm offering compares to what my competitors are offering. But what all that analysis will not show is which person and team that client has the best gut-feel about. And that guiding sense, combined with solid analysis of the data, is what is most likely to lead to a choice that delivers what the client wants most of all: success. The quality and commitment of people, i.e. humans, behind the offer will determine -- more than company name, industry analyst rankings, the technical tools involved -- the success the client sees.