When Stevie Wonder first sang 'I just called to say I love you,' no one wondered whether he would have been better off tweeting his message instead of picking up the phone. Not so today.

Recently, in my Wharton MBA course on leadership from the point of view of the whole person, we grappled with the challenge of how to choose among the various media options available today for connecting with important people in all the different parts of your life. We came up with 17 different media currently in use for interpersonal contact, including face-to-face [...]