A handshake can still trump a videoconference. The energy services giant Halliburton announced on Sunday that it will move its corporate headquarters and its chief executive, David Lesar, from the old boomtown of Houston (Texas) to the rising boomtown of Dubai (UAE). The move sends the message that even in the new economy, some of the old rules still apply, including that location matters.

There will be no tax benefits from its move. Halliburton — which is spinning off its embattled military contracting subsidiary — says it wants to focus on energy. And as the saying goes, it’s going where the oil is. That stands in conflict with the popular notion that the wired world has made geography irrelevant. But all the Blackberry devices and Internet phone calls in the world can’t make up for in-person interactions. News spreads fast in person, not just on MySpace. As a result, a city with a strong concentration of companies and a trained labour force can maintain its position within an industry.

That’s no argument for complacency by policy makers. It is easy to imagine that Halliburton might not have deemed this move necessary without the visa problems that visiting businesspeople have been having, particularly those with Muslim-sounding names.