Clip of the Day: Jerry Reed and Chet Atkins
The video conferencing/teleconferencing/telepresence market has changed dramatically during the past few years. That’s not a surprise, considering the explosion of the Internet, broadband networks and, finally, mobile devices. What until relatively recently was considered cutting edge now is common place. One of the big winners is the teleworking community.
Six or seven years ago, the industry – led by Cisco – began marketing extraordinarily expensive “total immersion” rooms that were meant to replicate real meetings as closely as possible. Think of the Holodeck in Star Trek. The expense — both in the equipment and the huge amount of bandwidth that the systems required — was justified by the fact that those utilizing the rooms were top executives, and eliminating several trips a year was invaluable.
As time went by, functionality was added, networks and computers gained capacity and desktop video conferencing became possible. This, too, now is common place – and fits perfectly with folks working from home.
Today, mobilization and the provisioning of services by third parties have become key enablers. The benefits of mobilization are obvious. Third party provisioning makes life easier for organizations looking for conferencing and eliminates much of the overhead. Vendors and service providers also are including video and video conferencing in unified communications platforms, where it integrates with various other messaging functions.
The bottom line is that in a few short years videoconferencing has moved an expensive technology capable only of the limited task of showing a large object, usually a face. Today, teleconferencing and telepresence are far less expensive and can do far more.
Videoconferencing is a great thing for teleworkers. Indeed, it eliminates or reduces many of the downsides of this mode of working. This tool gives teleworkers a visible presence with co-workers and superiors. It lets everyone – no matter where they are – see each other more often.
Here are some useful links:
There are thousands of other useful links, especially among service providers. Teleworkers should take advantage: They have nothing to loose but their isolation.
