In your line of work meetings may be inevitable.
You know in principle the number of meetings could be reduced,
perhaps, but the cultural shift needed to cut them down may be
more than you feel willing to take on. But you can change them,
and ensure that you don't have to travel for them - by having
virtual meetings.
You can opt for the more expensive options, such
as setting up your own videoconferencing suites, or using a
specialist videoconference service provider. These are justified
on the grounds of quality and the savings made in
(long-distance) travel. It's surprising how quickly the initial
outlay is paid back.
Alternatively - or additionally - you can opt
for web conferencing: having meetings over the Internet. This is
a stunningly cheap solution, and one facilitated by "free"
products incorporated in your computer's operating system and
available on the Internet.
At the lowest level, all you need is an
inexpensive digital camera connected to your computer, and
products like Microsoft NetMeeting or Yahoo Messenger. And some
people on your contacts list to talk to, similarly connected.
(In fact, you don't necessarily need the camera, if you want to
stick to audio meetings. But you might as well have the pictures
too.)
But what about the quality? It won't be anything
like the quality of a good video conferencing system, so you
have to think carefully about the business purposes it is used
for. The quality of the pictures will depend largely on your
connection. On a 56kb modem, the quality will be poor. But with
ADSL or better, the picture quality is pretty acceptable.
Voice quality is quite good, subject to the
usual reservations about "voice-over-IP". It falls short of
normal telephony standards - but look what we're generally
willing to put up with using mobile phones! Sometimes it's a bit
like using a satellite connection, with a short time delay one
has to get used to, but the drop-out rate is far less than using
a mobile phone on the train.
But having your virtual meeting is not just
about voice and pictures. Being able to transfer documents and
work on a "whiteboard" are also possible through these free
solutions.
More ambitious virtual
meetings
These free services are useful for relatively
simple one-to-one communications. You can bring other people in,
but to do this on any serious scale and with any elements of
control, you need to get hold of some web conferencing software,
like Genesys
Meeting Center.
With this kind of software you can think
seriously about using virtual meetings for presentations,
e-learning, and all kinds of collaborative work. Meetings can be
scheduled using Outlook, and a supervisor can control who is in
the meeting. There are also various mechanisms for tracking and
recording proceedings.
In distributed work environments - whether it's
a company with numerous sites, or individual workers who work on
a location-independent basis - there are many advantages to
inexpensive and flexible "on demand" solutions.
But equally, there are circumstances where a
low-budget solution may be sufficient for communicating with
customers. For example, someone coming into a town hall to ask
a question, but who needs referring to an expert working on a
different site; or into a shop or show-room to enquire about
parts or repairs, and needs to deal with someone based at
another site. This can achieve better results than a phone call,
and is far better than sending the customer off on a trip
to a different site.
There are implications for office environments
too. The advantage of web conferencing is that it is be
available form your desktop. But this may be disturbing for
colleagues - though perhaps not much more so than phone calls.
For purposes such as training, or meetings involving high
creativity or confidentiality, it may be better to have small
rooms available with suitably equipped PCs.
Firewalls and bandwidth
I've come across people who say that web
conferencing doesn't work with firewalls, or that they have lots
of problems. Many people do not have such problems with video
and firewalls. Basically, it should be well within the
capabilities of the modern IT department to enable both web
conferencing and high security.
Bandwidth is more of an issue. Video is very
bandwidth hungry, and there are issues both for the
telecommunications links and the internal IT network. Once
everyone starts using web conferencing, your present capacity
may not be sufficient.
But, this is the way things are going.
Insufficient bandwidth is not a good reason for holding back
applications that offer increased productivity and big savings
in travel costs. The point is to build the business case for
increasing your communications capacity in line with information
age expectations.
The future
The technologies we are talking about are still
very much in their infancy. We're only at the beginning of
seeing what can be done with them. There are quality issues
at the moment with web conferencing: even so there are many
business advantages to be gained by using it.
There are also many benefits to face-to-face
meetings which are unlikely to be met in virtual environments -
at least not in the near future. However, this is not an
argument for no change. People who fear technology - or who like
clocking up travel expenses - often caricature the
alternatives into "all or nothing" scenarios. It's not
an all-or-nothing proposition: it's about selecting the most
appropriate medium for the occasion.
Most people do think that they have far too many
meetings. Many are routine, and/or follow-up meetings to more
critical ones. Not all of them need to be "in the flesh". Web
conferencing offers a more efficient, flexible and dynamic
approach to meetings, while retaining some of the aspects of the
face-to-face.
Meanwhile, at home, your kids are well into web
conferencing. It's already old hat to them. It's why you can't
get them off the computer. And the generation coming through
college, used to the super-fast academic networks and doing
everything online - are they going to want to work for companies
that still have a 1950s approach to meetings?
If you're not web conferencing already, then you almost
certainly will be in the next two or three years. You might as well be
ahead of the game, and get started now.
|
