A Wider Net

Be sure to read on - beyond my snarky remarks are some cool stuff (really).

Remember that telepresence event I mentioned a little while ago? It’s happening now. And it’s being covered with… a blog. Actually, two blogs. Yep - the world leaders in telepresence, the technology and techniques of allowing people to have face to face meetings without traveling, have actually travelled to an event to talk about it, and to my knowledge, there isn’t even a scrap of video on the web about it. There are photos of people… at a meeting… talking about how they have the technology to deliver great video experiences over the web, and avoid traveling to meetings.

I need to pick on a one more thing, then I’ll get back to some serious comments.

Here’s a photo from their blog, featuring the CEO of Polycom:

This is nit-picky, but note how the A/V company used an old round-corner rear-projection screen, which has three noticeable effects:

1. It crops the logo in the top left.
2. It makes the set look dated
3. It makes the show, which is a supposed to be about bleeding-edge technology, seem not-so-bleeding-edge.

Here’s a photo that seems to indicate they are demonstrating a remote video connection, since there’s no one on stage:

Reading through their coverage reminds me that this is seriously cool stuff and it’s ready for prime time. If the jarringly blatant Cisco Telepresence product placement in the recent season of 24 didn’t already convince you, then perhaps this event will. Telepresence corrects a lot of video conferencing sins (eye contact being the most obvious), and it opens up all sorts of opportunities for events and meetings.

The most impressive so far:

The DVE Tele-Immersion room, which superimposes a floating image on the video screen, creating the illusion of a floating hologram over the table. Look closely - that room only has four people in it - the other two are in another room somewhere else. Slick.

Images are from the event site and their coverage partner, Technology Evangelist.

Techcrunch covers Zoho Meeting, a web conferencing application with lots of great features that Webex is missing (like, hopefully, a reasonable price). I like the fact that it’s compatible with a very wide array of platforms, and I love the fact that you can record the sessions.
I must add a disclaimer, however- if you’re thinking of using this as a sales tool to a bunch of people, please reconsider. In fact, please reconsider using a web conference at all. If I get one more invite to a boring impersonal audio-only web conference sales pitch I may need a webexorcism.

You might be asking - if this is a videoconferencing unit, wouldn’t the person holding it be unable to participate in the conference? Yes - and don’t you have that person in mind, right now?
The Tandberg FieldView looks like a large digital camera, but it’s actually a wireless (WiFi) portable videoconferencing rig that I can’t wait to try. It weighs only 1.5 pounds, has a 10x optical zoom, and can capture 720×480 resolution video (good quality) at 30 frames per second (smooth motion). It records and stores videos on an SD card. It even has a built in LED light for dark areas.
The touch screen viewfinder on the back allows you to annotate the video for the remote viewer.

Things you can do with it:

1. Conduct site surveys where one person goes and everyone else watches and asks questions of the site host.

2. Share your facility with a client by literally walking them around the place while you conference.

3. Conduct a quality video conference from almost anywhere, including Starbucks.

4. Demonstrate a trade show booth location to an exhibitor prospect, while the show is going on.

5. Show your boss the amazing widget you just found on the trade show floor, and ask if he wants buy one million of them, or two.

Does anyone else find it amusing when a technology like Telepresence comes along to save us from the pain of having to travel for face to face meetings, and then they turn around and launch a conference about it that requires travelling to meet face to face?

Don’t get me wrong - I’m all down with telepresence - I think it’s awesome. But traveling to a show about it just feels bass-ackwards to me.

Vivox got Second Life. Wow - that sounds like a jumbled pharmaceutical tagline!

Vivox, maker of internet voice products specially designed for massively multiplater online video games, has now added massively multiplayer online communities to its client base. Second Life will use the VOIP technology to allow people to talk to each other without a separate conference call. Vivox technology also makes sure you can only hear the people near you in virtual space, which is pretty dang cool.

This will certainly help add a much-needed degree of communication convenience to online meetings held within Second Life. What’s not clear is if the technology will support audio reinforcement, such as a podium microphone in an auditorium, so you can address a crowd.

Second Life also made the cover of the recent issue of Corporate Meetings & Incentives magazine. Considering the Second Life community of nearly 3 million registrants has under 1 million regular users, it sure is getting a lot of media attention (including their own Reuters desk).

Meeting organizers and event planners need to be aware of the promise of TelePresense. Simply put, TelePresence allows you to conduct face to face meetings without being in the same room, and without feeling like you’re talking on a clunky video phone. Telepresence creates an illusion that people from remote locations are in the room with you. It can also create the illusion that a remote presenter is acually on stage at an event. It may sound a little “holodek” fantastic and, to some extent, it is, but this is very real, and based on well-proven technology. What makes TelePresence so much better than videoconferencing is really how it’s integrated into the meeting. Companies have come up with increasingly clever ways to integrate the technology into a familiar environment like a conference room or a ballroom- so you think about interacting and communicating and not about the technology.

Cisco Systems has an extensive section on their website about their telepresence solutions.

Other links:

Human Productivity Lab - has a great telepresnece blog, a massive downloadable paper on the subject, and lots of telepresence content.

Teleportec - solutions for creating the illusion of a remote speaker actually being on stage.

Digital Video Enterprises - provider of a variety of telepresence solutions, including 3D telepresence kiosks.

Telepresence World - annual conference in San Diego

I’m not usually one to offer tips on Teleconferencing, but this list from Web Worker Daily is a pretty good reference. I’m troubled by the fact that people need to be reminded to mute their bluetooth headset if they have to go to the bathroom in the middle of a call, and to use a quiet keyboard so as to not audibly “type-dis” while you multitask. These tips on teleconferencing are good for conference calls, but they remind me why I try so hard to move customers from web conferencing to webcasting. Web conferencing is so dull, it needs lists of survival tips. ’nuff said.

Found via Face2Face.

I was driving home late last night after a late evening webcast. One of our clients needed to reach a distant international audience and answer their questions live. I was pretty tired after a fairly long day and I was flipping radio channels, too lazy to dig my iPod out of my Nintendo Event SWAG shoulder bag on the passenger seat. I passed by a station playing soft classical music, and realized that my kids were sound asleep with this very station playing quietly next to them. They had been raised with those insidious crib-mounted cassette tape-eating machines constantly set for “stun”. The net result: they routinely fall asleep to Mozart and the inhumanly deep voices of your average classical radio jock. So I flipped back and listened a while, imagining that I was there with them, listening along with them, dropping off to sleep. I don’t recommend doing this while driving (woops - two posts in one week about things not to do when you’re driving - not good).

Where am I going with this (besides off the road?) (more…)