Video conferencing
As travel costs rise and airlines cut services, large and small companies are rethinking business travel and face-to-face meetings. The technology has matured to the point where it is often practical, affordable and more productive to move digital bits instead of bodies.
The emerging trend goes well beyond a reaction to rising travel costs and weakening economies. Past predictions that technology could replace travel have been frequent and premature. The main difference today is that the technology is finally catching up to its promise. There is no single breakthrough – rather a series of advances in telecommunications networks, software and computer processing.
The results can be seen not only in the expensive new telepresence systems, but also in more mainstream collaboration technologies – Web conferencing, online document sharing, wikis and Internet telephony. Companies of all sizes are beginning to shift to Web-based meetings for training and sales presentations.
Of course, face-to-face meeting are not obsolete. It is simply that digital tools are making business travel more selective. A recent report estimates that up to 20% of business travel could be replaced by videoconferencing today.
A range of companies offer the mainstream online communications and collaboration tools: WebEx, Citrix, Microsoft, IBM and others, plus top-end products from Cisco, HP and Polycom.
Complete telepresence rooms, typically with three huge curved screens (and a fourth screen above for shared work), custom lighting and acoustics, cost up to $350 000. That cost is rapidly decreasing.
With more than 200 telepresence rooms, CISCO says it is avoiding $100M in annual travel costs, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from air travel by 10%. HP says air travel for offices with telepresence rooms is down 25%.
The paradox in ‘telepresence’ is that it stimulates the richest form of human interaction: people talking to each other, face to face.
But, many agree that it is not a perfect substitute. You do not learn about other cultures with telepresence. You get things from being there, over breakfast and dinner, building relationships face-to-face.
Some years ago, I made a televised speech from San Diego to a conference in Australia. There was no comparison with the level of personal interaction and enjoyment I achieved during my recent Australia trip. The travel time was about 14 hours each way, but the personal interaction was worth the journey.
Green is going mainstream
Whether it is because of high fuel prices, or worries about global warming, environmentalism seems to be reforming existing opinion.
Companies are learning to make their profit by helping nature rather than by destroying it. Capital is shifting towards making green (money) through going green (environmentalism). That is a seminal shift into a different kind of economy.
Automakers are finally getting serious about hybrids, expanding offerings and retooling gas-guzzling pickup trucks and SUVs as hybrids. Consumers are looking for more energy savings which puts green builders and building products in demand. Skyrocketing energy prices are changing the math.
When energy costs were relatively low, making investments to reduce future costs was an uphill battle. But today's energy costs moves the issue to simple fiscal responsibility.
The exercise game
I have always been a gadget freak. But I do not own any video games. Till now.
I used to enjoy playing early video games like Pong, Tetris and Mario Bros. But crashing cars and battling aliens are not for me. They are played mostly by teenagers. I browse the video-games aisles now and then, but nothing is even remotely interesting.
Then along comes Nintendo's Wii. It is time to get away from my keyboard and in front of the TV, but not on the couch. This is the physical side of TV watching. I work up a sweat playing ‘Wii Tennis,’ a game that replicates racket swinging with motion-sensing controllers. Some say they can keep fit and lose weight playing ‘Wii Sports’ for about 30 minutes a day.
Now a new game – ‘Wii Fit’ – focuses on physical workouts, with a weighing scale and digitised fitness trainer. There are already 9,5 million Wiis in US households, and 4 million are expected to buy the additional $90 Wii-Fit balance-board bundle.
It is strange that in an age of over-supply, Nintendo’s Wii has been sold-out in most of the stores and it is available only at a higher re-sale price from online sellers like Amazon.
Jim Pinto is an industry analyst and commentator, writer, technology futurist and angel investor. His popular e-mail newsletter, JimPinto.com eNews, is widely read (with direct circulation of about 7000 and web-readership of two to three times that number). His areas of interest are technology futures, marketing and business strategies for a fast-changing environment, and industrial automation with a slant towards technology trends.
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