How Green was my meeting
How Green was my meeting
Traditionally, international business travel was positioned as an employee benefit and the frequency of travel was regarded as a measure of the seniority of an executive. Happily, increasing awareness of the negative environmental impact of business travel, increasing travel cost and its contribution to a corporation’s carbon footprint, has dramatically changed the attitudes of both employees and companies to business travel. For example, a single executive that takes a return flight from London to Los Angeles for a meeting generates 2.52 tonnes of CO2. If ten people fly from Heathrow to Edinburgh to attend a company training course, they generate 1.44 tonnes of CO2.
Various types of video conference solutions have been deployed over the years in an attempt to reduce the need for business travel, but thus far the low quality of the experience they have offered has limited their success. Whether expensive legacy solutions built in to the boardroom, or limited desktop based Internet technology, the user experience has been poor, with the technology actually getting in the way of successful communication. Consequently they have had a somewhat limited impact in terms of reducing business travel.
However, telepresence solutions deliver a quality of experience that feels as good as a face-to-face meeting. Participants around the table and on screen are seen in high definition and life size, with none of the latency of image or sound of the older systems and without headsets and microphones getting in the way of a fruitful discussion. These sophisticated systems offer the genuine opportunity to dramatically reduce business travel, slash costs and avoid a negative impact on the environment. So why have they not become a standard facility within any modern business? The simple answer is a low awareness of telepresence amongst business people combined with the high capital cost charged by the larger vendors of these systems.
The good news is that cost effective Telepresence solutions are now available on the market utilising standard hardware and AV technology running over normal Internet connections. These new solutions are affordable for any business. Whether leased on a monthly basis, or purchased outright a typical business will quickly recoup its outlay based simply on the reduction in business travel cost. The improvements they provide in employee productivity and the effectiveness of meetings is an added bonus, as is the dramatic reduction in the carbon emissions of the business. For example, the Telanetix Digital Presence solution has successfully reduced business travel to regional meetings by 50% for Mercedes Benz in the US.
OK so I don't have to login to post... One of the biggest barriers to reducing business travel? - airmiles There is little or no incentive in most companies to reduce travel. How many "bus(y) travelling executives" want to tell the family that the annual vacation to Tortola/Disneyworld/Turkey has been cancelled because they personally chose to help save the planet by not travelling to an unnecessary meeting? Now, if the FD/CFO incentivised the travellers by donating x% of their total individual travel & subsistence savings to an individuals "holiday bonus fund" then there may a rather rapid change in attitude. The other issue with telepresence is it is seen as a tool only for "important execs". Compare the scenario re the dedicated Word Processors of yesteryear where the user was the secretary who had only a "few senior people capable of putting thoughts on paper" with today's "toolled up" user with their very own PC - INCLUDING a dedicated wordprocessor, spreadsheet and presentation application (office) as the minimum, but also with their own dedicated electronic communications messaging system (outlook and browser). So, give all the needy a webcam and personal speakerphone (+ headset for the airport / busy office environment) and access to a web conferencing and bingo - "now I can save money, reduce my carbon footprint AND spent more time with the family" whilst benefiting from the reduced stress! And with a £50 headcam providing up to 1600 x 1200 resolution @30fps who could complain that "ah yes but it aint HD"? The good news is "audio and video" is just a peripheral so whether it's a webcam and headset or a full audio conference setup with a dedicated, motorized, PTZ HD camera (e.g. Sony EVI-HD1 ) - it's still just a peripheral to the webconferencing software application. So mixing and matching boardroom and road warrior users is a reality and it's as easy as navigating to a web site and clicking "Join Conference" - despite what the hardware manufacturers might tell you about the need for MCUs, gateways, CODECs and the like. No surprise there really!
Great comments but you hide both the regisitration pages and login box so "no comment"
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