Absolutely, I agree, a waste of money!  This is a common experience but so are the hours of queuing, driving, flying, waiting on platforms, in lounges, reception areas.  Just because the idea wasn’t implemented properly, it does not have to follow that it is a bad idea.

After investment in Video Conferencing, the next step is to ensure it is used, used well and delivers on all the promises made to the stakeholders when making that investment.  Your people, the users, need to be confident and competent to use your Video Conferencing equipment to the full.

Companies who use Video Conferencing successfully usually incorporate Video Conferencing into their travel policies, undoubtedly use some form of internal marketing and more importantly train their employees on a regular basis.

Untrained personnel are less likely to use equipment than trained ones – it sounds obvious and it is.

Take a look at RIBA Enterprises, who have integrated Video Conferencing into the way they do business www.audeo.co.uk/work/riba-enterprises/

Our experience of working with clients for over 10 years tells us that the best way to do this is to get your people using Video Conferencing, and using it more often.  Take a look at our step-by-step guide.  We can provide you with all the help and support that you need to produce great results.

We would like to invite you to our digitalsignage.NET webinar on 27th February at 1pm. During the webinar we will show you how digitalsignage.NET works and what it can do for you. Register for your place here, we hope that you can join us.

digitalsignage.NET is a cloud-based digital signage application that allows you to send your message at the right time, to the right place, to the right audience, ensuring an accurate and targeted communication.

The webinar will teach you how to:
Add
Schedule
& Send your files to your screens in just a few minutes.

Expensive compared to what?  A photocopier?  A few international flights?  A Car?  It is better to ask whether it is cost effective.

Feedback from companies using video conferencing proves its worth:

• Teleplan recovered their initial investment costs within 8 months.
• RAL calculated that with every new Video Conferencing facility they save £400k a year in travel costs.
• PepsiCo UK recoup initial investment costs within the first six months of use.
• Safestyle UK say the travel savings alone make the investment worthwhile.
• Riverside were doing around 1.9 million business miles a year – with the use of video conferencing they have been able to significantly reduce this.
• RIBA Enterprises use their Video Conferencing systems 6 hours a day, every day.

Polycom’s ROI tool is great for calculating the expected ROI for your business.

Take a look at a real life example, where a client produced these figures in his consideration of implementing a Video Conferencing project.

Take a look at previous posts about Video Conferencing:
What is Video Conferencing?
What Equipment do you need for Video Conferencing?

A camera, microphone & speakers or a headset, internet access and your pc or laptop either loaded with Video Conferencing software or access to a hosted Video Conferencing service.

OR an executive desktop Video Conferencing system with an IP or ISDN connection.

From the meeting room:

Each site participating in the Video Conference will require, as a minimum, a camera, a codec, a microphone, a speaker, a monitor and an IP or ISDN connection.  The camera and microphone capture the image and sound, the codec converts the video and audio into a digital signal, encodes it and sends it out.  The codec at the other end decodes the signal and distributes the video and audio to the monitor and speaker.

So firstly, what exactly is Video Conferencing?

Video Conferencing is a live connection between people in separate locations for the purpose of communication, usually involving audio and often text as well as video. Video Conferencing in its simplest form transmits static images and text between two locations. Sophisticated video systems today can transmit full-motion video images and high-quality audio between multiple locations and with Telepresence Video Conferencing solutions the experience can be as near to meeting face-to-face as is possible.

The digital signage concept is no secret; it’s about information and delivering it to the right people at the right time.

Find out about Digital Signage, download our FREE Whitepaper from Dynamax – Digital Signage for Beginners

Wow, its finally here – Video Conferencing is now ubiqitous. We can use it anywhere, any way, any time. In less than 10 years this activity has gone from an expensive, very nice to have major capital investment reserved only for multinationals and the very rich companies TO available and free to anyone. Just like e-mail, web sites, mobile phones and even FAX machines became the must have technology to either get ahead or stay competitive – Video Conferencing is becoming the MUST HAVE application for businesses to communicate more effectively, stay in touch, plan and implement without spending all the profits in doing so. Simply, if you don’t have Video today or are not planning to have it – you may already be in decline………..now, where’s my iPad!!!!

Some new research from Polycom on the shrinking value of business travel.

Key findings include:

• Half (51%) of all short-haul domestic business flights taken by executives were for regular meetings.
• One-third (33%) say that many meetings they attend could be conducted by video conference.
• Four in 10 (40%) reported late arrival for an average of 2.5 meetings for the year because of travel-related delays.
• Nearly one-third (30%) of executives spent three weeks out of the office in 2010 on business travel.
• One-quarter of the executives interviewed reported feeling stressed by plane travel.
• One in 10 said they had missed a wedding anniversary, and an equal proportion reported missing a child’s birthday.

Take a look at Polycom’s industry report: http://www.polycom.co.uk/company/news_room/industry_view/index.html