Airplanes may be convenient and easy, but they are major contributors to global warming as jet fuel is very dirty! Business culture traditionally has put a high value on “face time” ,meaning actually being in the same room with a client in order to make a deal. But times, they are a changin’. Recent economic woes have forced travel cutbacks, which is a good thing for Mother Earth. And technology has come to the rescue.
In the past, the alternative to business travel has been videoconfererencing. Old style video conference systems were hard to use - the voice sounded like an old CB radio (Breaker, breaker good buddy…), and the people on the other side seemed to have disproportionately small heads. Enter telepresence - which is the next step up from videoconferencing. Telepresence uses technology to make it appear like you ARE in the same room with your client, even though you may be on the opposite side of the globe. Companies like Cisco, Tandberg (just acquired by Cisco), Polycom and HP have created systems that look like something out of a sci fi movie, but they work - saving both the earth and travel budgets.
These systems require a dedicated room, as the acoustics, lighting, etc. all have to be right so the illusion of actually being there is maintained. This means making sure your business real estate needs are updated to include one dedicated room if you want to be green and keep more of your green instead of giving it to the airlines. If your sales people travel a lot, this extra room will pay for itself in short order.
And telepresence does pay off. California based Cisco Systems uses its own technology, and saved $150M in travel budget last year.
June 25th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Terrific work! This is the type of information that should be shared around the web. Shame on the search engines for not positioning this post higher!