Those of us who have been around for a while have heard that one of the major justifications for video conferencing is to cut down on the need for travel. Recent conversations I have been involved in indicate that this may be coming true finally. There are organization out there that are justifying video conferencing enhancements through travel reductions. This is not hard to believe with the price of airfares and such.
What strikes me now is the question of whether face time is really necessary these days. Social networking has advanced to the point that some people are falling in love and practically getting married through the internet and yet we still have vendors inventing ways to have video to our desktops. One recent article quoted a Skype product manger indicating that nearly 25% of their traffic was video based. Is this a toy or a real business tool? In the same article was quote about Tandberg coming out with a $1,500 desktop phone that provided DVD quality images on a 10 inch screen. Is that really what enterprises really need these days or again, is this going to just be a toy?
Video is certainly an important way of communicating but the open question is, how necessary is it for effective discussions, collaboration and productivity? My feeling right now is that it is not really a necessity. To prove that point I would suggest that there is very little video conferencing going on between North America and APAC outsourcers. If it was all that important we would see a growing traffic volume between these two regions of the world. There is not evidence that this is happening, at least no yet.
Until then, I would say that it is great to see you, but not necessary to get the job done.
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