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Videoconferencing predictions past and present
This week we’ve seen many references to “recently released” research suggesting that videoconferencing may finally be ready to take off.
Videoconferencing – a much talked about, but seldom-used technology – may finally be earning its spurs within the enterprise.
85 per cent of respondents polled either use or plan to use video conferencing.
Forty one per cent of those questioned are also using, or investigating the use of so-called telepresence
But here’s the thing: We’ve seen this before. For example:
“Videoconferencing gains momentum”
Jul 18, 2007“Video Conferencing Gains Ground”
Sep 17, 2007“Videoconferencing is likely to gain momentum”
Apr 4, 2007“Videoconferencing Gains Momentum”
Sep 7, 2001
Despite years of false starts and unfulfilled promises, here we go again. Whether we are talking one year ago, seven years ago, or 25 years ago, the theme is always the same. It goes like this: “while we acknowledge that videoconferencing has never met adoption expectations in the past, we believe that is because of INSERT EXCUSE HERE and with our new INSERT WIZBANG TECHNOLOGY DIFFERENCE HERE we are sure adoption will explode this time.”
Hint - it’s not a technology problem.
FYI: Telepresence is not “new”
Cisco is pushing Telepresence hard as “the next big thing” and a lot of people are buying into the hype and referring to it in language like “new” and “next generation” technology.
I have news for you. Telepresence has been around for decades, at least in research circles. It used to be called Videoconferencing and it is usually justified on the basis of increased productivity or cost-cutting as a direct result of a presumed reduction in travel. Except it turns out it doesn’t achieve those benefits.
And it’s not because the implementations haven’t been good. There have been some magnificent systems put together (at incredible cost), with high quality video, multiple cameras, synchronized whiteboards, and all sorts of cool hardware and features.
We see solutions claiming to provide technology that substitutes for face-to-face communication come up over and over. However, no one seems to ever stop and look at the facts, the research already done, the long history of failure in past attempts, etc. It seems we are doomed to repeat this history forever. Its too compelling - intuitively we know it must work.
But it doesn’t. I mean the technology works wonderfully - but it doesn’t achieve the stated goals of increasing productivity or reducing travel expenses. I’ll make this part one and end here, continuing this theme tomorrow.
