Soft Solutions To Videoconferencing Fears
Even without telepresence, there are still ways to shape the videoconferencing experience and make it more comfortable. Below the telepresence level, says Vidyo's Hollander, videoconferencing is "a different experience than live, but you get absorbed in it -- people stop doing their e-mail. It's not fooling you that you're in the same room, but you do feel like you've been in a meeting with these people."
Many people think it's really a matter of familiarity, so while AirMagnet's Roeckl predicts that full adoption of videoconferencing "will have to wait for our kids, who grow up using Webcams," Vidyo's Hollander believes you can raise the comfort level through repeated exposure. "Beginning with a typical Skype video chat," Hollander says, "it will creep into people's behavior from the consumer side."
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To help speed that transition, Siemens' Singh suggests showing participants how they look on screen for a moment at the beginning to make sure the system is working, and then turn it off so you don't see yourself during the conference.
But Polycom's Antanaitis doesn't believe people have to learn new behavior to do videoconferencing. He says that you can start with audio chat and add video as needed, without disrupting natural social interactions. And Hsieh says that at Cisco, "We don't guide meeting participants to do anything different than they do in person."
Eventually, "It becomes quite addictive," Buechler says. Once companies start using it, they find more and more uses for it and usage levels go up. Users "really get a kick out of it."
That kick can hurt, though. The Wall Street Journal recently wrote of Embarrassing Virtual Meeting Faux Pas (not limited to videoconferencing) and suggested some useful tips:
- Set up connections 15 minutes in advance to adjust sound levels and camera angles.
- Disable instant messaging and telephone settings that could be disruptive.
- Dress appropriately and be mindful of too-casual behavior.
- Avoid eating, drinking, and gum-chewing.
Ipswitch adds a few policies of its own: the company allows mute in a videoconference only in absolute emergencies, and it has rearranged its conference rooms to make sure all participants in a videoconference are visible. "Hearing people speaking but not seeing them on the video is a distraction," Carboni explains.
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