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Could TelePresence reduce travel? You be the Judge
A new technology that takes video conferencing to a new level, with room designed by Steven Spielberg no less, could finally put paid to the argument that you have to meet face to face to do business. Yeoh Siew Hoon gives tele-presence a test.
I know it’s been said before – that new technology could replace the need for us to travel for either business or to attend meetings. They predicted that about video conferencing and look what’s happened, more people are travelling than ever before.
Technology, the argument goes in the meetings business, will never replace the face-to-face contact. And thus far, it is true. For anyone of us who’s participated in video conferences, we know it cannot take the place of the real thing – body language, eye contact, the whole essence of human interaction.
But this week, I took part in a something called TelePresence at the Cisco office in Singapore and caught a glimpse of why it may no longer be that necessary for business executives to travel as frequently as they do.
The meeting room looks and feels like a movie set – and you understand why when you’re told it’s been designed by Steven Spielberg. The lighting and colours used have been chosen so that any of us can look our best at any time of the day or night.
The set-up has a three-dimensional feel to it so that you feel that the folks sitting across from you are in the same room – but they are actually projected on three extremely high-definition TV plasma screens. (I am leaving out the technical bits, suffice it to say, the images are super sharp and super clear and I can see Frankie’s wrinkles as well as he can see mine.)
Frankie (from the Cisco Hong Kong office) sits directly opposite me and demonstrates the power of this technology. With this, you can make direct eye contact, watch body language and talk as normally as you would to someone in the same room – because there is no lag between voice and lip movement and when Frankie moves, his voice moves with him, so that it doesn’t sound disembodied. (It’s called spatial audio, in technical speak.)
Frankie can also show you newspaper headlines from the South China Morning Post and share what’s on his computer screen – and it’s so clear you can read most of the print
It certainly takes video conferencing to a whole new level – which is why Cisco is refraining from using that term – and I can see this technology working very well for small corporate meetings.
Cisco has deployed over 100 TelePresence rooms in its offices worldwide and the company says it has saved US$150 million on corporate travel by holding over 10,000 meetings on Cisco TelePresence. One client, the Regus Group, plans to charge US$300 to US$500 per hour for the use of their planned 50 CISCO TelePresence rooms around the world.
The room in Singapore can seat up to 12 people – six “live” and six “virtual”. The technology can support linking up to 39 sites which means a multinational could easily have a global meeting of top executives or executives need only travel to one regional location without having to make that longhaul trek.
Cisco’s list price is US$299,000 for three screens and US$80,000 for a single screen and it is seeing take-up by multinationals and also executives who are installing it in their homes.
It is talking to a couple of hotel chains on using it for internal meetings as well as offering it as part of their inhouse business facilities to corporate clients.
I can see some hotel companies might be reluctant to deploy a tool that might actually cut down on the need to travel – customers might actually take a leaf from their book, after all – but if this is what customers want and need, then I cannot see how you can possibly resist the trend.
Truth is, communications technology is getting more sophisticated, travellers are getting more tech-savvy and we have a future generation of leaders coming onboard with different demands and needs.
And isn’t it time too the meetings industry stop thinking “travel” and instead “communications”?
This will be the argument put forward by Anthony Judge, another featured speaker at WIT, who will speak on the future of the meetings business at the event on November 29-30, 2007.
Citing a BBC Money Programme which aired on June 1, 2007 and which was devoted to the huge business opportunities in virtual worlds such as Second Life, the Brussels-based meetings expert said, “Curiously the meetings industry dimension was in no way reflected therein – although it was the essential subtext. Frankly I would see that as an immediate opportunity for many to meet – replacing the need to travel.”
The former director of UIA (Union of International Associations), who will speak on “The Way We Meet, and The Way We Travel: When Technology and Guilt Collide”, adds, “However the great difficulty for the meetings industry is that it is currently primarily focused on what has been vulgarly defined as the "bums-in-seats" definition of business opportunity.
“The market for meetings is likely to drift into cyberspace – in effect has done – whilst the "meetings industry" restricts itself to the particular physical variant. Even "face-to-face" is going virtual.”
He believes that the meetings industry has always been very comfortable with denying the future impact of technologies. “I would argue that the web is all about "meetings" which the "meetings industry" has framed as not its business.” And he adds, “The meetings industry, in my view, needs to explore the opportunities of hybrid meetings in order to find ways of benefitting from both virtual and physical meetings.”
Judge will be speaking at WIT as part of a session on “The Future Consumer” which will also see presentations by James Murray, Executive - Vice President-South & South East Asia, Visa International and Mike Bezer, VP Global Sales, Asia Pacific, Carlson Wagonlit Travel.