Ask Me About Video Communication

Go Ahead....Use Skype!

I'm not here to pick on Skype.  They actually offer a great free service introducing thousands, or maybe millions to videoconferencing technology.  Heck, I may even sign up too as I just purchased a new laptop with a built in camera and talk to some friends.  But there is a big difference between what Tandberg is providing to businesses and what other low cost software based competitors are offering. 

A great analogy is the difference between your cell and office phone.  We all use our cell phones everyday, but if we are sitting in the office we use the office line.  The cell phone is functional, so why do we even need office lines?  Now you are getting it... right?  You cannot guarantee quality of service on a cell phone and because of that it is not effective for conducting business quality meetings.  How many times have we lost a call or missed a few words.  Also, cell phones are good for point to point calls, but how about the need to have 4 locations, or people, on the call.  The same can be said of videoconferencing. 

Applications like Skype can be used, but you cannot count on clarity or quality of the video call.  If you want to reach out to a 3rd party, you better have another computer ready, and they will not be talking to the other party.  You want to share documents, buy Webex on top of that.  Tandberg videoconferencing solutions provides business quality meetings, with QOS and multisite calls, just as office phones do the same for every business out there.

So please go try and use these applications for your business.  They will work, and you will probably use them regularly in the beginning, but then you'll be back on a plane traveling to your locations because you could not conduct the meeting you needed on video.  Then you'll have a taste for video communications, think of Tandberg, and give us a call at Interchange Technologies.

Tandberg Offers Bundle Discount on Edge 95 Series

This is one of Tandberg best selling endpoints, and they are now offerring significant discounts until March 31st, 2009.  For a list price of $11,400 you will receive the following:

Embedded MultiSite functionality — Join up to 4 video sites and 3 audio sites! 

Natural Presenter Package (NPP) — brings presentations to life using PCs, document cameras, streaming and video. 

HD Camera

Transform your meeting room into a true communication space by adding video! Designed for medium- to small-sized meeting rooms, these easy-to-install units turn a meeting room with a flat screen into an interactive situation room for improved teamwork and accelerated decision-making!

The TANDBERG Edge 95 MXP Bundle has everything you need to get started, transforming their existing monitor into a new tool for enhanced productivity.
 

Video Conferencing in Manufacturing

By bringing project teams and experts together more often and at lower costs, companies are shortening production times and reducing time-to-market. TANDBERG videoconferencing solutions help improve information flow and immediate feedback, allowing development teams to work faster.

Are we at a Tipping Point with Video Communication?

I was reading an article last week in the new Runners World magazine, and they mentioned that like Email and the Internet, there is a tipping point where you wonder how you ever lived without particular things in your life.  In this case, they were talking about how runners usually start off hating it, but then some time down the road, feel horrible if they do not get their daily run in.  They hit a tipping point.  So then it got me thinking, what are some of the technologies available today for business, that I could not live without?  Here is my short list:

1.  Cell phone/texting/internet - received my first cell phone in 1997.  How did I live without it?  I remember knowing the best spots on the NJ turnpike for pay phones.   Now I can call a customer, and look at his website while on the road from my phone....very dangerous....but it happens.  

2.  Blackberry - this I would love to do without, but for some reason, I still can't get rid of it.

3.  Microsoft Outlook - to go back to a planner would be like pulling teeth.  It's amazing I ever kept track of my contacts, tasks, and meetings. 

4.  Video Communication - I make more calls per day via video, than I do over the phone.  It probably means I need to increase my calls to prospects!!

My list is short, but you get the idea.  I believe that video communication is absolutely nearing the tipping point with businesses.  The customers that are using the correct infrastructure with quality endpoints are continuing to grow their video communication system.  We are in a recession, and prospects are calling us looking into this capital purchase, and somehow, they find the money because it makes sense.  Reduced travel costs and accelerated decision making are benefits that prospects speak to me about every day.  If you add in scaling knowledge, and the work life balance it brings, including "greening your company", then you have a clear look at the whole package.

One day, just like Email, we are going to wonder how we ever lived without video communication.  Are we there yet?  Some companies are, but there is a long ways to go before every company has it.  We are getting close to that tipping point though! 

Introducing the Tandberg Total Telepresence Solution

Telepresence brings people face to face, regardless of distance, to accelerate decision-making and unify the organization. From the feeling when entering the room, to the sensation of being at the same table, to the simplicity of starting a meeting, the focus is solely on the experience of the executive. It’s visual collaboration taken to an entirely new level, where thousands of details work together to provide an exclusive, natural forum to speed decision making and make sure everyone is on the same page.

Videoconferencing in a tough Economy

This industry continues to grow, even during some of the toughest times this economy has seen in 20 years.  Why?  Let's list out the reasons:

1.  The need to reduce travel costs - oil has retreated, but travel costs are still high and will continue to be a factor until we can change our consumption needs.  Companies are doing whatever they can to reduce expenses in this area, and video plays a large role in cutting costs.  Some see over a 50% reduction when they make the transition.

2.  Companies want to be more efficient with their time - how much time do we waste on the road?

3.  The need to deploy their experts immediately for troubleshooting and training.

4.  Consumers are demanding Green Initiatives from corporations - Vodaphone, one of world's largest network providers, saved over 13,500 flight, and 5000 tons of CO2 by using video.  What else has this much of an impact.

5.  It promotes a work life balance - would you rather work for a company that forces you to travel 3 out of 4 weeks, or the company that has video and you travel 1 out of 4.  If you could spend one day out of the week at home, but still have face to face communication with headquarters, would that make your life a little easier?

6.  Bandwidth is cheaper than it's ever been to support video - the days of using ISDN and per call charges are in the rear view mirror for many.  I use video communication everyday from my home, using nothing more than the local high speed internet.  The clarity is amazing.

7.  It's not the technology of the future.  It's now - it is as easy as dialing the phone with the right equipment.

These are the reasons why this industry is rapidly growing in a tough economy.  Sure, the recent crash of the market is delaying some decisions, but bottom line is that companies, government, and education all see the quick Return on Investment when purchasing video communication.  This technology continues to improve, and if you are not at least investigating it, you are falling behind. 

Article in Daytona Beach News Journal on Video Communication

I was interviewed, along with the owner of Interchange Technologies, by the Daytona News Journal on how local businesses are using video to change the way we communicate.  Please read:

Video conferencing links ERAU locales

By JOE CREWS
Business Writer

DAYTONA BEACH -- When too few students sign up for a class at the Prescott, Ariz., campus of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, school officials just have them take the class with a professor here.

But the Arizona students don't have to leave their campus 75 miles north of Phoenix. Instead, they head for a classroom set up for video conferencing and actively take part in a class nearly a continent away.

"There may be 27 students taking a class here, but only three in Prescott," said Terry Dallas, an information technology manager at the campus here. "Instead of canceling the class in Arizona, those students take the class from Daytona Beach."

Embry-Riddle has five video-conferencing systems on the Daytona Beach campus and four in Arizona, all offering two-way transfers of live video and audio signals. University President John Johnson uses video conferencing to conduct meetings from his office, Dallas said.

"There's a great advantage to these systems, no doubt," she said. "We utilize them extensively campus-to-campus, especially for IT staff meetings and all-hands meetings once a month. It's a great opportunity to see your team, even if they're 3,000 or 4,000 miles away."

Embry-Riddle also has a system called Eagle Vision, a less-elaborate system used in the school's other far-flung classrooms.

"It's Web-based, connecting multiple classrooms in the worldwide campus," said Becky Vasquez, director of student and technology services at Embry-Riddle. "You have one instructor with students in two or three locations."

Eagle Vision saves the school money, since fewer instructors are needed, but it also allows classes to be taught in areas in which qualified instructors may be difficult to find, Vasquez said.

"With some campuses, we would have to cancel courses if not for Eagle Vision," she said.

Eagle Vision uses relatively inexpensive cameras and microphones to send pictures and sound over the Internet. But the video-conferencing systems use more elaborate equipment manufactured by Tandberg, a Norwegian company with dual headquarters in Oslo and New York City.

BusinessWeek magazine recently reported Tandberg has cornered 40 percent of the global video-conferencing market. That market totaled some $1.63 billion in 2007 but is expected to grow to $4.2 billion by 2012, according to the magazine.

The growth is predicted as more companies use the technology to conduct virtual meetings, rather than spend time and money to travel from one place to another.

B.J. West, a New Smyrna Beach-based representative of Interchange Technologies in New Jersey, is a distributor of Tandberg's video-conferencing systems.

"People want to reduce their travel costs, and video conferencing is a great 'green' initiative for companies," West said. "They can reduce their carbon footprint while also reducing their costs. It allows for faster decision-making and more flexibility in obtaining participants."

Tandberg focuses on the technology between the end points, or screens, in a video-conferencing set up, West said. "It's not just the large screens in conference rooms; the infrastructure is the brains of the system."

The technology has advanced so much that West uses a business-class cable modem at his home-office computer during his daily chats with Rick Green, a co-owner of Interchange Technologies.

"The key to video conferencing is to make it as useful and reliable as regular telephone calls," Green said. "Increases in (Internet) bandwidth are becoming more available to more companies, and makes video conferencing work a lot more easily."

The Volusia County School District makes extensive use of video-conference meetings, spokeswoman Nancy Wait said.

"We use it a couple of times a week," Wait said. "It helps reduce (driving) time and mileage costs."

The public school system has three main facilities that are equipped with Tandberg video-conferencing equipment: the administrative complex in DeLand, the educational development center in Daytona Beach, and a support-services complex on Olsen Drive in the middle of the county.

"The superintendent can have all the staff available (in all three buildings) without travel time," Wait said. "With such a large county, it's much easier to be able to go to one of these buildings than to drive all the way across the county to go to a meeting."

It's "Easy to See" Why Companies Choose Video Communication

I think every other post now, I steal a video from the Tandberg Multimedia Gallery. For one it is difficult to be creative each week with a new post, and two, these videos say a thousand words in 2 minutes. This one shows how video changes businesses, and our personal lives. This is exactly how video is being used by the best companies.

Work Life Balance

As I am trying to inform prospects on the benefits of video communication every day, there is one benefit that is over looked way too often. That is how video enables us to spend more time at home with family and friends.  It's much easier to go into a meeting and talk about the things that have costs associated with them, such as travel expenses, but the one that usually hits home the most after a purchase is how much more time executives get to spend at home.  Think of all the wasted time spent traveling to interviews, meetings, and training sessions at your company.  And when I say wasted time, I mean the drive to the airport, the 2 hours before you take the flight, the delays, the flight itself, again driving to your final destination, then spending a few nights in a hotel. 

This leads to a lot of time away from home.  Now imagine doingyour normal commute to work, or maybe even working from home, and accomplishing everything you need to without all the wasted time.  Time that could be better spent with your significant other or kids.  For me it's really the kids.  I get to coach their sports, play everyday, and put them to bed at night.  It may not seem that big of a deal now to some people, but I really believe these are the times we are really going to miss later in life.  Of course, I do have to travel sometimes to see customers, but it is dramatically reduced. Most of my customers have video, so I meet with them from home.   What a great way to develop customer loyalty.  Companies are also seeing the difference in their employees attitudes when they offer video communication services, and they are attracting top personnel.  If you had the choice between two good companies, and one said you would travel at least 30% less than the other because they had invested in this technology, where would you go?  To the company that promotes a work life balance!

Remember, it is now as easy as dialing the phone.

Gas & Video Conferencing

Recently had a trip to South Florida, some 200 miles away, to visit a few potential prospects.  Because I chose to be an independent sales rep, I am getting to see first hand the expenses of travel and how video conferencing saves money.  With gas still close to $4.00, I paid close to $200.00 in gas on the trip, plus hotel $120.00, food $40.00, and much wasted time in a car.  Total = $360.00

Comparatively, the week before, I had a video call with a customer looking to upgrade their current video conferencing services.  I sat in my home office, spent 30 minutes on the call, and began working on the proposal immediately after.  Cost was $0.00, time was used efficiently, and I reduced my carbon footprint.  The best part of my job is when I set a company up with our services, and know from here on out I can reach out to them from my office, face to face. 

Tandberg is making video conferencing as easy as dialing the phone.  It's time to get on board.