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Kate Gerwig, Editorial Director
Despite, or even because of, the economic recession, the enterprise video conferencing market is growing. Whether it's room-based, desktop, telepresence, or an integration of all three -- the business value of video conferencing is undeniable. This tutorial will help you develop plans and polices for video conferencing, ensuring you not only meet user demands and improve collaboration, but also deliver measureable ROI.
Recession generates interest, adoption in video conferencing
Video conferencing is gaining traction among enterprise organizations, who are opting out of other areas of IT-related spending. Today's video conferencing, including room-based, desktop and telepresence, has come a long way from what many people remember. Ease of use, quality of service (QoS) and measurable ROI are qualities making video conferencing the one IT investment worth making.
Winning users over to video conferencing
Investing in a video conferencing solution will be fruitless unless you get employees onboard, yet gaining user acceptance of video conferencing not as easy as it seems. Here are some useful guidelines to follow to help employees keep an open mind and ultimately use video conferencing technology.
Telepresence is the next best thing to being there
Telepresence is the best video conferencing available. This article explains how telepresence looks, feels and works; identifies key telepresence providers; and provides information to help you determine if an investment in telepresence is right for your organization.
About the author
Robin Gareiss is executive vice president and senior founding partner for Nemertes Research, where she oversees research projects and direction, conducts strategic seminars, develops cost models, and advises leading enterprises, vendors and carriers. She currently serves as chief financial officer, as well.
For the past 17 years, Robin Gareiss has worked closely with hundreds of senior IT executives, analyzing their use of technology and capturing best practices. Ms. Gareiss is a widely recognized expert in Voice over IP, convergence, collaboration, carrier services, IP networking and branch-office technologies. She is a sought-after speaker at conferences and trade shows, including Interop, where she serves as chairperson for the Branch Offices track, VoiceCon, Mobile Business Expo, Supercomm, Telecom, and CeBit America. She also writes the Branch Offices Best Practices column for Network World.
Ms. Gareiss also has personal experience managing operations and developing new product offerings. Her entrepreneurial experience includes co-founding and overseeing marketing and business development for American Eco-Systems, a water-purification business in Illinois. She also served as president of Living Hope Lutheran Church, and ran several successful fundraisers for children's cancer and other charities.
Before joining Nemertes, Ms. Gareiss shaped technology and business coverage as Senior News Editor of InformationWeek, a leading business-technology publication with 440,000 readers owned by the $359 million organization CMP Media. Prior to joining InformationWeek, Ms. Gareiss served in a variety of capacities at Data Communications magazine, where helped set strategic direction, oversaw reader surveys, and provided quantitative and statistical analysis. At these organizations Ms. Gareiss also helped develop, organize, and operate Web sites, TV and print coverage of major trade shows. She has won numerous, prestigous awards for her in-depth analyses of business-technology issues.
Ms. Gareiss also taught ethics at the Poynter Institute for Advanced Media Studies. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Newsweek and American Medical News. Ms. Gareiss has a BS in journalism and a minor in education, with honors, from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She lives in Illinois with her husband and four daughters.
This was first published in September 2009