In yesterday's on-line issue, Forbes Magazine ran an article entitled "Kill the Business Trip", speaking about web-based conferencing technologies such as Polycom and Webex. I've had the privilege to use both on multiple occasions, and frankly, I am not sure what to think about them. Yes, they are a little more reliable than NetMeeting, but depending on the load on the Internet, the time of day, the amount of people in the conference, they can be very slow. As they are often used for presentations, I have ended up a number of times watching to one slide while the presenter (to whom I am linked via the telephone) is already talking about the next one.
It's actually a good brain exercise, as it forces you to remember the key points to look at in the next slide, when that one appears. I am rarely using such web-based conferencing in cross continent activities as they are not reliable and often make you loose quite some time or irritate some of the attendees. I have a tendency to send the slides ahead of time and point out to the audience when I move from one to the other. That has actually given me much more satisfaction than the tools described above.
But to come back to the original question of the article, will such tools kill business trips? Well, I do not believe so. Yes they facilitate working together (when everything goes well), but do not replace personal contact in any way form or shape. So, my answer, as you probably realize, is a plain no.
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