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“Don't buy equipment that you'll never be able to use,” says
Thomas Sullivan, president of Rockpointe Broadcasting,
a production company based in Washington, D.C.
Sullivan helps companies evaluate their meeting strategies and
examine options for alternative methods of delivery. But he's also
the first to say that not all face-to-face meetings can be
effectively replaced with technology.
Take board meetings. Sullivan says they're best suited for the
lowest-tech, least-expensive technology: teleconferencing. The
facilitator can e-mail slides to attendees, who then print them out
for reference. The teleconference option is appropriate for groups
of about 12 people, Sullivan says.
For major meetings that you would like to take regional, he
suggests a satellite broadcast, which can be simultaneously
delivered to multiple hotels. For dinner meetings, rather than
flying in a speaker, try creating a CD-ROM of a speaker's
presentation and giving it as a gift during the evening.
“The key is that different events require different media,”
says Sullivan. “Not everything has to be done live.”
— Tamar Hosansky is editor of CMI's sister publication Medical
Meetings.
BEAM IN THE SPEAKER
What is this new thing called teleportation?
Picture a videoconference at which you feel as if you are in the
same room as the people on the other end of the call. It might sound
far-fetched, but the technology is already out there.
Known as “teleportation” and developed by Teleportec Ltd.
(http://www.teleportec.com/), Dallas and Manchester, England, it
lets you send an image and audio of a speaker over three ISDN lines.
It also works using satellite transmission and the Internet 2
technology that is being developed by an academic/government
consortium.
Although the image people see is two-dimensional and projected
onto semi-reflective glass, it creates a powerful illusion of 3-D.
The result is so impressive that when it was used to transmit the
image of a physician in Dallas to a meeting of 450 people in
Birmingham, England, the doctor received a standing ovation. “To
my knowledge, it was the first standing ovation for a speaker who
wasn't actually there,” says Jim Young, Teleportec chairman.
Teleporter units come in three sizes: A lectern-sized device that
projects the upper half of the speaker's body; a 20-by-11-foot unit
that projects as many as five speakers from head to toe; and a
theater-sized unit for large-scale stage shows.
For now, Young is careful not to over-hype what Teleportec can
do. “You can't touch and you can't shake hands,” he says. “But
when there's a benefit to being face-to-face but great difficulty in
it [being physically present], this is a very useful tool.”
— David Erickson is editor-at-large for CMI's sister magazine
Technology Meetings. He is based in Chatham, Mass.
A GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE Think teleportation is straight out of
science fiction? It's only the beginning … Picture yourself
sitting around a meeting room table with your colleagues from the
Japan office — except they're not real. They are hologram-like
images.
This may be the future of meetings, says the National
Tele-Immersion Initiative (http://www.advanced.org/). Researchers at
Advanced Network and Services, Armonk, N.Y., working with a number
of universities, are developing the technology for long-distance
transmission of life-size, 3-D, synthesized images. Tele-immersion
creates the illusion that a person is in the same physical space as
other people.
According to Jaron Lanier, who is known as the father of virtual
reality, the sensation and usefulness of tele-immersion are quite
different from videoconferencing.
“When you render people properly, they feel real. Your sense of
their presence, your ability to make eye contact, your ability to
convey your mood is quite solid because they are life-size,
three-dimensional stereoscopic graphics, not small, flat video
images.”
On a smaller scale, Dimensional Media, New York
(http://www.3dmedia.com/), is working on 3-D, full-color,
interactive product imaging. With this imaging technology, for
example, a medical student can see a simulated beating heart and
then use virtual scalpels to perform surgery, with the look and
tactile feel of a true operation.
As computer processing power and Internet bandwidth increase,
these technologies will significantly affect how we meet.
Videoconferencing as we know it will no longer exist.
— Corbin Ball, CMP (http://www.corbinball.com/), is a speaker,
consultant, and writer focusing on meeting technology. He is a
regular columnist for CMI.
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VIDEO vs. WEBCONFERENCING
Which works best — and when?
A videconferencing primer
The question to ask when choosing between
webcasting and videoconferencing is: Do you have to broadcast live?
Yes? Then videoconferencing is your best bet. If your information
can be sent out in CD-ROMs or you want to publish it on a Web site
for on-demand usage, webconferencing makes better sense. If your
goal is to include a speaker who cannot attend a meeting, they would
look much better projected on a screen than via a webcast.
In other words, consider your objective first.
Different forms of videoconferencing use ISDN, T1s, satellite,
the Internet, or regular phone lines. However, special software
and/or equipment must be installed on the originating and receiving
ends of a videoconference. The quality of the image depends on the
available bandwidth. Many videoconferences are held in controlled
environments such as hotels or videoconferencing centers.
To hold a satellite videoconference, you will need an uplink
and/or downlink truck at your location, or find a local site that is
already set up to broadcast (a television studio, a hotel, etc.).
The following questions will get you started:
Will the broadcast be point-to-point or point-to-multipoint (how
many reception sites)?
Is this an insert to an existing program or is it the primary
program?
How many presenters will there be?
Will there be more than one camera?
Will there be a local audience?
Will there be audio interaction (local and/or networkwide)?
Will there be speaker support (live on camera or via Internet)?
Do you want to archive the presentation for posting on the
Internet, or distribute it in other media?
— Mary Ann Pierce is president of MAP Digital, Inc. (www.mapdigital.com),
New York. Her company provides on-site Internet access and
Internet solutions: webcasting, Internet kiosks, networked
presentations, and event-specific Web sites for meetings, special
events and trade shows.
TECH TERMS
T1 is one of several ways a hotel may connect its local
network to the Internet. A T1 line has a speed of 1.54 Mbs.
ISDN stands for Integrated Services Digital Network. This
is a digital telephone line that can be used to connect two points
for voice, data, and video. It is the most common method of
connection.
PRI stands for Primary Rate Interface. A bundle of 24 ISDN
lines makes approximately 1.47 Mbs. This is most commonly used for
videoconferencing. It can be set up at any multiple of 128 Kbs to
1.47Mbs.
BRI or Basic Rate ISDN is a 128 Kbs ISDN Line or 1/12 of a
PRI.
H.320 is the International Telecommunications Union (ITU,
http://www.itu.ch/) standard for video on ISDN used for
videoconferencing.
H.323 is the ITU standard for video on IP also used for
videoconferencing, but over the Internet — not on ISDN.
DSL stands for Digital Subscriber Line, which is another
option for high-speed access to the Internet or a hotel network. DSL
speeds can vary from 128 Kbs (upload and download) to speeds
exceeding 7 Mbs. A typical hotel might provide DSL service that has
the capacity to upload 1 Mbs and download 7 Mbs. This would provide
service superior to a T1 line.
Ethernet is the most common network in hotels and
convention facilities. It comes in speeds from 10 Mbs to 1 Gbs
(1,000 Mbs). It can also be wireless at 1, 2, 5, and 11 Mbs when
using the 802.11b standard.
VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. It is a system in
which all data between two systems is encrypted so that it can use
the Internet but keep the information secure.
PPTP is Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol, which is a
common VPN standard.
— Ken Pickle, CPCU, CMP, is manager, incentives and
conferences, for Safeco Insurance Cos., Seattle.
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