TELEPRESENCE – It’s not just a new name; it’s a new generation of technology!

by Jaclyn Kostner, Ph.D., http://www.distance.com/

For years, videoconferencing used to be dubbed “the next best thing to being there.” For a couple of decades, it was—but no longer. Telepresence is here, and it is an amazingly powerful improvement. If you have a medium to large size business and are not enamored by videoconferencing, it’s time to check out telepresence. Telepresence is not about putting a new name on an old technology; rather it’s about an exciting new evolution that is in a class by itself. And, yes, it is a fantastic alternative to traditional face-to-face meetings.

How is telepresence different and better than videoconferencing? Here are five key ways.

• Gone are the days of the “Charlie Chaplin” effect, where your voice and movement were broken and jerky. Telepresence uses high-definition screens, large enough to relay life-size images of the people at other locations. Movement is natural, normal, and fluid. Since human images are life-size and the room is well-lighted, it is easy to see and interpret non-verbal cues accurately.

• Gone are the surveillance camera angles. Telepresence cameras let people project natural eye contact, which enhances the quality of human communication. In fact, it’s so natural that I found myself moving to shake the person’s hand at the end of the session—but that’s one thing we couldn’t do virtually.

• Gone are voices blaring out of a speakerphone, echoing off the walls. Telepresence speakers are positioned to make voices sound absolutely clear, close, and natural. Telepresence rooms even enable multiple people talking at the same time, without cutting out voices from other people in the session. In fact, in telepresence rooms, voices will correspond in location to the images. So someone that you see to your left will also have his/her voice come from the left.

• Gone is the room with the long conference table, where the image of other participants seem so far away that you can’t make out their non-verbal cues. Telepresence simulates a close, intimate round table, as one would find in an in-person meeting.

• Gone are the limits of overhead cameras and limited interaction. Telepresence lets groups share anything on the computer, interact on it in real time, and do just about anything people can do in a web conference. The emphasis with telepresence, however, is on the human faces and interaction. The emphasis in webinars is the human interaction, with faces taking a lesser role in the communication.

If your business is large enough to afford telepresence, it is worth seeing what Cisco, Polycom, and others have to offer. They’ve raised the bar, and it’s a high-value technology for global businesses that have the budget to afford the upfront costs.

--Jackie