Alec Saunders has an interesting observation over at Saunderslog.com
about the costs involved in some of the telepresence options available
to businesses looking to reduce travel overhead, especially in times of
travel adversity.
Five years ago, vide conferencing was the buzzword of the day, now
it’s telepresence - with the wacky virtual boardroom. As cool as it may
be to think you’re sitting in the same room as your geographically
diverse colleagues, the pricetag is a bitter pill to swallow,
especially when you consider how suspect the original
video-conferencing system worked. Everyone knows of the little
video-conferencing meeting room in their office. The one with the
complicated infrastructure of TVs, ISDn lines and a remote control that
could rival the nuclear warhead controls of the 1980s. In 10 years of
telecom, I’ve participated in video-conferencing less than a dozen
times. I’ve used my own $30 webcam more than that. 
Of course, the idea of a special room, or dozens of special rooms
across the country that all look alike is curious, but is it really
necessary? Are we making telepresence more complicated than it needs to
be, all for the sake of everyone having the same coloured walls behind
them? This looks effective in a episode of 24, but I’m not sure as to
the practicality in real world settings…
Alec has some decent alternatives, and none of them are going to
cause budget conscious managers to blow a gasket, but I’ve come across
some interesting observations in the past week. I was interviewing
fellow telecom types on their preferences for meetings, and brought up
the concept of webcams on conference calls to reduce the amount of
“multitasking” that goes on… the overwhelming response was that webcams
weren’t ideal, that they were distracting and if you were a teleworker
normally, a webcam was going to make you invest more time in being
*presentable* 
Video conferencing was fine if you had a room of executives, and rooms
of other executives around the country, but the average worker wasn’t
as interested in the bells and whistles as the exec types.
Myself
- I’ve had various types of webcams, and the biggest struggle has been
in watching someone else on your screen. The position of the webcam is
the biggest problem. People are looking down at their screen, and the
cam captures this pose - there’s very little eye contact, and that’s a
HUGE distraction for me. Unless I’m looking at someone, and they are
“looking back at me”, the conversation isn’t productive.
Am I the only one with this cam-peeve?
I’m remote today, and no, I haven’t brushed my hair yet.