For more years than many of us care to remember, videoconferencing has been on the futures list.   And for more years than almost any other prediction it seems not to have happened – leastways not in the way that most would have expected.

The moment I took the call I realised I had an unfair communications advantage.   My caller’s webcam presented his image onto my screen.   Observing his facial reactions I found myself shaping the conversation to respond to visual clues that I’d not have detected so clearly from his voice – even with the vast audio quality improvement that comes with VoIP.   But, since I never use my webcam, the benefit was even greater.  The caller could not observe me and he was blissfully unaware of my advantage. 

As it happened this call was not some tough negotiation but a chance to test  ideas for a future CMA conference agenda.    I could throw in a challenging suggestion and watch his face betray a deeper truth behind the polite and carefully spoken response.  Like sunglasses, we can hide behind the telephone.  There are plenty of other reasons why video-conferencing didn’t catch on earlier.  Now that most of these, and particularly bandwidth capacity and cost, are being knocked on the head, we will have to face up to deciding whether we really want to do this. 

These communications behavioural issues are probably of no concern to the young.   They’ve not had years of brass and mahogany telephony training.  In France the use of VoIP to deliver enhanced CD-quality telephony at a premium price is reported to be rather more popular amongst adults than any wholesale conversion to video conversation.   It’s an example both of ‘appropriate technology’ and the benefits of greater infrastructure competition - forcing service providers to provide services instead of relying on access revenues. 

Marketing folk have been pushing the video dimension on the back of climate change concerns.  Executive travel is once again under the spotlight – hopefully from a low-energy bulb.  What’s emerging seems to be a fast-growing market in very sophisticated conferencing rooms.   The brilliant visual quality of plasma presentations can help overcome the participants’ sense of remoteness and the inhibitions that make so many conferences stilted, sterile and less than creative.   Creative business plans, where the cost of these installations is rationalised as carbon off-set for the corporate jet-set, have still a long way to go.    

Woody Allen is supposed to have said of success that ‘80% is just showing up’.    The reality is that travel still does broaden the mind.  Even in this 21^st century connected world nothing quite beats the penny-dropping realisations that come from seeing familiar things in an entirely new context.     

Mind you nothing quite beats the depths of insular ignorance that still abounds despite the Internet.   In the foyer of Dublin’s plushest hotel the visiting family asked for advice on local restaurants.  The concierge turned to his PC.  The kids watched the familiar search process and Dad said, ‘Wow – you have Google in Ireland?’

The concierge was, of course, too polite but how I wished he had replied, ‘Yup – and indoor toilets’.

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This editorial feature was prepared for CMA for publication in UK trade magazine, Comms Business August 2007.  (C) ABFL - syndication terms and conditions apply.