A client and I were having a discussion the other day about where the majority of his time was spent. The idea was that after we nailed this down, we could then figure out how to make at least part of this time consuming task virtual. Turns out the majority of his time was spent nowhere… Well, I guess he was somewhere, but nowhere that actually provided any added value to his business. You see, this particular client spent most of his time traveling. He was either on the road going to a meeting, training, evaluation, observation or some other off site related business obligation. Regardless of what it was he needed to be doing, the longest part of it was the travel involved.

Long story short, we decided that diving into the world of video conferencing may be worth a shot. With video conferencing (done right anyway), he could attend any meeting from any where in the world with just his laptop, a web cam and an internet connection. Providing the other party had the same technology, he could also have the same experience for evaluations, observations, and maybe even parts of his trainings. Sounds great right? It is, but before you run to Office Max to pick up your own web cam or invest in several thousand dollars worth of video conferencing equipment, you should read this post. It not only gives pointers, but explains how to get started with little or no costs involved (except for your web cam and computer of course).

So we know that video conferencing allows you to virtually transmit yourself (both audio and video) to anywhere in the world through an internet connection. That’s great, but how do you do it? Well, first you will need a computer with internet access (sorry, I can’t help you there) and a fairly good web cam (check back for upcoming post on web cam ratings). Once you have this, it’s just a matter of finding the right software to serve your needs. I personally use Skype, which offers high quality voice and video transfer for free. For this to work however, you will need to make sure the person you are conferencing with also has Skype installed. By default, Skype will let you conference call with up to 9 people, but only video conference with one person. There are extensions available that allow you to add up to four people (three and yourself) to a video conference call, but these extensions are created by external users and are not supported by Skype itself. If you need more than that, you will probably need to look elsewhere for a solution. And just as a side note, Skype allows you to purchase Skype In (receive a phone number that anyone in the world can use to call you from any phone) and Skype Out (you can call any land line phone in the world for low rates - free to the US and Canada). You can receive both for less than $70/year. Sounds better than those $150+/month bills your getting now huh? If the person your talking to has Skype however, you can talk through it for free instead.

Another similar video conferencing option that allows up to 4 participants is SightSpeed. You can purchase the business version of this for $189.95/year for one user. There’s also a personal edition available. Why pay when you can get the same thing through Skype for free? Sometimes you get what you pay for when it comes to support. SightSpeed offers excellent support that may come in handy if you are using this technology for important business meetings or transactions.

Other notables you may want to try that are free:

  • ooVoo - According to the site, ooVoo is - the next evolution in online communication — a remarkably easy way to have a face-to-face video conversation with friends, family or colleagues, no matter where they are in the world. Give it some time and I say ooVoo will replace Skype for my video conferencing needs.
  • Any instant messenger service such as Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, or Paltalk (allows up to 10 video conference participants at once and has some other nifty conference room features).

This should be plenty to get you started. Keep in mind that the success of using video conferencing relies on planning ahead. For example, if video conferencing fails in the middle of a meeting, you should have a backup plan. If you’re using video conferencing for something like observations, know what data you need to collect ahead of time and how you are going to collect it. For example, one of our consultants is using Skype for providing support to educators in classrooms. He observes for 15 minute intervals 3 days a week. He starts by gathering baseline data on specific behaviors. He then teaches the educators the interventions through Skype’s video conferencing feature. Next, it’s back to the 15 minute interval observations to determine if the intervention works. He can instantly determine if the issue is the intervention, the person implementing the intervention, or some outside factor when evaluating progress. Success rates are nearing 98%… Can you imagine how different things would be if he just sat down, turned on the web cam and said “Okay, let’s see what’s going on today” without having planned ahead the exact data he needed to collect? Plan your work and then work your plan!