Category: Videos

 

Welcome to another edition of Tech Talks with Konnectus. And today, we’re going to be talking about part two of our three-part video conferencing series. We’re focusing today on the actual different types of spaces where you can do video conferencing meetings. Now, there are six types and the first type Jonathan, tell us about it. Yes. So, the first type is the Full Telepresence Room and, what this is, is a specially designed room. It’s really only ever used for video conferencing. Now these rooms have furniture, which is placed in a specific way to simulate an across the table meeting experience. The lighting and acoustics of these spaces have also been carefully calculated for optimal performance. Really, this quality of experience is as close as we can get to a face to face meeting. Absolutely. They’re also very expensive those types of rooms.  The next type is, I guess the next level down in terms of quality and experience, but still very high, is the dedicated video conferencing room. And here we’re actually designing the entire room, we’re looking at the acoustics, the lighting, the furniture lay out, the equipment locations, we’re optimizing everything for, you know, that really high quality experience very similar to telepresence but probably, just one level in down in terms of the cost for the customer. Sure. So, that’s right.

So, what about the next one?  It’s this kind of like a next step down again and this is the multi-purpose meeting room or training room.  And this is a typical style meeting room or training rooms that has video conferencing but it’s not its main purpose.  So, we see these kinds of rooms all the time, where people put in video conferencing into these spaces but there is typically a compromised experience. This is because there’s so many variables, you know, acoustics, lighting, furniture lay out, and even where the equipment such as LCDs and cameras is located. Nothing is optimized, and this leads to a compromised experience. Definitely.

So, the next level of space is the Huddle Space, and these we’re seeing all the time Jonathan, you know, in the modern workplace or organization.  They might be enclosed or semi-enclosed, and usually seating somewhere between two to three people even sometimes up to five to six people.  The idea is that the small group, sort of, works together collaboratively and is looking at one, sometimes two screens.  The meetings are quite short though, you know, thirty minutes, sixty minutes at the most, not there for long time.  The quality is not really of the utmost importance.  It’s more about getting in and out, and having some communication using video.  And yeah, these have just become more and more popular. Absolutely.  I supposed the next extension from that is really taking it out of a meeting room or group situation and going to the desktop environment.  As the name suggests, this is done at the desk or the workstation, and this typically includes your desktop PC or laptop and a webcam.  And it’s normally for one person.  Now, the quality is not of a high standard but, what its real goal is, is to facilitate fast and cost-effective ad hoc communication between staff members, and it does this really well. Absolutely.

And then the final version of video conferencing, and I call it version because it’s not true video conferencing but there is video communication, and that’s mobile.  So, I’m talking about laptops, tablets, phones and isn’t it a beautiful technology these days?  It wasn’t long ago where we are only just had mobile phones and now you can actually, you know, make a little video calls whether they be consumer grade with a Skype or Facetime type product, or even using high quality products from Cisco or Polycom or even Microsoft’s Skype for Business is very good one.  Again, the goal here is not the quality of experience, it’s just to put some video communication into the mix so we can do it quickly, on the road, and you know, it might just be three or four-minute call. Maybe up to 20 minutes, but definitely not more than that if you’re looking for effective video communication.

I think that wraps up part two of our Video Conferencing series.  In the next part, we’re going to be looking in more detail on how to actually optimize the design of a video conferencing room. For more great tech talks, or free consultation, visit us at konnectus.com.au.

Welcome to another edition of Tech Talks with Konnectus. Today, we’re going to be talking about Video Conferencing.  This is part 1 of a 3-part series on Video Conferencing. Part one is going to focus on the purpose, or the need for Video Conferencing. There’s actually a really broad spectrum of Video Conferencing solutions, ranging from a quick call on a mobile phone with video, up to a really high-quality immersive video conferencing experience in a dedicated room. So, before the products are even looked at or considered, there are a number of critical questions that need to be asked.  Now Dave, what’s the first question that needs to be asked?

Well Jonathan, it’s a fairly basic one.  We just want to be asking ourselves, who do we want to be calling? This is really just a brainstorming exercise to get the ball rolling. You want to be identifying which people and which organisations need to be talking to each other and identifying the actual key reasons why.  You want to be asking questions like “is a video call absolutely necessary? or could I get this done with a telephone call or quick face to face meeting?”  And once you flesh that out, you’ll have a pretty clear picture of what your initial video conferencing needs may be. So, I suppose an extension on that would really be identifying where these people are located.  What I mean by located is, physically located.  Are they in the same office? or are they geographically separated in another state or another city?  It’s important to understand where you’re calling, as well as, who you’re calling.

 So, question three Jonathan is going to be, “are there multiple parties at different locations?”  Do you need to be speaking to multiple cities or multiple departments or multiple rooms on a single video conferencing call?  Sometimes, that’s absolutely necessary but you need to be very careful here.  You don’t want to let that number get too big.  It’s fine to have two or three different parties on a video call, the experience can still be quite good.  But once you start to get to a number or size beyond that, so four, five, six, seven, it really does become a little bit confusing in our experience. You really want to have a good think about that and try and reduce the number of parties on a call as much as possible. And I suppose an extension from that Dave is really a question of: How many participants in each location?  Everyone’s been in some large meetings with lots of people, and sometimes it’s not as effective.  So, we need to have a look at how many people are going to be at each location. Absolutely!

The fifth question we need to be asking ourselves is what are the quality expectations?  And this really depends on the type of call, the objective of the call, the organization, and the style of the people at the organisation.  To give you an example, a very basic call of low quality will be making a quick call on your mobile phone while you’re walking down the street.  You’re still having a video call, and it’s effective.  You’re getting the message across, but it’s completely different to the other end of the spectrum where you might be in a fully immersive purpose-built room where the lighting is fantastic, video is fantastic, the audio is fantastic.  For a sales presentation, this could be absolutely crucial because you want to really be putting the best foot forward and presenting yourselves in the best light to try and get the deal across the line. Right!  So, I suppose, taking that example of the sales call, the purpose isn’t necessarily just to have a face to face call where can you see the people and hear the people.  What about some content?  Or showing a presentation?  That’s another question that needs to be asked.  Do people need to be able to see a PowerPoint or slide show that is being presented during the call? Absolutely!

So now the last question. It’s actually more of a technical question, and you should really get your I.T Department involved in this one.  You will flesh out whether or not you need to have calls being made within your I.T network, or outside of your I.T network, or both.  And depending on the answers here, there’s different kinds of solutions and bridging services available to enable all the parties to be able to speak to each other seamlessly.  So again, that question there is a technical one and you must involve your I.T Department. Well Jonathan, I think by answering all these questions, it’s possible now to have a clear understanding of what the video conferencing needs are for an organisation.  In part two of this series, we’re going to be looking at the specific room types and, which ones are the more applicable for your organization.

For more great tech talks or a free consultation, visit us at konnectus.com.au.