Howard S. Lichtman, President of the Human Productivity Lab, recently published a primer for enterprises interested in telepresence conferencing in CXO Magazine's latest Telepresence Issue. The article, building on the work the Lab does advising Fortune 5000 clients interested in deploying and inter-networking telepresence systems, discusses the trade offs in the current crop of telepresence offerings.

Understanding your telepresence options

By Howard S. Lichtman, President, Human Productivity Lab.

- Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat

Telepresence is a hot topic these days. Cisco's entry into the market in October with full page ads in the Wall Street Journal, a primetime appearance on Fox's Vanished! and commercials during the World Series has generated an awareness of and interest in not only Cisco's initial offerings, but in other telepresence vendors, systems and solutions. For the uninitiated, I usually describe telepresence as "the closest thing to virtual reality for business meetings" (or, occasionally, "videoconferencing on steroids and acid").

As an analyst and consultant who specializes in telepresence and visual collaboration, I'm frequently asked some version of the following question "Which telepresence system do you think is best"? If only it were that easy. While telepresence has been the best kept secret in telecommunications for years, generating an end-user acceptance and usage far above what can be expected from traditional videoconferencing, there are still only a handful of telepresence offerings on the market, and most have only appeared in the past year.

In a field of version 1.0s almost across the board, deploying telepresence in 2007 is a science of trade-offs. Some systems excel at visual and acoustical realism, some at backwards compatibility with legacy videoconferencing, and some at international reliability. But as we tell our clients, the best system for an organization is often one that connects it to its most important vendors, joint venture partners, and/or customers. In telepresence and effective visual collaboration, the network is just as important - arguably more important - than the hardware in the room.

Modeling the Return on Investment of Telepresence

The videoconferencing industry sold traditional videoconferencing for years on the promise that it would eliminate business travel. The problem was that no one really liked the plastic-camera-on-the-TV-set-on-the-dessert-cart experience and consequently the systems were underutilized averaging 15-20 hours per month per end-point.

By addressing the human factors of participants, telepresence providers have been able to demonstrate usage significantly over and above what can be expected from traditional videoconferencing. When contemplating the potential usage and application of telepresence you can't use traditional videoconferencing as a benchmark. Expect usage over 100 or more hours per end-point per month (HP reports usage of over to 250 hours per month per end-point on some of the Halo Collaboration Studios on their network).

Networking Telepresence Systems Together - Introducing the Visual Collaboration COIN and Effective Inter-company Business

One of main reasons for the poor quality of videoconferencing 1.0 was the poor quality of the communications networks that connected videoconferencing endpoints. The Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) lines that for years connected traditional videoconferencing had a number of limitations: poor reliability, limited bandwidth, and expensive usage-based billing with per call charges of over $1,000 per hour to many parts of the world.

Starting in the late 1990s, videoconferencing began its migration from the unreliable, limited bandwidth of ISDN to highly reliable, high-bandwidth Internet Protocol (IP) networks, which substantially improved the quality of the experience. However, while the majority of IP videoconferencing endpoints are theoretically capable of talking to any other standards-based videoconferencing endpoint, for a variety of reasons (cost, firewall traversal, compatibility, etc.) these calls have typically been limited to intra-company business, connecting a company's corporate headquarters to its outlying branch offices over the corporate network or dedicated point-to-point circuits.

Many telepresence systems (as well as many traditional videoconferencing systems) are being deployed over Community Of Interest Networks (COINs). Effective visual collaboration COINs are IP networks that connect participants not only to their own intra-company locations but other members of the community who have compatible telepresence and/or videoconferencing endpoints. Take for example Iformata communications, which provides network and helpdesk services to a large network of Polycom RPX telepresence systems and traditional IP and ISDN videoconferencing networks. Polycom RPX customers that choose iFormata for their network connectivity get a network solution that not only connects them to their own enterprise systems, but to the other members of Iformata's network, including: Deloitte, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, AOL and Capital One to name but a few.

HPL Acquisition Tip: The high bandwidth and stringent quality requirements of telepresence means that the majority of enterprise networks won't be able to support telepresence. Consider upgrading the network and/or evaluating a visual collaboration coin delivered as an overlay network to connect you to your vendors, joint venture partners, and/or customers OR, better yet, consider moving your telephone closet to a carrier neutral collocation facility where you can cost-effectively connect to multiple visual collaboration COINs, Voice over IP networks, Internet transit providers, and other networks at wholesale rates. Your gear is housed in the same carrier-class facilities that the phone companies use and connected back to your facility by Gigabit Ethernet (or greater) connection(s). "Meet-me" network interconnection provider telx provides the service in 11 different markets.

Understanding the Different Types of Telepresence Solutions

Telepresence conferencing solutions can be generally grouped into the following categories:

Continuous Presence Group Systems - Continuous presence group systems generally seat four to eight primary participants, though many providers have solutions that can add a second tier of seating to the environment. The group system is the most important format for business because it most effectively replicates the traditional across-the-table business meeting in the customary format, with the capacity for a traditional executive or project team.

Hardware Vendors include: Cisco Systems, HP, Polycom RPX, and Telanetix

HPL Acquisition Tip: Many telepresence systems can be leased with an equipment write-off tied to the lease term, which can be shorter than IRS depreciation schedules resulting in larger tax deductions each year.

The HP Halo Collaboration Studio 6-Seat Continuous Presence Group System

Small Group Telepresence Systems - Small group systems are sometimes referred to as "one-to-three" or "one-to-four" person solutions. These solutions are less costly, seat less participants, and can be mobile. The video codec is usually a standards-based traditional videoconferencing codec. Systems can run on a company's existing network if the proper bandwidth is available and compliment or improve traditional videoconferencing deployments.

Providers Include: ATK, Cisco, Digital Video Enterprises, TelePresence Tech

HPL Acquisition Tip: Because you can get six participants in an 18 or 28-seat distance learning classroom but you can't get 18 or 28 participants in a six-seat continuous presence group system, consider a larger capacity room if your organization conducts frequent training, certification, and/or continuing executive education.

The Cisco CTS 1000 Executive Telepresence System

Desktop and Executive Solutions - Desktop and executive solutions extend telepresence capabilities to executive offices or home offices. This improves communication between the executive team and key managers.

Providers Include: Cisco, Digital Video Enterprises

The Digital Video Enterprises Executive Telepresence System (ETS)

HPL Acquisition Tip: Desktop videoconferencing has generally been characterized by small, grainy, poorly lit talking heads in a 5 inch box on your computer monitor. Desktop and executive telepresence systems are just starting to emerge and the future is coming into focus. Expect lifesize images, properly lit with fluid motion and eye-contact sitting across your desk in the coming years.

Telepresence Distance Learning Classrooms -- Holding from 18 to 36+ participants in an effective format for classroom instruction, distance learning solutions allow organizations (corporate or educational) to conduct instructor lead, classroom training between their own internal locations and those of other institutions on their effective visual collaboration network.

Providers Include: Polycom, MedPresence

When modeling potential usage and ROI take these factors into consideration:

• Intra-company Business Travel - Reduced inter-company travel, Reduced use of corporate aircraft
• Inter-company Business - Connect with vendors, joint venture partners, and customers on the same network
• Improved Productivity - Shortening decision times, accelerating the speed of business, reducing time in transit and out of the office
• Improved Flexibility - The ability to hold meeting that would be impossible in any other format due to the time limitations of physical travel and/or the impossibility of being in two places simultaneously
• Time-to-Market Advantage - The ability to reduce the cycle time to launch new products and integrate them into production.
• Cost Efficiency - The ability to bring more of the team to a meeting than normally would have traveled.
• Improved ROI from your existing videoconferencing investment - Many telepresence solutions have been shown to improve the usage and ROI of existing videoconferencing deployments by improving the experience of connecting to legacy videoconferencing systems and increasing their usage.

Telepresence Conferencing Defined

Telepresence is the science and art of creating visual conferencing environments that address the human factors of the participants and duplicate, as closely as possible, an in-person experience.

Telepresence greatly improves end-user acceptance, which dramatically increases usage and substantially improves demand, ROI and customer satisfaction.

While a variety of methods can be used to deliver telepresence solutions, they typically offer some combination of the following improvements over the "talking heads" experience of traditional videoconferencing:

• Life-size participants
• Fluid motion
• Accurate flesh tones
• Studio-quality video, lighting and acoustics
• The absence of visible technology
• True eye contact, or the approximation of eye contact in large-group settings
• Immersive and/or mirrored environments where participants feel as if they are in the same physical space
• A consistency-of-quality between disparate intra-company and inter-company locations in network quality, participant and camera placement, and lighting among other factors.

Download/Print/Save this Article as a .pdf > cxohpl_telepresence_primer.pdf Via [CXO Magazine]

Other Human Productivity Lab News

Telepresence World is in the news again.  Click Here for a press release on the specifics on the conferences' program on how telepresence can reduce anthropogenic carbon dioxide emmisions.  Also it has been announced that Charles Stucki, the newly appointed Vice President and General Manager of Cisco's Telepresence Business Unit will be keynoting at the conference.  Thomas Jackson, the CEO of Mission Benefits, former CEO of TeleSuite, and a member of the HPL's Board of Advisors got to spend some time with Charles not too long ago and was most impressed.  We look forward to catching his speech in San Diego.  Get the complete announcement Here.  

Remember:  The good folks at Hemisphere Information Services have extended a discount of $100 off the cost of the conference to friends of the Human Productivity Lab.  Details Here: http://www.HumanProductivityLab.com/telepresenceworld/

While subscribers to the Lab's Telepresence RSS feed have more than doubled in the past three months there are less than 100 folks who take advantage of delivery of the Lab's articles via e-mail.  Ya'll are missing out!  The articles arrive in formatted HTML that are easy to read, print and/or forward.  You can sign up for e-mail delivery Here: http://www.humanproductivitylab.com/blog_features/rss_via_email.php

Here is a kewl Polycom / videoconferencing video that I keep meaning to post:

If these two think they like Polycom videoconferencing wait till they get together via the RPX (with hopefully something better to eat than Knorr soup).  The music is hauntingly beautiful...