Forrester Research interviewed Human Productivity Lab founder and Telepresence Options publisher Howard Lichtman for their recent publication: The CIO's Role in Enterprise Collaboration: Tapping the Groundswell. The superb report by Liz Brady, Maggie Zweiben, Laura Koetzle, and Nigel Fenwick explores best practices for using collaboration tools (including telepresence) for strategic advantage.  The full report is, unfortunately, only available to the C-level executives on Forrester's CIO Leadership Board, however, they were good enough to allow us to republish Howard's interview.







Interview with Howard Lichtman, President - Human Productivity Lab

What strategic advantage can CIOs gain for their organizations if they leverage collaboration tools?

The number one thing is time, and that's everyone's most valuable commodity - organizations are rich in cash but poor in time. If CIOs focus on technology that improves personal or business communication inside and outside an organization with vendors, partners, or customers, then they get strategic advantage. In a global, multinational organization that is dispersed, you can improve productivity by eliminating physical travel and coming to decisions faster by huddling the team on an immediate or ad hoc basis. There is no better tool for this than telepresence.

What is the need for telepresence when organizations already have videoconferencing?

Videoconferencing improved and humanized the way that people interacted but had distinct limitations because people didn't really like it, which is demonstrated by usage. It is used only 5 to 15 hours per month, and the usage is also limited because of technical reasons, including firewall, network, ease of use, and reliability. People don't like to use it - it is hard to use and uncomfortable. Everyone is 6 inches tall; the body language is hard to read; it's like The Hollywood Squares. We like telepresence because it solves the problems of videoconferencing, which is end user acceptance. If you get the human factors right (e.g., life-size remote participants, studio-quality acoustics, accurate flesh tones, etc.) and create an immersive experience instead of observant experiences, the usage goes through the roof to more than 50 hours per month. People can stay in the environments longer because it feels more like a real meeting. They focus and pay attention more, and they get more feedback and social pressure to participate. We've all been on conference calls where people are surfing the Net and checking their email.

What other collaboration tools are proving to be most effective for organizations?

I really, really like the rear-projection whiteboard. There is the ability to convey information in a group really rapidly. You go from capturing information in the smart notebook tool where it can be immediately digitized and shared, and then you can capture the notes of a meeting.

What role should the CIO play in leading and managing collaboration in the workplace?

The role of the CIO is to get the right tools into the knowledge workers' hands and give them what they need to communicate more effectively internally or externally with customers. The CIO needs to remove the barriers to collaboration by upgrading or doing away with tools that don't make sense. Organizations that view CIOs as critical thought leaders in leveraging technology and empowering them to make technology decisions to get ahead of the curve and figure out what's next will have a strategic competitive advantage over the organizations whose CIOs just run the phone system and servers.

How does a collaboration environment enable the capture of informal communication and make it valuable to the business?

In the old days, it was about finding and knowing where to get or buy the right information or whom to call for the right information. Now we're overloaded with the information, and it's "how do I minimize the unhelpful or inappropriate information that I'm being inundated with?" This unhelpful information takes away from the most valuable commodity of time. The CIO has to eliminate information that wastes the employees' time in the firm. In the case of a wiki, for example, built by the customer support organization, it is helpful and has immediate impact. But if you encourage every employee to create a blog, it can be hit or miss and may be contributing to the information overload problem.

What is the return on investment for telepresence?

With telepresence, there are three measures: 1) hard-dollar return (savings from travel); 2) soft-dollar return when you're not paying someone to cool their heels in the airport, stand in line at the rental car and hotel, or pack and unpack; and 3) the opportunity cost of investment in what the executive would have been doing had he not been traveling. Telepresence is not a replacement for travel because you want your folks in the field, making real relationships with real people. At the same time, there's an amazing amount of travel (internal and external) that is not high-value that this technology could replace.


Other:

We have updated the Human Productivity Lab's Telepresence Consulting Website. We have added examples of some of the consulting services we have provided to global Fortune 20 oil companies, international investment banks, and national / international standards bodies. On the vendor side we have included information on Arming Telepresence Commission Driven Mercenaries, our "open source" competitive overview/sales training for telepresence vendors, managed service providers, and carriers.  We have also included examples of consulting engagements for established telepresence vendors and those looking to enter the telepresence marketplace. 

Telepresence Webinar - Tomorrow - Thursday, August 7th @ 10:00 AM PST / 1:00 EST

Bringing High Definition to your Data Network         -         August 7th @ 1:00 PM EST
A free webinar on telepresence for the enterprise led by VoIP News Senior Editorial Director Owen Linderholm and featuring Human Productivity Lab President Howard S. Lichtman, and Hugh McCullen, General Manager of Multimedia Services @ Nortel.

Register Here: http://www.voip-news.com/webinar/high-def-network/?tfso=1686