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Telepresence - An On-Demand Webinar with Howard Lichtman's Thoughts on Telepresence as "Economic Disaster Recovery"
August 25, 2008 | HSL
A couple of weeks ago I participated in a webinar on telepresence and telepresence managed services for VoIP News sponsored by Nortel. I shared the virtual stage with Hugh McCullen, the GM of Nortel's Telepresence and Multimedia Services. During the webinar I discussed both the benefits of telepresence to the enterprise and the business case for investing now including the collapse of commercial aviation and telepresence as "Economic Disaster Recovery". Hugh McCullen discussed Nortel's Video Network Operation Center (VNOC) and managed services around telepresence. Below you can find a link to view the webinar or simply browse the slides presented in the presentation. I have also added some thoughts on telepresence as "Economic Disaster Recovery"
Topics covered include:
What is Telepresence?
Connecting Supercomputing Human Brains
Telepresence Community of Interest Networks (CoINs)
The Coming Telepresence Utility Hockey Stick
Telepresence as "Economic Disaster Recovery"
Future Proofing Your Telepresence Investment
Telepresence Managed Service Providers
Nortel's Video Roadmap to Enterprise Transformation
Click the image above or visit this link for on-demand access to the webinar.
http://www.voip-news.com/webinar/high-def-network/?tfso=1686
Click Any Slide Below to Enlarge
http://www.voip-news.com/webinar/high-def-network/?tfso=1686
Click Any Slide Below to Enlarge
For more on the crash of commercial aviation please read our article:
The Crash of Commercial Aviation and Telepresence
Howard Lichtman's Thoughts on Telepresence as "Economic Disaster Recovery"
You might say that I have been a little pessimistic on the global economy for a while. I have been buying gold and silver since 2003 when gold was at $331 an ounce and silver was at $6 an ounce to protect my savings from inflation. In July of 2005 I sold my home in Northern Virginia at what the Washington Post called the absolute peak of the Northern Virginia housing market, put the proceeds into gold and silver, and have rented ever since. BTW, less than a year later the property values in Northern Virginia tanked and the guy who bought my house put it on the market for almost 25% less and still couldn't find a buyer. For Christmas in 2005 I sent out almost two dozen copies of the, then, newly released and little known book Empire of Debt to my friends and family. The book laid out the coming crisis in Asset Backed Securities / Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) / NINJAs / Liar Loans etc. before 99% of the world had ever heard the terms much less realized that they would be wiping out Trillions of dollars of wealth globally. In my 2006 paper, Telepresence, Effective Visual Collaboration, and the Future of Global Business at the Speed of Light I accurately predicted the continued collapse of the dollar, the sky-rocketing of oil prices, and the crash of commercial aviation.
I share these anecdotes not as braggadocio but simply to establish that that my views are long founded and not simply those of a telepresence consultant looking to exploit the country's current economic problems. Now... on to the current crisis and why I believe that telepresence can help smart companies weather the storm.
The Current Crisis
The global economy is in a crisis. The privately-held Federal Reserve after years of steadily reducing the value of the dollar by steadily increasing the money supply has now created a situation where foreigners, central banks, US citizens, and even criminals are growing more and more reluctant to hold US dollars as a store of wealth. The Fed's policies contributed significantly to creating the stock market bubble of the 90s and the real estate bubble that followed. The problem has been exacerbated by an incompetent and corrupt US government and congress that has looted the treasury and run up a national debt of over 9.5 Trillion dollars and unfunded liabilities of over 53 Trillion dollars. We are seeing double digit increases in the necessities and luxuries of life, our housing bubble is rapidly deflating, foreclosures and unemployment are soaring, banks are failing, inter-bank lending has seized up, and the Fed is having to create hundreds of billions of dollars, if not ultimately trillions, to prop up largely insolvent commercial banks, investment banks, and Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac. Especially troubling is a sharp contraction in the money supply in July...the biggest one-month fall since 1959 and reminiscent of the inflation and then rapid deflation that contributed significantly to our last great depression. If all that wasn't enough we have one of the largest naval armadas in history headed to Iran and our client state Georgia, lead by CIA-installed puppet Mikheil Saakashvili, launches a sneak attack on a Russian enclave one week after 1000 US military personnel finished training up the Georgian military. We live in interesting times...
The Case for Telepresence as "Economic Disaster Recovery"
So what should the astute enterprise do in the face of rising costs, slowing sales, plummeting airlines, imploding suppliers, and the very real possibility of a complete collapse of the dollar?
Answer: Get costs down, productivity up, and improve your ability to effectively collaborate with your branch offices, partners, vendors, and customers globally in an economic environment where physical travel is expensive and inefficient.
Telepresence addresses all of these needs and further helps firms that must cut personnel to survive allowing them to more effectively leverage the talent they have left globally while improving personal and organizational productivity.
For the well positioned firms, venture capitalists, sovereign wealth funds, and private equity players looking to acquire distressed companies in the coming months and years, telepresence offers the ability to cost-effectively and rapidly integrate and manage global acquisitions.
The Human Productivity Lab Can Help
Because knowledge is specialized, the Human Productivity Lab stands ready to help firms better understand their telepresence and inter-networking telepresence options, accelerate due diligence, and effectively deploy telepresence and effective visual collaboration solutions to weather the storm.
Other:
LifeSize Communications joins Telepresence Options!
LifeSize Communications - LifeSize is the first company to develop and deliver high definition video communications products. Founded in 2003 by industry veterans and named "Videoconferencing Company of the Year" in 2007 by Videoconferencing Insight. LifeSize's award winning solutions combine exceptional quality, user simplicity and administrator manageability to make video communications a productive, true-to-life experience. LifeSize is headquartered in Austin, TX with subsidiaries in Europe and Asia Pacific, and a network of channel partners reaching more than 80 countries.
Telepresence People
Brian Kinne has re-joined Iformata Communications as Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing
J.D. Vaughn joins Telanetix as Vice President, Worldwide Telepresence Sales
Hana Jeddy has joined the Teliris marketing team
