Transparent Technology
As with the larger systems, Personal Telepresence has to accomplish the same objectives as a fully built out four or five screen room. No matter how many participants or how many site locations; a true telepresence meeting must have precise and uncompromised eye-to-eye contact. Participants must be able to look in any direction and see eye-to-eye, off to the sides and vice versa. Each person also needs to be able to hear directionally, from their location at the virtual table AND be able to interrupt each other without delay – all interactions that we take for granted during a face-to-face meeting.
In order to be successful and truly change the way companies do business across distance, telepresence, no matter whether its Personal Telepresence or otherwise, has to ensure that the technology in no way interferes with the meeting conversation, it must be natural. This is a simple statement, but one that takes into account several factors that together accomplish the details necessary for a natural meeting experience.
Personal Telepresence technology, along with other varying types of other telepresence solutions, were essentially created to provide an alternative to travel, a way to communicate with people across the world at a moment’s notice. It is not the size of the system, the number of screens or the resolution that accomplishes this feat, it is the combination of an immersive set of technologies wrapped with a managed service and extended reach network that together provide an unmatched solution for companies to cut travel and carbon emissions, collaborate more effectively, create a better work / life balance for their employees and even secure a business continuity plan.
From an audio/visual perspective, telepresence features directional sound and broadcast-quality video that allows conversations to take place in real time and participants to make eye contact. As a result, the meeting experience is transparent, intimate and effective. Essentially, a true telepresence meeting evokes an emotional experience whereas videoconferencing with its lifeless images and jerky sound and even self-start HD videoconferencing historically could never accomplish.
All of these technological challenges were the root of why many lost confidence in traditional videoconferencing, a technology solution plagued with blurry images, out-of-sync lip movements, frustrating audio delays and shoddy sound quality. Today’s technological advances that make up true telepresence solve these visual and audio inadequacies and feed into the goal of capturing non-verbal cues such as facial expressions and body movements – the interactions that people would interpret and engage in if they were sitting across the table.
Interoperability & Agility
Whether a Personal Telepresence solution or a three, four, or even five screen fully-built out room, telepresence needs to be agile enough to integrate with other telepresence and traditional videoconferencing units within the same organization, with partners and customers without losing the immersive experience. If this is not possible, telepresence becomes an island and one that will quickly fizzle out in usage and diminish ROI in prior videoconferencing and telepresence systems. As important as the connectivity agility is extended reach. Personal Telepresence is agile for a number of reasons – size, ease-of-use and if it’s the right solution, it also has an extended network reach that can allow telepresence calls from any corner of the world AND connect with any of the other vendor solutions.
