The War on Terror - How has it affected your job?

[George]

How has the War on Terror/War in Iraq and around the globe affected your job? Have you seen an increase in Videoconferencing usage? A decrease? Why?

Being on the gov side (US) I of course saw a major increase in traffic back and forth with units in the middle east and the US. I wonder though, did the whole airplane hijacking thing cause the fear of flying that everyone said it would and send major company execs running for their VTC studios? If it did cause an increase in usage within your organization has it died off since then or was the increase more permanent?

[Entropy3XD]

Man......we are slammed, but we do deal primarily with federal and military.

[mazzarak]

Immediately post 9/11 we saw a massive increase in corporate usage, though much of it was on the audio side. Some corporations banned international travel completely, and thankfully many have just stuck with it.

[Gary Miyakawa]

Yeah, What job.


Gary Miyakawa

[Toney]

9/11 did cause quite a big increase in VC usage in our company. We had a travel ban that lasted several months (only urgent travel was approved). The Iraq war also had the same effect.
But it seems, unfortunately, the effect didn't last, people started travelling more and using VC a lot less. In fact recently, I heard that one of our higher up managers had made comments that we as a company are not using VC effectively enough, that we're not getting ROI.
I think the trouble with VC is that although these terrible events had a positive impact on the uptake of VC, the fact remains that VC is still not accessible and easy enough to use yet. Users within our company still lament about the reliability, sometimes the complexity of use and the general lack of process supporting VC usage.

[George]

Yeah I hear that quite a bit. Post 9/11 companies started picking up on VC then it slowly started dying off. Toney One thing that I find almost always makes high level execs happy is special treatment. In the VC world that means a desktop system just for them :D. With the advent of systems like the VS3000 that they can use as a nice flat screen and VC system we as VC experts really no longer have an excuse for not trying to make a tool that is used almost as much as the phone itself. I'd suggest going that route and putting the technology right in their face by adding desktop systems for them to play with on a daily basis in addition to your conference room systems where they'll actually get work done.

[Toney]

Probably sounding like a Tandberg fan by now. But like the VS3000, we've had Tandberg 1000's in use for quite some time now. A large number of our execs and manager are using them (it's true that special treatment works well!). A lot of our managers are using them as much as their phones now. But where the complaints are is that the managers are seeing expensively fitted out rooms with high-end VCs and room automation etc go largely unused or incorrectly used. We will see VC in the company a success when our guys 'in the trenches' are using them more frequently and on more ad-hoc basis. One of our challenges here is making VC more like simply calling an ad-hoc meeting: taking away the need to notify support personel, book rooms, book VC equipment and other cumbersome processes that make last minute, impromptu VC meetings harder. But we're getting there!! :)

[IPjunkie]

in a different way, being in the Telecom field as a federal civil service employee I saw budgets all across the board (USAF,USN,USA) slashed to about a third of what their normal operational budgets required. The money was then funnelled into Homeland Defense programs and initiatives. Thankfully I'm working (soon to be) in a Homeland Defense funded environment!!

[dfreeman]

I've seen more of an increase in system deployments from the interest rate rise than from any lasting efect of 9/11. I think the manf. are adjusting to the fact that until this tech becomes second nature, there won't be wide spread acceptance. As revolutionary as the VS's were it will take that next step to commodization such as the 3000's and 1000's to push the market back into the upward trend we all want to see.