April 24th, 2010 @ admin // 3 Comments
The week nobody could fly in or out of Northern Europe hopefully showed businesses that online meetings should not just be a business backup but a viable, affordable and essential method of conducting day to day face to face meetings around the globe. Saving time and money are the most obvious reasons for companies to conduct online meetings but what about business continuity ?
If companies learned anything from the Icelandic Eyjafjallajokull Volcano they should start planning for possible further interruptions or (eruptions) to business.
Online meeting rooms were approached by the organisers of the Inaugural Green IT Summit. Minister Eamon Ryan responsible for Communications Energy and Natural Resources spoke at the event.
in conjunction with ICT Ireland and the Irish Software Association, the inaugural Green IT Summit is a major conference focusing on how and where you can make green IT deliver business value. This gathering of experts and peers aims to provide Irish businesses with an improved understanding of how they can go green and save money along the way.
Guest speakers and keynotes including Tom Raftery, the lead analyst of GreenMonk and Energy & Sustainability analyst from RedMonk (Spain) Jonathan Steel, Founder & CEO, Bathwick Group UK and Sonny Masero, VP, ecoSoftware EMEA, CA (UK) were unable to attend the event in Dublin due to the flight ban. Online meeting rooms were able to work cross platform and cross browsers to deliver the guest speakers directly into Croke park by way of video link. Presentations were delivered along with Q & A sessions after the presentations. All remote speakers were also able to see those that attended the venue as Tom Raftery indicated when he asked venue participants to raise their hands while assessing the roles of those assembled.
fantastic help from Joe at Green IT Summit yesterday in dublin. Well done, you saved our skins.
The question now is, what happens if this Iceland Volcano goes off again ? What will it take for companies to embrace “Green” Technologies like for instance video conferencing ? For one thing, this volcanic activity has shown the fragile nature of our dependence on air travel, hopefully it has also shown companies that business meetings can be conducted online. Online meeting rooms were given 36 hours to co-ordinate with the venue, the speakers, the av people and the event organisers. But, everyday companies still send their people on flights to some broadband available nation… why ? Work practices and efficiencies must be found. To stay competitive as every well run business knows, no matter where in the world they are located, environmental and human impact in terms of stress on our planet and us is also a massive factor when you consider keeping your employees. Teleworking is now regarded by many as a major “benefit”.
Think about it! and If you need additional convincing please watch this video on FORA.TV
CO2 Emissions
April 19th, 2010 @ admin // No Comments
On Friday 16th at lunchtime we were contacted by the wonderful people from Seminars.ie. Their dilemma was how to get some of their guest speakers into Dublin’s National Concert hall for an event over the web the next morning. Unable to travel with the European airspace lock down. The volcanic ash plume from Iceland had put the event beyond the reach of the keynote speakers involved from the UK and Canada. Travelling to Dublin to give presentations was out of the question. Some 450 people were expected at the event.
Specialists in on the subject of Health and Music, Dr. Daniel Levitin and Prof. Paul Robertson were expected to arrive for the event. The event was described as
Music has always been considered a soothing and healing influence, calming the soul and relieving stress. With the rise in Music Therapy as a paramedical discipline we have come to understand just how useful it can be in the treatment of autism, learning disabilities, dementia, neurological disorders and depression.
With no chance of travelling, the National Concert Hall and Seminars.ie pulled together and worked on a way with us to stream the speakers and their multimedia presentations to an audience. We had less than 16 hours to organise, train and coordinate Professor Paul Robertson and Dr. Daniel Levitan. Here is a 4 minute video of how Dr. Levitan got on.
This is a short amateur video captured by one of the attendees.
February 1st, 2010 @ admin // No Comments
Back in 2006 we were approached by the Health Informatics Society of Ireland (HISI) to provide services for the streaming Dr. Susan Newbold’s presentation from Maryland in the U.S. After some initial training with Dr. Newbold, she was able to login from her home office and give her presentation to the conference where a group of 400 health informatics professionals listened and participated and Q&A. Here is a brief 4 minute clip of how it went.
Remote guest’s and speakers save time and money by utilising streaming technology this way, events organisers can also benefit from providing streaming facilities for their remote speakers by increasing the chances of availability of the speakers and by simply making life easier for their remote speakers. Dr. Newbold had a standard DSL connection, a webcam and as you can see from the recorded clip, a standard headset.
