Overcome Visibility Challenges With Remote Teams

September 17th, 2012 | Posted by Lisa Avvocato in Collaboration | Unified Communications - (0 Comments)

Video conferencing has made it easier for managers to lead remote employees as well as enhance team cohesion among remote members. However, simply holding video calls will not guarantee a successful remote team. It requires additional time and effort to develop relationships and motivate team members who are scattered around the globe. One of the biggest challenges remote leaders face is overcoming a lack of visibility.

Managers of remote teams can’t take a walk around the office to see how their team is doing nor can team members pop by for a quick chat or clarification. For example, consider a scenario where an employee is hung up on one aspect of the project. It’s nothing major, the numbers just aren’t adding up correctly or everything seems to be in place but the program just isn’t running properly.

A local team member might signal his boss when she walks by and ask for a second set of eyes. They can take a look together, quickly spot the issue and the employee can move along on the project. Unfortunately, remote team members and managers do not have this luxury. A fully deployed UC platform can help by allowing a team member to ping his boss over instant messaging and then shift to a video conference to resolve the issue. However, if their manager does not seem available or team members do not feel comfortable with their boss they might continue to work on the problem themselves.

Developing relationships through face-to-face interactions is absolutely critical for remote leaders. Managers should proactively reach out to their remote teams to check in, ask how things are going or if there is anything they have questions about. These informal interactions not only help put team members at ease but develop a sense of trust by increasing a manager’s viability. When an employee has a question or needs a second set of eyes on a project they feel comfortable quickly reaching out to the manager.

Additionally, due to limited visibility, it is critical for remote leaders to not only have a clear vision in place but ensure each team member fully understands and supports the vision. The vision is what gives employees direction when their managers are not around and can help them make decisions without constantly checking in for approval.

For example, when developing the product packaging and promotional messaging for a new product a team member might have a choice between a cost-effective option and a higher-quality option. If the manager has clearly articulated the vision for the product is high quality the team member can make the decision on their own by selecting the higher-quality packaging material.

When setting the vision it is important to engage all remote team members. Allowing them to be part of the vision creation helps develop team spirit and cohesion, as well as, inspire team members individually.

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Creating the Perfect Collection with Telepresence

September 14th, 2012 | Posted by Lisa Avvocato in Telepresence | Use Cases - (0 Comments)

Fashion is considered an art form to many people and New York City’s semi-annual Fashion Week is the event of the season. More than 500 fashion shows attract over 230,000 attendees as people gather from around the world to view the latest creations from New York’s top designers. In fact, according to a statement from NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Fashion Week generates an economic impact of $865 million annually.

The pressure to produce and present high-quality, unique garments is felt by everyone from the designers to seamstresses, fabric providers, models and modeling agencies, and more. Fashion changes faster than almost any other industry; therefore, the ability to produce the right designs with the right quality at the right time is critical for success.

It’s no wonder that design houses, like Tommy Hilfiger, are turning to video conferencing solutions to support their operations. Communicating with seamstresses and sending fabrics and designs back and forth can become cumbersome; not to mention expensive, when using an international courier. Telepresence solutions eliminate many of these challenges by allowing designers to stay in contact with suppliers all over the world.

With high definition systems, designers can see the quality of fabrics and clothing samples down to the actual stitch. They can browse fabric rolls and choose prints as if they were walking through the warehouse resulting in a quicker selection process. Since the feel of fabric is of utmost importance, samples of selected fabrics can then be sent to the designer for final selection and approval.

After fabrics have been selected, samples of the clothing designs must be created by seamstresses. Telepresence allows designers to give directions while seamstresses pin alterations in real-time to ensure the garments align perfectly with their vision. The misinterpretation of comments and alterations from communication or cultural barriers can be avoided. Plus, it significantly reduces the cost and time of sending samples back and forth reducing the time required to finalize designs and get them into production.

While clothing collections are the spotlight of Fashion Week, there is just as much to do when planning a show. Selecting the right models is critical to ensure the collection is displayed properly. In addition to proper fit, skin tone must accent garment colors for optimal impact. Design houses can use video to pre-screen models in the same way corporations use it to screen job applicants. As a result, designers can easily approve model selection while finishing the last minute details of their collection.

In the fast-paced and ever changing fashion world; designers must find new ways to stay in touch with consumer needs and create collections in an efficient and effective manner.

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4 Things to Consider for Wireless Video Conferencing

September 12th, 2012 | Posted by Lisa Avvocato in Video Conferencing - (0 Comments)

Video is making its way through organizations large and small as it becomes easier and more effective to use. The proliferation of tablets, smartphones and mobile video applications are allowing end users to connect from anywhere they have a Wi-Fi connection. The increased demand, however, is putting significant pressure on Wi-Fi networks. How can organizations make sure their network is video ready?

Estimate Demand
The majority of video users within an office location will connect to video via their PC or a room system if available. However, some users may opt to video conference on their tablet; either because a desktop video application continues to crash their PC or they need access to their computer screen while on video. It is important to have a grasp on the percentage of users who use video on their tablets in addition to their call concurrency.

Proper Infrastructure in Place
Video conferencing can place a strain on Wi-Fi networks; therefore, organizations should ensure they have the necessary infrastructure elements and access points. Most Wi-Fi networks were not designed with mobile video in mind; resulting in latency and packet loss if the demand for mobile video exceeds network capacity. Organizations should put policies in place to limit the use of Wi-Fi or limit per-call bandwidth. For example, dual desktop computer screens allow managers to view information on their computer while still using video on their PC.

Control Video Traffic
As video traffic continues to grow on your Wi-Fi network, it is important to employ devices that allow for segregation of this traffic (via Quality of Service – QoS) controls. This is incredibly important as video is bandwidth intensive and could potentially cause serious slowdowns within your infrastructure, potentially interrupting mission critical applications running wirelessly.

Don’t Open the Floodgates
With so many devices being introduced, employees will want to make use of every kind of video chat imaginable. Using firewalls to help block some of the unwanted services will be key. As an example, do you want employees using Facetime to communicate with their friends all day long? Blocking that activity can help mitigate strain on the network.

Clearly there is much to consider with your wireless network and video conferencing. The items above are a good start. Constantly monitoring and performance tweaking will be essentially to ensure that the entire operation is not brought to its knees by video traffic.

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Dodging Budget Cuts with Video Arraignment

September 10th, 2012 | Posted by Lisa Avvocato in Government | Use Cases | Video Conferencing - (0 Comments)

A couple of weeks ago, a juror summons made its way into our mail. Thankfully it was addressed to my husband because the thought of taking the New York City subway by myself gives me heart palpitations since I’m a bit of a germophobe and slightly claustrophobic when it comes to crowds.  This morning, I dropped my husband off at the train station and he joined the rush hour commute into Brooklyn – standing in a crowd the entire way. As he spends his day in court, I can’t help but think about the judicial system.

Budget cuts have had a significant impact on courts as state and local governments are having trouble keeping up with the day-to-day operations. In fact, budget cuts forced the closure of the Tulare County courthouse last month, as well as, three unpaid furlough days in Kentucky this year. Even worse, California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye warns that budget cuts are threatening the judicial system after a Sacramento father watched his “wife disappear out-of-state with their son after his child custody case was delayed because of court cutbacks.”

How can federal, state and local courts cut costs without crippling the judicial system?

Investing in video conferencing  is a good place to start. Video arraignments reduce the staff and resources needed to transport inmates to the courthouse which is especially beneficial for extremely dangerous or high-profile inmates that require escalated security detail to ensure the safety of everyone involved. Video arraignments also allow courthouses to speed up the arraignment process allowing suspects to be released on bail faster; minimizing their time and expense in jail.

Additionally, the City of San Antonio Municipal Court recently implemented video court services for traffic violation hearings. Not only does this allow the judge to hear the maximum possible cases per day; it allows citizens to easily fit a hearing in on their lunch break. A friend of mine recently received a ticket because the registration sticker on her license plates had either fallen off or been stolen. She had to take a half-day off work to go to the courthouse with all of her documentation to contest the ticket which was extremely frustrating.

With continued budget constraints federal, state and local government agencies are dealing with the need to handle their docket of court activities with fewer resources. Video conferencing solutions help cut costs and process cases in a more efficient manner. A Pennsylvania court reported saving taxpayers more than $21 million annually with its video deployment. Plus, cloud video services make implementation and operation easier than ever. Multipoint bridging services allow citizens to easily connect to the court’s video equipment via Skype or Google Video Chat without compromising the security of the network.

While jury duty is part of our civic duty, perhaps one day soon you can try to weasle your way out of a speeding ticket from the comfort of your own home.

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Webinar: The Traveler’s Guide to Video Conferencing

September 6th, 2012 | Posted by Adam Kaiser in Webinars - (0 Comments)

 Whenever video is sold or even mentioned, travel reduction is one of the first thing that comes up. In fact, the promise of decreasing an organization’s travel costs with virtual meetings is as old as video technology itself. Green initiatives, such as reducing emissions and carbon footprints, and increasing employee productivity due to less business travel are other highly mentioned benefits. 

But, how do organizations track these savings and really prove the ROI of video?

Join Aberdeen Research Director Christopher Dwyer and IVCi on September 20th at 2 PM Eastern at a webinar that will show you how organizations are successfully reducing business travel (and proving it) as they leverage video and virtual meeting technology.

In this webinar you will learn:

  1. The value of integrating video conferencing and travel/expense management systems
  2. How best-in-class organizations have leveraged virtual technology to improve meetings and events management
  3. The level of savings achieved by actual organizations currently supplementing or replacing in-person events with video conferencing

Sign up today!

The Traveler’s Guide to Video Conferencing
[Click here to Register]
Date: Thursday, September 20, 2012
Time: 2:00 PM Eastern / 11:00 AM Pacific (US)

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