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Web Conferencing and Online Collaboration Made Easy
According to Raindance, effective communication is essential to business, and
the benefits of web conferencing extend beyond saving
money for travel costs. Organizations leveraging web conferencing
also realize returns in improved communication, productivity and overall
efficiency. Web conferencing empowers organizations to interact meaningfully,
frequently and at any time with customers, employees and partners – sharing
information or making decisions – whether in the next office or around the
world.
What is Web Conferencing?
Web Conferencing is used to hold group meetings or live presentations over the
Internet. In the early years of the Internet, the terms "web conferencing" and
"computer conferencing" were often used to refer to group discussions conducted
within a message board (via posted text messages), but the term has evolved to
refer specifically to "live" or "synchronous" meetings, while the posted message
variety of discussion is called a "forum", "message board", or "bulletin board".
In a web conference, each participant sits at their own computer, and is
connected to other participants via the internet. The most basic feature of a
web conference is screen sharing, whereby conference participants see whatever
is on the presenter's screen. Usually this is accompanied by voice
communication, either through a traditional telephone conference, or through
VoIP, although sometimes text chat is used in place of voice.
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_conferencing
What is Online Collaboration?
Collaboration, with respect to information technology, seems to have many
definitions. Some are defensible but others are so broad they lose any
meaningful application. Understanding the differences in human interactions is
necessary to ensure the appropriate technologies are employed to meet
interaction needs.
There are three primary ways in which humans interact; conversational
interaction, transactional interaction, and collaborative interaction.
Conversational interaction is an exchange of information between one or
many participants where the primary purpose of the interaction is discovery or
relationship building. There is no central entity around which the interaction
revolves but is a free exchange of information with no defined constraints.
Communication technology such as telephones, instant messaging, and e-mail are
generally sufficient for conversational interactions.
Transactional interaction involves the exchange of transaction entities
where a major function of the transaction entity is to alter the relationship
between participants. The transaction entity is in a relatively stable form and
constrains or defines the new relationship. One participant exchanges money for
goods and becomes a customer. Transactional interactions are most effectively
handled by transactional systems that manage state and commit records for
persistent storage.
In collaborative interactions the main function of the participants'
relationship is to alter a collaboration entity (i.e., the converse of
transactional). The collaboration entity is in a relatively unstable form.
Examples include the development of an idea, the creation of a design, the
achievement of a shared goal. Therefore, real collaboration technologies deliver
the functionality for many participants to augment a common deliverable. Record
or document management, threaded discussions, audit history, and other
mechanisms designed to capture the efforts of many into a managed content
environment are typical of collaboration technologies.
An extension of groupware is collaborative media, software that allows several
concurrent users to create and manage information in a website.
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_software
Uses of Web Conferencing and Online Collaboration
Web Conferencing and Online Collaboration can be used to reduce the following
operational costs:
- Airline travel
- Travel by car
- Hotel reservations
- Productive time wasted in traffic and airports
- Meeting room rental
Web Conferencing and Online Collaboration can be used by:
- Sales professionals for product demonstrations;
- Team members brainstorming and collaborating on a draft proposal response;
- Human Resources to orientate new employees;
- Executives to discuss and agree new decisions or proposals;
- Document authors to quickly receive feedback and input on draft documents;
- Entire companies to vote on proposed changes.
Trends in Web Conferencing and Online Collaboration
- In May, 2004, Gartner reported that “web conferencing is
now in the phase of mainstream adoption.”
- In a June, 2004 analysis of meeting productivity, IDC
reported that it expects organizational investment in web
conferencing solutions to reach $1.15 billion by 2006, up
from $513 million in 2002.
- Industry research indicates that web conferencing benefits
significantly outweigh the costs. IDC’s analysis noted
that first year returns on investment (ROIs) for four interviewed
organizations averaged 905 percent. Fifth year
ROIs averaged more than 700 percent. The average time
required to earn back investments in web conferencing
tools was two months. At the highest ROI rates, it required
less than one month.
How to Choose the Right Web Conferencing and Online
Collaboration Solution
Before deciding on the right solution, answer the following questions:
- What types of meetings does your company conduct regularly?
- How many online conferencing users do you expect?
- What features and functionalities do you require? Do you require full
multimedia conferencing that includes video, or will you simply be sharing
documents and applications?
- How readily will the technology be accepted by those who may be
non-technical? How easy is it to establish an online meeting?
- How will the chosen solution integrate with your current Information
Technology (IT) infrastructure, as well as existing applications, for example,
Microsoft Outlook?
- How reliable is the solution and what uptime is guaranteed?
- How quickly will a meeting interruption because of solution failure be
rectified?
- What reputation does the solution vendor enjoy?
Return on Investment Factors
- Time-related savings: Reduction in time traveling to offices, client sites
and other locations.
- Travel expense savings: Meetings can be conducted from the attendees in
their normal work or home space.
- Incremental revenue opportunities: New product or services opportunities
that emerge as a result of adopting new technologies.
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