Video conferencing solutions also change the way people participate in meetings

A few months ago, European cities were completely cut off from air travel by a spew of volcanic ash from an eruption in Iceland. As air travel came to a halt, a lot of business travels woke up to the importance of video conferencing solutions like the one offered by RHUB.

Unlike the usual telephone call or email, video conferencing is almost equal to talking face to face with an individual, with the slight difference being that the participants are not sitting next to each other and talking. Video conferencing solutions vary from each other in the degree of service, and not in their nature.

A lot of research has been conducted on the efficiency of video conferencing, and many of the studies conducted argue that video conferencing causes the minds to process information differently than they would during face to face meetings. An example of such case studies is the one done by Stephanie Watts and Carlos Ferran in ‘Management Science’ on September 2008.

Researchers on this subject feel that people who use the RHUB web conferencing appliance or any other video conferencing service end up using more of their cognitive abilities than those people who communicate face to face. This is because a greater cognitive load would be used for functions such as identification of the speaker, detection of movement, coordination of eye contact, conversation pacing and turn taking.

Moreover, cognitive attention would be greater because the participants of a video conference would be more self-aware. With a bigger cognitive load, the mind would cut back on its ability to evaluate the information being shared by the other participant. This may be done with heuristics, like the perception of that participant. As a result, the decision on whether to accept or adopt information would be made less on the quality of arguments being shared by the participant.

The study conducted by Watts and Ferran resulted in the report that talked about the difference between video conferencing and face to face communication. This field study was done on medical professionals, and it was found during the study that participants who attended a video seminar were influenced more by the speaker’s likeability and less by the quality of arguments presented by the speaker. In the case of a real conference attended in person, the opposite pattern was found. Even in this study, the researchers agreed that the difference in pattern was due to differences in the cognitive load of the participants.

As a result of these findings, the authors of the study argued that video conferencing is not simply a replacement for face to face meetings. These video conferencing solutions also change the way people attend and participate in meetings. Participants end up using less of their ability to systematically and rigorously analyze the arguments and information presented by the other party during a video conference. However, it must be noted here that Watts and Ferran’s study was based on video conferences where participants did not know each other before.

What does this study mean for business leaders? Likeable leaders who find it difficult to put forth a strong argument in favor of a proposal should use video conferencing services like that of RHUB instead of meeting with participants face to face. If required, a leader may also hire a likeable person for the purpose of presenting proposals or presentations through video conferences.

Additionally, if a virtual team participates in web based meeting and the leader has to make the team process information more systematic, he/she can reduce the cognitive load caused by video conferencing. This is possible by training the team properly about how to participate in video conferencing.

Some good video conferencing services like RHUB provide this training. In addition, participants can also be allowed to practice video conferencing with each other so that they become familiar with the way everyone performs in a video conference.

One more thing that virtual leaders can do to lower the cognitive load on participants is to make it easier for participants to concentrate on the logical and data-centric parts of the meeting. This can be done by opening another window along with the video of the presenter, where a slide show or a systematic list of arguments can be laid out.

So, you can see that video conferencing solutions like the one offered by RHUB 6-in-1 web conferencing and remote support appliance may not be comparable to face to face meetings, since video conference changes the way in which information is processed. As a result, it may not be possible to make video conferencing the same as face to face meetings just by improving the video streaming quality. However, service providers such as RHUB can help you reduce the cognitive burden on the participants of video conferences, and make your online meetings more effective.

Safe and effective meetings with RHUB web conferencing appliance

Web conferencing services are more of a requirement than a luxury for businesses today.
If you are not implementing web conferencing for your business, you are missing out on
a big opportunity to make your business more efficient.

It is no secret that web conferencing solutions like the RHUB web conferencing
appliance can save time and money for businesses, not to mention the efforts of
your employees, by eliminating a lot of business travel. In fact, online conferencing
streamlines your entire meeting process.

RHUB aims at providing effective and efficient online conferencing solutions for
all businesses, irrespective of their size. Its latest solution is the RHUB 6-in-1 web
conferencing and remote support appliance, which allows businesses to host more than 7
participants. It also offers free audio conferencing services, along with functionality and
efficiency that RHUB is famous for. The RHUB 6-in-1 web conferencing and remote
support appliance offers the following functionalities:

Outlook Integration

Businesses can easily integrate daily tools with the RHUB 6-in-1 web conferencing and
remote support appliance. With Outlook integration, employees can get easy and secure
email access and visibility on calendars, making it a lot simpler to schedule meetings
online.

High resolution video conferencing

The high-resolution video conferencing solution allows participants to see each other
through webcams, therefore making the meetings more realistic. People can convey their
feelings and thoughts through words as well as body language. Additionally,, and the
ability to listen as well as see others’ actions make meetings a lot more effective.

File sharing

Irrespective of whether you are sharing a simple file or a complete business report, the
RHUB 6-in-1 web conferencing and remote support appliance makes it look very easy.
The file sharing feature improves the speed of your connection and streamlines online
collaboration, making it easier to share and conduct long business presentations with
other participants, no matter where they are.

Meeting recording

RHUB also allows you to record your online meeting, which can be useful for several
purposes. For example, recorded conference meetings can be used for training employees
or for allowing employees on leave to catch up with the latest meetings. Recorded
meetings can also be posted on the company website for informing prospective and
current customers.

Mobile conferencing

Apart from all this, RHUB also offers businesses the convenience of mobile
conferencing. This allows people to attend and participate or host an online web meeting
through a mobile application.

An online web conferencing solution can change the way a company does business,
and there is no better way to introduce online conferencing into your organization than
through the RHUB 6-in-1 web conferencing and remote support appliance.

What is the hidden cost of free video conferencing?

When one looks at the video conferencing market it is quite easy to get lost in the dozens of solutions available, most of them having different requirements and offering different services at different costs.

Most of the time one tends to go with a solution that one is already familiar with or a solution that one has often heard talking about. In the video conferencing market these are MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk and Skype.

These are popular because they are inexpensive, most being free, and are used frequently by small and medium businesses as the video conferencing system of their choice. Skype alone has more than 663 million users and 37% of them are estimated to be businesses.

But what many businesses don’t seem to know is that, while these solutions are fine if one wishes to talk to a friend, they are not the solutions businesses need and deserve.

While they apparently provide a service at no cost whatsoever, there are hidden costs that businesses usually discover at their own expense. These costs often hurt companies in other ways than in their wallet and they should be aware of them.

The low quality of such video conferencing calls using such solutions often translates in unreliable connectivity, which often leads to frustration and interrupted conversations. When not getting interrupted, such calls usually suffer from delays and frequent interruptions.

The video quality delivered by these solutions is also quite weak. If one wishes to use video conferencing in his or hers daily business operations instead of audio conferencing then video is supposed to play a very important role. If video hasn’t quality then why use video conferencing at all?

Businesses using such video conferencing products should look for better solutions in the market. They often fail to really provide what they’re suppose to and result in lost clients and partners, lost time and affect the credibility of the company using them.

The purpose of video conferencing is to enhance communications between distant parties. If the video conference solution fails to fill this role then it shouldn’t be used.

There are many other solutions available in the market today and some of them quite inexpensive while also providing the quality businesses need and deserve.  Among them is RHUB’s 6-in-1 TurboMeeting appliance, which delivers high quality video, web and audio conferencing services as well as desktop remote support solutions.

Companies should know that nothing is free and that everything has its costs.