How much money can be saved by having more teleconferencing or videoconferencing in business, government and home-schooling?

That is exactly what I have always thought. I can’t understand how that hasn’t been happening. It is a no-brainer.

Here is the challenge: it may ultimately save in travel costs, but it doesn’t necessarily reduce the cost to the business.

As a former director of training for a large corporation, what I found is that the need came first. Effectiveness and timeliness of communication came in second and third. Down the list of priorities was how to deliver the message. In some cases, an e-mail did the trick. In others, it was a conference call, webinar, computer-based training, etc. In others, it required face-to-face interaction.

In our case, we designed an online training course for the company’s computer system It eliminated the need for new employees to travel to the corporate office in order to learn how to use it. It eliminated their travel costs, provided a training tool to new employees immediately, and was available to all employees, not just the two managers required to attend. Was there a cost savings? On travel, yes. On educating new employees on the system yes, as they were properly trained on how to use it. On the corporate side, training development consts increased.

We’ve kicked that around three or four times over the last dozen years. But it is a lousy way to run a meeting, especially with more than one location. Everybody in one room is on one side of a table, looking at a screen instead of each other, same in the other cities. And discussion is difficult because you can’t interrupt as you might if you are all together.

I am on conference calls a couple of times everyday. They work fine, and video would be distracting and add time and annoyance. If it is so important that we see each other, for more than two hours, those of us in the regional office fly to New York.

Federal employees do do telecommuting days now.

Also human being are social animals, and we need to connect in person.

Telemedicine is another one… not only saves costs but increases access to health care.

Teleconferencing pays for itself on the first meeting. Our company had customers all over the world. We can show drawings and other information on the video screens at out customer’s site, even if they’re on the other side of the world. The only real problem is that we end up having meetings at 8:00 PM to accommodate our customers in China.