One of my jobs looking ahead to 2011 includes making sure we’re using the latest and greatest technology to keep our employees connected. We are spread over 4 (soon to be 5) states and three time zones and invest a lot of resources to make sure that our physical distance doesn’t hinder the aggressive transfer of information.
Currently, we use Cisco’s WebEx to meet “face-to-face.” It is such a part of our company, we’ve internally branded it as “Think Tank, MedMan’s Brainstorming Place.” Many companies use this software for sales presentations, trainings, or web demos. We use it as one of our office meeting rooms for all-employee meetings, monthly reviews, educational trainings, and other one-on-one or group meetings.
There are a lot of things we really like about Think Tank, including the integration with Outlook, ability to share our desktop or remote control each other’s PC, and ease of scheduling meetings. I occasionally research other online meeting and video conferencing products (like Polycom) to make sure WebEx is the best fit for our needs, and for now Think Tank seems to be the most affordable, practical solution.
One of the downsides to Think Tank is that it is geared toward one-person-in-front-of-their-computer to another-person-in-front-of-their-computer. With so much work done by teams these days, we’d really like to have the ability for a group of us in Idaho to all be in one room and meeting with a group of people in Alaska (or Oregon, or Washington…) that are also all in one room.
The other day I saw a commercial for Umi, a new Cisco product that is geared toward consumers. It offers crisp, clear, large video via an HDTV and integrated audio, and is not quite as expensive as enterprise video conferencing systems. It also integrates with Google Chat for people on the other end who might not have the hardware.
Imagine the possibilities for a small, virtual business!
It is easy to see how this could be a solution to our needs at MedMan, but at this point I’m just dreaming. Still, I’d like to know what other virtual companies out there are using. How do you stay connected to remote employees? What are the limitations of the technology you are using today? What kinds of advances do you hope are coming down the pipeline, and how would it improve your business model?
