In the wake of 9/11, widely held
anxiety over jet travel inspired installation of videoconferencing
technology at meeting facilities and corporate offices around the
world. Why board a jet and fly to meetings, the reasoning went,
when faces could be seen, voices heard and documents shared through
technology?
Now that business travel has largely bounced back from those
post-9/11 doldrums, though, there has been hardly a peep about
videoconferencing. Is anyone still using all those high-tech
facilities?
Not at New York City-based design engineering firm Parsons
Brinkerhoff Quade & Douglas. The firm recently scrapped all 31
of its global videoconferencing sites, because employees preferred
to share their work directly from their computers, using Internet
applications, says Suzanne Puccino, vice president and director of
corporate services.
Use of videoconferencing has decreased in recent years at many
conference centers, too, says a spokesperson for Montvale,
N.J.-based Dolce International. Given their druthers, she says,
businesspeople prefer in-person meetings over videoconferencing,
because “overall travel budgets have increased and there’s more
confidence in travel. They need face-to-face meetings and
team-building activities.”
There’s been a dip in videoconferencing at some Aramark
Harrison conference centers as well. “Our videoconferencing suite
is for a small number of clients,” says Bob Johns, general manager
of Aramark Harrison’s Babson Executive Conference Center in
Wellesley, Mass. “If we have 30 programs a week, maybe we’ll see
one or two that use videoconferencing every three weeks. It’s
useful technology, but we know nothing is going to replace
face-to-face meetings. Frankly, we’re thankful for that.”