As part of my sisyphic effort to stay updated with the latest in the video conferencing market, I’m using various tools to aggregate everything and anything that concerns this technology, this industry.

The most talked-about topic in the many blogs, PRs and presentations I have been reading ever since I joined this industry is, without a doubt, the benefits of video conferencing. Our industry is preaching video conferencing as a communication means for more than a decade, in an attempt to push for mass adoption of a technology it strongly believes in.

In this struggle we, as an industry, seem to be using anything, everything, as valid argument…

Green is hot? We have labeled video conferencing as green, and started counting carbon emission savings.

World recession is knocking on our doorstep, forcing us to go through a reality check? We market video conferencing as a means to cut travel costs, and start arguing ROI.

These are, of course, not lies, and video conferencing can cut carbon emission and operation costs, however it seems a shame that we have to keep justifying such a great tool according to the current world crisis.

Can Pigs Fly Over IP?

And no crisis is as current and as global as Swine Flu. The world hysteria hasn’t slipped under the marketers’ radar, and in the last weeks I have been reading one article after another promoting video conferencing as a solution to Swine flu.

In a recent post, NoJitter editor Eric Krapf wrote about the “pandemic preparations“:

If your initial reaction to the new flu was to run out and buy a bunch of $300,000 telepresence and systems – or even to think seriously about doing so – I would question that move…

I have to agree with Eric. While video conferencing can replace physical travel, and reduce the danger of exposure to strange diseases developing all over the world, it surely won’t save planet earth. Not on its own, at least.

Not everyone is taking Swine flu seriously…

Can Video Conferencing Save The Earth?  No.

“Can videoconferencing save the Earth?”, asks Celeste LeCompte from Business Week, and she promptly answers “In short: No”:

Videoconferencing, when done right, can offer companies significant benefits when it comes to travel…  That’s the message used to help market next-best-thing-to-real-life video conferencing services… But look beyond the headlines and sound bites and you’re likely to find a somewhat less verdant tale.

…

The lesson isn’t, however, that companies should abandon video conferencing, but they should… consider videoconferencing a flagship initiative within a more nuanced program.

And this is true for all the other great reasons everyone, IMHO, should adopt and use video conferencing as a means of communication. It should be considered as a “one small step” for you and your organization towards better, more unified communications, but it is, of course, only one part of the puzzle.

I’m a big believer in the benefits of technology. I strongly believe that it may one day save the world. But I would honestly prefer we would kill the almost-ridicules over-hype. Just the other day I was watching Shai Agassi’s TED talk about his electric car initiative. Shai says there that the reason to move to electric cars should NOT be “because it’s green”; it should simply be because it makes sense, and might even enhance our (driving) experience.

My friend Tsahi, who is slightly less famous than Shai Agassi, said something similar, calling all of us to just kill VoIP – “dissolve it into the background of our lives, and go on pleased to know that we (can) use it but don’t need to think about it…”, that is enhances our communication and makes sense, even if we totally forget it even exists.

At least not until the next world crisis.

Extra-Terrestrial Invasion movie mix.