Going Green? Integrate Video Communication Into Your Business

Guest post by Rachel Hedaya

Categories: Miscellaneous

July 20th, 2009

[Rachel Hedaya, an intern at RADVISION, is greatly assisting us with blogs and other marcom activities that are going on. She decided to go green, with several initiatives taking place, one of which is this post here.]

Jan Levinson is here to see you….

I’ll admit it – I love The Office. One of the things it highlights is that every manager has their own style of communicating. Jan, the corporate manager of Dunder Mifflin, always seem to drive to the different branches she managed, because she felt that phone conversations wasn’t enough to stay in touch with all the different branch offices that she had to communicate with. When Ryan became the new CEO, he hooked up all the different branches with video conferencing systems so they can all ‘attend’ the launch party in New York. True, Michael, the branch manager, was upset that he wasn’t there is person, drinking the Champaign, but he did save on gas and hotel expenses.

Our world is screaming at us to take better care of it. With the recent occurrences of hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes, we really have to be more conscious of our effects on it. Now my attempt to “go green” is not ever going to be about wearing temp shoes and ride a bike to heat my water, but I have started using rags instead of paper towels and I have switched to online payments to avoid wasting paper (plus, I get to save money by avoiding stamps).

When a company has offices around the world, there needs to be a greener way to stay in touch with them, because honestly, the environmental implications of driving several hours or constantly flying really are unjustifiable these days. For a business to go green, or to become greener, it doesn’t have to be expensive (nor should it be); it can help the environment as well as increase efficiency.  But is Video Communications right for your business?

• Look at how you conduct your business - Do managers call once a week and drive or fly to different locations once a month? If it is often, think of all the carbon emissions it’s expelling into the environment. See if you can substitute any of the face to face meetings with other possible solutions.
• Do you want to become a greener company? – If your company is looking to become more environmentally responsible, research what steps you can take in order to become greener. Using recycled paper, switching to florescent light bulbs and implementing video conferencing will enable your company to do so.
• What are your demands? – Companies like Cisco and Samsung offer high-end teleconferencing systems, which make you forget that you’re not in the same room with your colleagues, and lower-end products, like webcams, that allow you to casually call someone up (but picture quality really isn’t that great).

It is possible for you to save money, save the environment and create a better work and life balance, leading to a decrease in stress and better performances. Video communications improves the environment, with lower hydrocarbon emissions and reducing fuel consumption.

As easy and fantastic as video communication is, it won’t completely replace face to face conversations, but it can significantly reduce them. When you meet a customer for the first time, you are likely to want to meet them and develop more of a rapport. To stay in touch with them, you can do so via video conference.

So the bottom line seems to be that you should evaluate how implementing video communications technology can improve the communications of your company. Video communications is a great way for you to help the environment by limiting your travel (not eliminating it, even our people still travel for business) thereby limiting your carbon emissions. See if implementing video conferencing is right for you and the environment.