Tipping Point for Video

My interest in Unified Communication has recently led me to join the ranks of one of the leading global brands in video conferencing. So, as you can imagine, I’ve been getting more questions about how video usage will change over time.   Mind you, we’re not talking about “wow factor” usage models, per say.  Rather, I am talking about the things that need to take place to make video more central to an exceptional UC experience that can be shared by the majority of UC users.   But, before we get to the “what needs to take place”, let me set the stage of where video is today in unified communications.

An examination of Video - "All right, Mr. De Mille, I'm ready for my closeup"

Currently, video tends to be on the top of a Maslow’s hierarchy of collaboration.  It provides the added value of face-to-face interactions and relaying the subtle nuances of non-verbal cues that one can pick up from seeing your audience. (See diagram below)  But, one could still have a productive UC session with no video.  Heck, this is what most of us experience today.  Any of these sounds like part of your daily work routine?

·         A conference call open to both people inside and outside of your company

·         A Web-Ex meeting to share a slide deck and a separate conference bridge run in parallel to allow the participants to talk to one another.

·         An Instant message conversation in which you extend a view of your desktop to the other person.

In all of these situations, one can argue that collaboration is taking place because content is being shared between participants that are identified and allowed to carry on a dialog.

(Take note of what is underlined as this is core to unified communications & collaboration – identified participants able to collaborate and carry out a dialog.)

If you were to add in a video connection among the participants, you would likely amplify the productivity of the meeting, either in terms of output or time to complete the task at hand.  But, video would not be essential to completing the task. It is not even important to completing the purpose of the call/meeting and, as a result, can be at most seen as a desirable feature for enhancing UC, but no more.

What’s next – Making video a star!

So what needs to take place for video to an essential part of UC&C?  I believe it requires two steps

1.       Video needs to migrate from consumer perceiving video as a separate “service” and starts perceiving it as an application that is effortlessly accessible.

2.       Video needs to become synonymous with modern day work environments.  In this case, remote workers and ubiquitously accessible on any mobile device.

In other words, video needs to be a core enabler of a commonly accepted work environment.  A worker needs to be able to add video to a dialog with the push of a button, and open itself up to the world of un-scheduled interactions.  Currently it has been stifled to being most effective for scheduled event – or meetings.  You want to see video more readily available – make it stone cold easy. 

And one last thing to consider - #2 speaks about work environments.  Remote workers will likely drive adoption, maybe even SoHo.  But, you will quickly hit a limitation on how much a cubicle environment can support video as an essential application for communications.  Why – you ever sat in a cube farm and tried to have even a phone call?  Try video.  Personal/Pc based video, the tool of most cube farms, still has finicky audio and other latency issues.  Plus, the common behavior is to talk louder when you are video regardless of sound quality – this must be a legacy of all those crappy VHS recordings we grew up on.  J

But, the tides are turning and the two issues above are being addressed in real time.  Ok “Video” – let’s make you a star.

Can you think of anything else that is required for video to move from a “Nice to have” to an “essential” part of Unified Communications?

So, What does "UC Wants?"

I recently downloaded and have been reading the last book from Kevin Kelly, one of the original Co-Founders of Wired Magazine where he was the Senior Maverick/Executive Editor until 1999.  Kevin is the author of What Technology Wants (Amazon link).  I actually first heard about the book during a podcast interview with Kevin on RadioLab.  Great interview if you have a change to download it.

In the book, Kevin introduces a brand-new view of technology. He suggests that technology as a whole is not just a jumble of wires and metal but a living, evolving organism that has its own unconscious needs and tendencies.  Kevin coins on of the coolest phrases for this living blob, that is right out of Star Trek – the technium. 

Kevin looks out through the eyes of this global technological system to discover "what it wants." He uses vivid examples from the past to trace technology's long course, and then follows a dozen trajectories of technology into the near future to project where technology is headed.

This new theory of technology offers three practical lessons: By listening to what technology wants we can better prepare ourselves and our children for the inevitable technologies to come. By adopting the principles of pro-action and engagement, we can steer technologies into their best roles. And by aligning ourselves with the long-term imperatives of this near-living system, we can capture its full gifts.

With this frame of reference, I thought it would be interesting to speculate as to “What Unified Communications wants.”  After all, it is a nice bounded arena of technology – the unification of communications and collaboration into a pervasive, but user controllable situation.  Yet, even within this definition there are limitless directions that UC can take.

So, what does UC want?  Here is a short list of items that I see in the UC technium 

1.    UC wants to be IP Based – this is somewhat of a fizzle of a start to this list, but a near term tipping point is about to happen where communications will be primarily via TCP/IP protocols.  Think beyond email, presence, and so forth.  Think about ALL voice communications, all video – and more importantly all the networking that will connect them.

2.    UC wants to provide for us a “meaningful signal” – no one needs to be convinced that we are flooding ourselves with information.  And the promise of pervasive communications has the double edged effect of adding further to this problem.  But unified communications, true UC, wants to helps us sort through this clutter.  It wants to be a beacon of “clarity” that is increasingly valuable but hard to discern.  Unfortunately, I fear that information overload will appear to get worse before it gets better.

3.    UC wants to make the idea of collaboration as “mission critical” – Think of what clear information could bring to your personal life or your business.  Business continuity, faster decision making, broader innovation, all leading to competitive advantages.  In the beginning of this transition, high performance workplaces will lead their markets because they make better use of their resources. 

This is only a start to this conversation.  What do you think?  Please let me know if you have other concepts you believe is part of what UC wants…