Telepresence.....it's really cool

I was in San Francisco last week and was lucky enough to visit Cisco Systems national headquarters. I got to check out their tele-presence technology first-hand. It was really cool. Honestly, for most routine meetings, it is definitely sufficient, and it allows you to project documents and power-points, etc. When you look at someone they know it, and so does everyone else. If you look at your phone, everyone can see you, its crazy. Cisco even had a virtual secretary that greeted us on telepresence. Cool huh?

I asked an expert what kinds of issues different cultures had with this technology, as you must be sitting down to use it. Turns out the Japanese for example have issues with it because they stand often in meetings. These virtual technologies will adapt to different cultures as well as other needs that come up. Overall a really cool product. FYI it costs $300,000 to equip a room with it.