Conferencing Article

Attend Conferences from Your Home Office

Working from a Home Office certainly has its advantages. After all, you wake up in the morning, walk down the hall, and you're at work. I know that is one of the things I like about it. But besides that, there are many more advantages such as; being there to see the kids off to school, being there when they come home, being able to work as long as you want, being able to work as little as you want, saving money on gas and car expenses, not to mention the "green" aspect of it by saving all of the gas and pollution related to that commute into work. There are some disadvantages as well like, the distraction of being there while the kids are getting ready for school, and being there in the afternoon when they come home from school and the distractions of that. But we love it.

One of the other disadvantages of working from home is not being there at the office for the conferences or meetings. If you want or need to be a participant in those meetings, it has meant that you have to drive in to the meeting to do that. Well, not so fast. A number software companies are coming to the rescue. As it turns out, you may not have to go in to that meeting, you may be able to teleconference that meeting, or better yet, video conference the meeting. This whole electronic age that we now live in that has made it possible for us to work at home, has even come up with ways for us to attend meetings at the office across town, across the nation, or even across the pond.

Teleconferencing is actually an enhanced version of the conference call. The difference is that the quality of the call is much better than you get with a standard conference call. In the past with conference calls the third and fourth parties to the call either could not hear the others or nobody could hear them. And the more callers you had the worse it got. But with a teleconference hookup using a computer, the quality of the call has become as good as a two way call. There are also companies that provide this service on an as needed or single event basis.

Videoconferencing has taken it to the next level. With the use of cameras at the separated meeting areas, you can now see the attendees as well as hear them. This is important because many meetings involve a physical object about which the meeting was called in the first place. It also allows us to see the person talking along with the physical part of the presentation.

Another form of remote conferencing involves the internet. With a web conference sometimes combined with a teleconference, attendees can sit at their computer screen and view presentation pages through an internet (web) connection and hear the participants with a teleconference phone connection. Feedback can be both verbal and visual with the participants.

Utilizing technology to make your Home Office more efficient and practical is what it is all about. Of course, nothing will replace actual human contact and interaction, but that is not always necessary. There will still be those times when you will have to participate in person, but at least now we can keep those to a minimum.