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Is Videoconferencing the Antidote to Business Air Miles?
By | January 24, 2008
Michael Daw is somewhat of an expert on virtual meetings and in this post gives his take on the potential for technology to replace our ‘need’ if not our desire to fly:
When you took the pledge not to fly, did you take the Gold or the Silver? For those of you who don’t know, this website offers these two levels of sainthood, and they’re by no means equal, because the Silver pledge comes with the tacit acknowledgement that many people are expected to fly as a normal part of their working life.
I work for a University and it seems to me that flying is endemic to the academic culture. Researchers are expected to fly to international conferences and meetings, sometimes many times a year. It is perhaps ironic that whilst many of these conferences are looking at ways to make the world a better place through research into poverty and environmental issues (for example), they themselves are exacerbating climate change and thereby increasing the incidence and scale of the problems they study.
International trade too demands collaboration with colleagues around the world. Just recently, Gordon Brown has highlighted the potential benefits of trade and cooperation with China, including working together on climate change. Except that he, and many others in his wake, will emit many tonnes of carbon travelling to China to further these aims.
So, is there a technological alternative to international business flights? Videoconferencing has been available for mass use in one form or another since the late 1960s, and, although there are enthusiasts, its use as a normal part of working life is still somewhat of a rarity. There appears to be an entrenched unwillingness to use videoconferencing to replace face-to-face meetings – many perceive that it is just not the same as ‘being there’. Sceptics cite its limitations in ‘not quite’ replicating all the features of collocated meetings such as the confusion that arises when someone at one site points to an object that is off camera, a lack of eye contact or problems of reliability. However, whilst plane cancellations and frequent delays at airports don’t seem to stop people flying, the occasional technical problem with a videoconference can lead to people refusing to use the technology ever again.
Perhaps this is because of the hidden benefits that come with physically travelling to remote and exotic places for meetings. When faced with a choice between walking down a dingy corridor to a videoconference and hopping on a plane to Hawaii, it’s maybe not hard to see why many choose the latter.
What is most surprising about videoconferencing and related technologies that support collaboration between physically separated colleagues is that they may ironically encourage more – not less – travel. Without these technologies, it would be hard even to contemplate working with people spread across large geographical areas, but technology makes this achievable. Inevitably, there remain aspects of human interaction that are almost impossible over a videoconference, such as building a good working relationship over a pint at the bar. And so, perhaps surprisingly, those who use videoconferencing the most may also travel the most. I myself have worked in this area for the last seven years and have made more frequent flights than ever before in my career, all in the name of reducing travel for others.
Despite all of this, I still believe that videoconferencing has a role to play in reducing the number of business air miles. What is required most of all is the will to do business in a less damaging way and a critical mass of people taking the plunge in making a Gold rather than a Silver pledge. We can tell our employers that we are simply not prepared to fly when the reasons for travel are very rarely more important than saving the biosphere on which our lives depend. And videoconferencing can provide the realistic alternative.
Topics: Alternatives to Air Travel, Stop Flying Stories, Topical, Your Experiences |
January 24th, 2008 at 10:42 am
There is a strong case that employers themselves should scrutinise the need that their employees have for flying. In a survey of over 1,400 European business travellers in October 2006, 55% admitted that they made unnecessary journeys, with 58% conceding that it was a great way to socialise.
19% of respondents in the UK went so far as to admit that business travel made them less productive, and 41% said that more video-conferencing would improve their work-life balance.
Perhaps business flights are often tacitly viewed as a tax-free perk?