Second Life Conferencing

As promised, I'll go into a little more depth about the second day of the conference, and what I took away from the event.  Several excellent workshops were given by different suppliers, I attended the Polycom and ThinkEngine networks to learn more about their offerings, and about their companies.  I came away with several ideas of additional products and services that we can offer to our clients, as well as some general time frames to make these happen.

One of the most intriguing topics of the day was based around how universities and other places of higher learning are making the foray into the collaboration world.  The concept of these organizations being able to offer truly interactive learning experiences for their students in a virtual environment is an incredible opportunity for a company that takes the right approach.  This is a very quickly growing market segment, and one that our company will be gearing up for earnestly as the next few months come along.

The age old question of "What is the future of conferencing?  And where is it going?"  is always a hot topic for service providers like myself.  Needless to say, the importance of providing top-notch levels of customer service and a truly "human" experience is going to be even more important in the future as potential clients literally have hundreds of options to choose from.  Whether to purchase premise-based equipment or an outsourced service provider is always an important decision.  Then, on top of that you have several hybrid solutions to choose from such as having the equipment on premise, but having it managed by the outsourced service provider.  The next few years will be very exciting indeed.

The technology exists today to truly recreate the experience of being "right there, next to the person".  The question in most cases is whether or not the cost justifies the results. 

Signing off for now, and going to head to another session. 

Reno Provine
President
Great America Networks Conferencing
www.ganconference.com