Elance has grown pretty dramatically over the past few years, as more and more jobs move online and work becomes more virtual. To provide more value to its users, the company wants to do more than just connect employers and contractors. That’s why it has a virtual workroom that enables collaborative work and communications tools between them.

In their virtual workrooms, contractors can send messages, submit invoices, respond to to-do lists and other features. And now, Elance has added a new video chat feature to enable more “face-to-face” contact between collaborators, without users having to enter a whole different application to connect.

According to Elance VP of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses Ved Sinha, the addition of video chat to the virtual workroom will reduce the friction that comes when employers and contractors work together. While many had previously interfaced through other applications, building the chat window directly into a contractor’s dashboard enables instant communication with the click of a button.

To do this, Elance uses Tokbox’s OpenTok video chat client, which enables businesses to embed video chat into their websites. While there are plenty of video chat offerings available on the market today, Sinha told me by phone that OpenTok was the only solution that allowed Elance to build video chat directly and seamlessly into the virtual workroom.

That was a big advantage for Elance, which wanted to ensure its users didn’t have to open a different client or application to get in touch with one another. And for its clients, the feature should enable better coordination and more productivity.

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“The next disruption will come with big advances in UI because that’s all you have,” he said. Behind the scenes, computers and networks are still abstract machines that essentially flip switches, but people don’t think in the abstract. So the user interface is a way to turn the abstract into concrete efforts that humans understand. How does one “de-abstract” the machine?

The biggest clue, Underkoffler says, is space, and pointing is the simplest human gesture that applies to space. We point for the benefit of others, who can determine what space we’re trying to reference. Applying that idea to computers is what Oblong does, and the key is giving tangible space coordinates to every pixel on any screen in a room. Essentially, an entire room around you can be a desktop.

But you can’t drive three dozen screens with a single piece of hardware, so Oblong is focused on the operating environment to create a user interface that works across networked computers in a way that multiple workers can collaborate. This “removes the tyranny of meeting rooms and conference rooms where one person owns the experience,” according to Underkoffler. Screens for input and output — such as an iPad – can be used as a two-way screen to control main and add data.

We might be using one or two screens today in a desktop environment, but in the near future, every available screen in a room could extend our workplace beyond the constraints of an old user interface.

Photo by Pinar Ozger.

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Video conferencing and online meeting provider FuzeBox announced a new product Wednesday, Fuze Telepresence Connect, which hopes to overcome these interoperability problems by enabling its Fuze Meeting product to act as a gateway between Tandberg, Polycom and LifeSize telepresence systems. It can also extend telepresence across iPads, Android tablets, PCs and Macs, making it available to an entire workforce.

Telepresence Connect offers:

• Scalable multiparty HD video conferencing. High resolution and high frame rate encode and decode at multiple frame rates and resolutions.
• Standards-based encoding technology. H.264/AVC/SVC based.
• Error resilience and localization. Maintains continuous high-quality video without broken pictures or other artifacts in environments with high packet loss, while individual client network errors do not affect other conference participants
• Resolution and rate matching. Supports sending video to multiple endpoints with different bandwidths and resolution capabilities, without transcoding.
• Dynamic rate control. Automatically and continuously senses the current network condition and adjusts bit rates accordingly
• Firewall/NAT traversal. Embedded functionality that provides a safe and secure connection through any firewall with no feature loss and no additional equipment required.

I’ve seen a demo of Telepresence Connect in Fuze Meeting, and it was impressive, enabling connection to and switching between several telepresence rooms, as well as simultaneous desktop HD video conferencing with several participants. It also provides access to Fuze Meeting’s built-in collaboration tools, such as file viewing, annotation and screen sharing. The seamless connection to various telepresence rooms was particularly pleasing, as typically setting up a telepresence meeting session is not straightforward. I also liked the intuitive Fuze Meeting interface, which enables users to determine the layout of the conferencing screen, choosing which video feeds to highlight or bring to the front — something that’s not usually possible in MCU-based telepresence conferences.

FuzeBox’s new product is not the only cloud-based gateway that can connect telepresence systems. Vidtel, used by the MondoPad device I wrote about last week, also claims to offer “any-to-any” HD video conferencing, for example. However, Fuze Meeting with Telepresence Connect is the only product that works across H.323, SIP and H.264 and can also connect to tablet devices as well as PCs and Macs, and is also the only product to have built-in, easy-to-use conferencing and collaboration tools. Installation of Fuze Telepresence Connect starts at $18,000, with 20 percent annual maintenance fees. That may sound expensive, but it is pretty small compared to the investment required for a typical telepresence setup.

A potential issue for FuzeBox’s new product is the effort vendors are now making to improve interoperability themselves, with most new gear now adhering to either the TIP or H.323 standards, while Cisco, for example, announced an update to its TC and  CTS software Tuesday that will be available later this year and extends interoperability with all standards-based endpoints. So has FuzeBox’s product come too late to market? I don’t think so; the telepresence vendors have been sluggish in their attempts to improve interoperability and there are plenty of existing, legacy telepresence installations out there that companies would like to squeeze more usage and life out of.

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Comcast subscribers will be able to video chat with any other Skype user, whether those Skype friends are connected through PCs, mobile phones or tablets or connected TVs. To do so, Comcast will provide users with an adapter box, a video camera that sits atop their TV or home entertainment center, and a specialized remote control that will let users text on Skype while also controlling their TV.

Subscribers with the Skype equipment installed can then make and receive video and audio calls from the comfort of their living rooms, or send instant messages to other Skype users while also watching TV. When users call them, the system will display a caller ID message through the TV. Comcast subscribers will also be able to interact with the home video conferencing system through compatible mobile phone and tablet apps.

The Comcast deal could give Skype a boost in growing the home video chat market. While it has been trying to expand the number of connected devices through which consumers can access its video chat service, Skype has largely been held back by additional hardware that is needed to make those services possible. Skype users can now video chat from some Panasonic and Samsung connected TVs, but they need compatible video cameras to do so — and those cameras can cost $130 to $170 each.

Comcast could make the Skype video chat equipment available for a small monthly fee, effectively subsidizing the equipment purchase in the same way it leases the cost of DVRs and digital set-top boxes. And with nearly 23 million subscribers, Comcast gives Skype a huge addressable customer base for HD video chat in the living room. But Comcast isn’t Skype’s only major entry into the living room; with its acquisition by Microsoft, the video chat service is expected to be integrated into existing products by the software giant, including its Xbox Kinect video chat service.

For Comcast, partnering with Skype gives it the possibility of yet another value-added service to offer subscribers. Last week, Comcast announced the availability of a broadband-powered home security system, for instance. Not only do those services help drive up average revenue per subscriber, but they also help make Comcast’s services more sticky with consumers, reducing the probability that they will drop Comcast as their service provider.

Comcast and Skype say that the combined service will enter trials in the next few months, and will make the service generally available to customers later this year.

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Aside from selling fewer handsets than these competitors, Microsoft had no answer to their video call offerings until the Skype buy, although the application was already expected to support Microsoft phones later this year. Apple has FaceTime on new iOS devices; Google just added video chat to Google Talk on Android phones (it already existed on Honeycomb tablets); and even Research In Motion is in the game with video calls on the QNX-powered PlayBook tablet. I’d expect RIM to bring the same to smartphones as it transitions them to the QNX operating system in the next year.

As Om mentioned yesterday, the Skype deal gives Microsoft something else it didn’t have: a more direct tie-in to the network operators for both voice and video calls. Again, the company was on the outside looking in as competitors developed their own voice solutions. Google Talk with video and Google Voice are perfect examples of what Microsoft didn’t have until now. Instead of simply selling Windows Phone 7 licenses to handset makers, Microsoft can gain more direct involvement at the network level with Windows Phone 7. That could lead to value-add services and revenue generators for the company and carriers; last year’s exclusive Android deal between Skype and Verizon Wireless is a good example. And according to TeleGeography, Skype generated 12.8 billion minutes through paid services in 2010.

At the consumer handset level, there are several other opportunities for Microsoft to leverage Skype and sell more Windows Phone 7 devices as well. While it will take some time for Microsoft to digest and integrate Skype in its mobile platform, I’m thinking that we’ll soon see a change in the minimum hardware specifications for a Windows Phone 7 device. Currently, there is no requirement for a front facing camera. Skype video chat accounted for 40 percent of all Skype minutes as of December, and as mobile broadband networks mature, that number is likely to increase. Adding a front-facing camera for Skype support will help Windows Phone 7 devices gain parity with competing devices and offers a solid VoIP platform, which could help boost sales.

Microsoft could also leverage the Skype deal with its Xbox Live membership. Perhaps the company includes a small amount of monthly SkypeOut minutes to Windows Phone 7 devices as part of the Xbox Live annual membership. In some crude sense, such a promotion turns Microsoft into a pseudo-MVNO and reduces a consumer’s reliance on their carrier (and perhaps their bill) as they can potentially reduce their monthly voice plan.

Given that Skype has been in use for more than a half-dozen years and has a growing userbase, it would be difficult for Microsoft to begin eliminating Skype support for other mobile platforms. But future features and other value-add services could be offered exclusively or first on Windows Phone 7 devices going forward, giving consumers a “killer app” to consider when making a smartphone purchase. The Skype deal won’t immediately vault Windows Phone 7 to the top of the heap, but it does have the potential to boost flagging sales once Skype is integrated into the platform and handsets gain a front-facing camera by default.

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But does video really perform as well as face-to-face interaction? How does it compare to audio-only communication? Does it always outperform text-only channels like instant messaging and email? Let’s look at different types of tasks and see how video affects the work and communication quality experienced by remote teams.

Technical Tasks

In a study from Carnegie Mellon University, instructors coached inexperienced participants to repair a bicycle. Each pair communicated in one of the following ways: side-by-side, with an audio link, or with an audio-video link. The groups who worked side-by-side accomplished the task around 25 percent faster than the audio-only and audio-video groups. The latter two groups had no significant difference in time taken to complete the task or work quality.

How come video made no difference to the effectiveness of communication? In the experiment, the setup also made it hard for instructors to see referenced equipment; the worker had to maneuver the camera in its direction. This suggests for technical tasks, audio-only and audio-video connections might not result in a significant difference in work quality unless a sufficient quantity of visual information is shared. We should include views of the workspace, necessary equipment, and even the facial and gestural expressions of the participants. Plus, everyone must understand what visual information is being shared, to avoid repeatedly and unnecessarily asking other participants what it is they can see.

Negotiation

Research shows when it comes to negotiation, the richer the medium, the more collaborative negotiation becomes. Competitive bargaining is reduced, and negotiators exert more effort seeking common ground. This also reduces bargaining time and allows participants to become more open to future negotiations. So when you need to conduct remote negotiation and want it to be as collaborative is possible, always go for the richer medium. This means favoring videoconferencing over audio-only communications.

There is also more subtle kind of negotiation: the negotiation of meaning. In one experiment, researchers studied how pairs of native English speakers and non-native English speakers explained map routes to each other. Some teams performed the task with audio only, while others could see their partner on a screen.

Did video improve the negotiations? Not necessarily. Pairs that consisted only of native English speakers did not benefit from video. On the other hand, pairs with a non-native speaker had a much better performance with video.

According to the analysis, non-native English speakers with video had a higher rate of instructions and checked their understanding more. This might be because instructors could see visual cues as to whether their instructions were being understood or not. Without these cues, an audio-only team might go ahead to the next step without realizing that the instructions were misunderstood.

Team Cohesiveness

When it comes to team building, remote teams face several challenges. According to several studies, the perceived distance between members may lead to decreased cooperation and increased deception within the team. The good news is that there is evidence that increased and improved interaction may lessen the perceived distance over time. Can adding video help?

In one study, the researchers pointed out the cohesiveness of a group can depend on the following factors:

• Interpersonal attraction: the feeling of affection among members of a team.
• Group pride: the feeling of prestige, satisfaction and loyalty towards the other team members.
• Task commitment: the sense of attraction towards the tasks of the team.

Their findings showed when it comes to achieving these three factors, videoconferencing was the most effective means of remote communication. For interpersonal attraction and task commitment, the second most effective medium was email. Audio conferencing was the least effective medium. As for group pride, videoconferencing was followed by audio conferencing, with email and instant messaging performing considerably less well.

While the various methods of communication provided no significant differences in performance, videoconferencing seemed to have the best effect on their cohesiveness. Another study from the University of Amsterdam may hold the explanation as to why this might be, indicating videoconferencing lowers the perceived distance between members of a group by creating the impression of shared space, even when workers are remotely located.

Socialization

Interactions in the workplace aren’t limited to business. There’s water cooler talk where colleagues discuss their families, hobbies, and other personal topics. These spontaneous interactions happen less frequently (or not at all) for remote teams because we don’t have a shared office. We may be tempted to dismiss spontaneous social interactions like these as trivial, or at least less important than our work, but research from the University of Michigan shows informal conversations before collaboration were an important aspect of establishing trust for remote teams. If video is added, will it make a difference?

A 2007 study from the University of Calgary showed remote teams socialized at the beginning of a videoconferencing session, mimicking face-to-face encounters. This was true even for teams where the members were already acquainted and had some tasks to finish. According to the researchers, these teams were probably encouraged by the “shared space” they had, since the central team had a dedicated facility with multiple projectors and screens.

But this kind of dedicated space for videoconferencing isn’t always possible. Elaborate telepresence setups may be costly and can take up too much room. Though the use of “virtual space” is a good alternative — such as a separate monitor or a section on your screen — many workers may not have enough screen real estate to accommodate both social videoconferences and working applications. This may mean that for now, videoconferencing isn’t the best medium for spontaneous social exchange.

In the book Distributed Work from The MIT Press, authors Bonnie Nardi and Steve Whittaker suggested chat contributed to a remote team’s sense of social connection. It also provided a venue for real-time impromptu conversations between members of a team. Perhaps chatting or instant messaging — without video — is a less intrusive, more cost-effective way of being open to social exchanges.

When it comes to technical tasks, negotiation, team building and socialization, simply adding video to communications doesn’t automatically add value. We need to make informed decisions about how and why we want to use it. Only then will our video equipment, software and efforts be worth it.

Do you use video in remote communication? When was it essential and when was it unnecessary?

Photo courtesy stock.xchng user speedy2

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Forrester released its data in a report titled Information Workers Are Not Quite Ready For Desktop Videoconferencing, which concentrated primarily on the use of desktop videoconferencing tools (as opposed to traditional room-based videoconferencing and telepresence tools) and was drawn from a survey of North American and European workers in the third quarter of 2010. Some of the interesting headline figures from Forrester’s report:

• A majority of workers don’t want to use desktop videoconferencing tools. 72 percent of workers indicated they don’t wish to use videoconferencing.
• A majority of workers don’t have access to desktop videoconferencing tools. 58 percent of workers reported their firms didn’t have desktop videoconferencing technology.
  
• Desktop videoconferencing is mostly an upper management tool. While some 42 percent of directors have access to desktop videoconferencing tools, only 7 percent of individual workers do.

While I’d suggest that had Forrester perhaps included a higher concentration of high-tech businesses with remote workers in its study it probably would have found usage of desktop videoconferencing in the enterprise to be higher, it’s hard to argue with the figures; the survey was conducted fairly recently and was drawn from responses from several thousand workers. Most interesting to me was the large number of workers who flat-out don’t want to use videoconferencing tools. The Forrester report doesn’t offer any further insight as to why this might be, but it’s significant, because a general reluctance to use this type of technology in the enterprise will make implementing effective remote work programs more problematic. I’d speculate that reasons for worker reluctance could include not understanding the benefits of using videoconferencing over telephone calls (hence not feeling a need for the technology), and perhaps even feeling embarrassed about making video calls in the office. The report does note that a hindrance to the adoption is corporate IT’s concerns about its impact on network traffic.

The good news is that the workers already using desktop videoconferencing see additional potential uses for the technology, and 13 percent of workers without such tools would be keen to use them, so there’s potential to grow user adoption. The Forrester report includes some recommendations, including planning for infrastructure impact, identifying groups of workers who would be prepared to participate in pilot programs and documenting successes to get buy-in from management. I would add that for videoconferencing to be successful, it needs buy-in from everyone, not just management, and for that to happen, everyone needs to have an understanding of the benefits it can bring — such as building connections, increased productivity and reduced travel time and expenditure — and an understanding that using videoconferencing doesn’t have to be difficult, or involve being any more presentable than one normally would be in the office.

It might also be that, despite their proliferation and low/no cost, the current crop of consumer-focused video chat products (Skype, Google Chat and FaceTime, for example) aren’t seen as being suitable for the workplace. Customized, private versions of these tools (such as those provided by vendors like of ViVu‘s VuRoom for Skype) offer firms greater control and the possibility of integrating them with existing software and processes for relatively low cost, as well as offering additional revenue opportunities for the vendors.

Despite the low penetration of desktop videoconferencing in the workplace indicated by this report, I think it’s likely that its use will grow markedly in the short term. The hardware and software required is cheap, and widespread use offers considerable benefits — such as increased productivity, reduced travel costs and improved work-life balance — that will be impossible for businesses to ignore.

Photo courtesy Flickr user st0nemas0nry

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The new HP products include:

• HP Visual Collaboration Desktop. A client that can be installed on users’ own laptops and desktops. The software offers flexible bandwidth management with scalable video coding.
• HP Visual Collaboration Executive Desktop. A bundled touchscreen product. It features an HP TouchSmart 600Qm All-in-One pre-loaded with the HP Visual Collaboration software, and includes a camera and headset accessories.
• HP Visual Collaboration Room 100 and Room 220 provide high-quality video in conference rooms. As it’s portable, it can be moved from room to room if required.
• HP Visual Collaboration Studio. A top-of-the-range offering that offers three-screen immersive solutions and features broadcast-quality cameras and lenses.

Because the server infrastructure is software-based, HP says that it should reduce total cost of ownership and eliminate the need for a multipoint control unit (MCU). This infrastructure can be on-premise, hosted or offered in the cloud by service providers. The Visual Collaboration Gateway can interface with both H.323 and SIP protocols, so it will offer a migration path for companies wanting to continue to use their legacy videoconferencing equipment. HP’s existing Halo products, which run on a dedicated network, will continue to be offered as an option for customers looking for a fully managed solution.

HP’s Visual Collaboration line will be sold by HP and selected partners. It’s available now; full details of the product line can be found here.

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