Members of the organising committee for the London Olympics have been using video conferencing services to ensure that the Games are ready on time.

London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) staff will have access to 6,000 video conferencing licences by the time the games start and will be using them to communicate with colleagues around the UK.

According to onrec.com, there will be an in-house technology team at all of the 94 Olympic locations and many will need to be contacted on a regular basis.  

LOCOG CIO Gary Pennell has called the technology an “invaluable asset” for his staff which would be needed to ensure they could work flexibly and efficiently.

Transport minister Norman Baker encouraged other businesses in the capital to follow LOCOG’s lead by communicating via video conferencing during the Games next year.

Speaking to computerweekly.com, he said: “With the vast input of people coming into London next year with they Olympics, it simply isn’t possible to have everyone who works in London to travel the way we do.

“There aren’t enough spaces on the trains, buses and tubes – so it has to be something different.”

It is estimated that more than 5,000 technology jobs will be created thanks to the Games, generating more than £250 million for the IT sector.

More than three quarters of British employers have used some form of live video to aid with their training.

In a poll of business owners by learning technology provider Towards Maturity, 77 per cent of those questioned stated they had either used virtual meetings, virtual classrooms or video conferencing services as part of their staff training courses.

This was more than twice than the amount who did so in 2008, indicating the growing popularity of such technologies being used internally in the workplace. Only e-learning courses, used by 80 per cent of employers, were a more popular form of online learning tool.

Reacting to the results of her company’s survey, Towards Maturity managing director Laura Overton encouraged any employers not making the most of online technologies to experience the benefits for themselves.

She told Personnel Today: “Our in-depth study has highlighted how new ways of learning are making a significant difference to the skills that businesses really need to survive and thrive – from leadership development to getting new products out to market quicker.

“If businesses want to develop the right skills for growth, I urge them to learn from their peers and adopt the new ways of learning.”  

HR Magazine report that more than half of the businesses questioned are planning to increase their use of online learning tools within the next 12 months.

The average employee spends nearly 200 hours a year commuting, according to new research.

A study by the Trade Union Congress (TUC) has indicated that employees are spending the equivalent of five working weeks travelling to and from work.

Workers based in London averaged even more than this. In order to get to and from their job, workers in the capital travel for an average of 37.8 minutes per journey.

Employment journalist Cali Williams Yost has predicted that more and more employers will be utilising video conferencing services in order to reduce this depressing figures.

In an article for forbes.com, she predicted that many employees will soon be looking for working spaces away from the home where they can communicate with their employers by video.

She said: “As video technology advances and becomes less costly, it will become a main tool in the remote communication and productivity arsenal.”

“For those who already know that they don’t like to work from home, but don’t want ot have to commute a long distance every day, local co-working space will be an important feature.”

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber agreed that something would have to be done to reduce these long commute times. In an interview with HR Review, he called the daily commute “frustrating and expensive for staff and bad for business.” 

Video conferencing has been voted as the best alternative to face-to-face communication by teachers around Europe.

Around 85 per cent of the teachers questioned in a new survey claimed that they were hoping to make use of the technology within the next five years, suggesting that is set to play a major part in educating children around the continent.  

Over three quarters of those questioned claimed that video conferencing equipment would help children improve their education, whilst around two thirds stated that it would help build core skills for the workplace.

Gary Rider, whose company administered the survey to 500 teachers throughout the continent, was far from shocked at the demand for video conferencing solutions in the classroom.

Speaking to prweb.com, he said: “Video is the only technology that allows a visual, rich learning experience outside of being in the room together. Video also enables higher quality collaboration and learning.

“This is important in an educational setting, especially distance learning, where teachers can ensure students are focused and absorbing new information better, while students can benefit from a richer learning experience.”

According to ucnews.eu, the opinions on the main use for video conferencing tools in the classroom differed between school and university tutors.

Most school teachers believed its main benefit would be as a collaborative working tool, whilst university tutors thought it would prove more beneficial as a method of reaching students from further afield.

Over a third of businesses could be hampered by snowy weather this winter, it has been predicted.

The Forum of Private Businesses (FPB) has warned that 37 per cent of business owners claimed to be affected by weather-related problems last year and that these problems are just as likely to arise this year round.

It was pointed out that 34 per cent of respondents to a YouGov survey had trouble getting into work last year; whilst 10 per cent were unable to make it to their workplace at all.

The figures highlight the benefit of investing in equipment which allows staff to work from remote locations, such as video conferencing equipment. 

Many firms find that the money invested in such equipment has the potential to be reimbursed over time through lower absence levels and savings on travel expenses.

Speaking to parkerpartnership.com, FPB head of campaigns Jane Bennett claimed that small businesses may the most keen to have some sort of contingency plan in place.

She said: “The past few winters have demonstrated just how susceptible the UK is to extreme weather, and the cost to business quickly runs into millions. When infrastructure grinds to a halt, staff can’t get into work, and that’s a body blow which hits small firms with fewer staff the hardest.”

Over a quarter of students believe it is their right to work from home should they enter the workforce, reports The Telegraph.

Seven out of ten believes that it is “unnecessary” to go into the office regularly, while a quarter say working from home could improve productivity.

Working from home could come in the form of sending e-mails or phoning to liaise with workers in the office. Alternatively, a workplace could hire a video conference facility equipped with dedicated video conference equipment in order to provide the utmost flexibility to workers. 

In fact, work flexibility has become so important that one in three college students would “prioritise social media freedom, device flexibility and work mobility” over salary in accepting a job offer.

In addition, a massive 56 per cent of students who took part in the 2011 Cisco Connected World Technology Report claimed they would turn down a company if they banned social media access or at least try to circumvent corporate policy.

Paul Smith, chief executive of Cisco UK and Ireland, commented on the rising expectancy of technology in the workplace: “Companies are faced with a workforce that increasingly expects to be able to use the latest technology and set their own terms, whether it’s in their private lives or at work.”

Furthermore, Sheila Jordan, Cisco’s VP of Communication and Collaboration IT, told gigaom.com that technology needs to move forward to accommodate these expectations.

“We’re seeing this way of communicating and collaborating and that expectation is coming to work. I think those expectations already exist, it’s a matter of how fast IT can accommodate them while meeting needs and minimising risk,” she exclaimed.

Jane Wrin is Operations Director of Eyenetwork. This is her view of Telepresence, feel free to comment, lets get a debate going….

When the child outgrows the mother

Videoconferencing has been with us for almost 2 decades. It has gone from large, clunky and non-too reliable units that costs a small fortune, to smaller, far more reliable units which you can buy on a credit card.

A few years ago videoconferencing spawned a child – Telepresence. If one uses the analogy of a car, videoconferencing is a solid family saloon and telepresence is a Bentley or Rolls Royce: they both do the same thing but the experience is quite different.

All serious Executive Search firms use video for interviewing prospective candidates. All FSTE 100 and Fortune 500 companies have at the least a videoconferencing room, with many now either replacing them with telepresence or adding one or two telepresence suites to their arsenal of face to face communications.

Why?

Well, it’s great to have a family saloon. It seats 4 or 5, it starts and on the whole the journey is smooth. But what about when you hit traffic? Does it over heat a bit? Does it have air con?

Imagine you are in a Bentley instead. The ride is smooth to say the least. It seats up to 6 in large luxurious seats, it is so smooth you don’t even know you’ve set off and traffic? What traffic?

The bandwidth when using telepresence is so wide it’s like driving in the 1950s – wide open motorways and barely another car in sight.

So the child has indeed outgrown the mother but in this case, to the advantage of the consumer. For day to day video meetings, videoconferencing is a middle of the road option for a middle of the road price. For the more important meetings where you want to impress the boss, or more importantly someone else boss.

At Eyenetwork we can access 36 telepresence (TP) sites and 3500 videoconference (VC) sites, so sometimes the choice is made for you right there.

Can they talk to each other?

Like a lot of family relationships, there is currently a bit of an issue as VC and TP run on different protocols and TP is usually on an internal network. That said, Eyenetwork is working closely with Tata and will by the end of 2011, be able to bridge TP and VC calls. This is fantastic news for those who have their own TP suite and who need to meet with someone who has a VC room.

Watch this space as we are working daily to make this happen.