Cisco, Polycom Offer Tips on Conducting Effective Video Conferences

Video conferencing is becoming an increasingly common way for business people to conduct meetings with colleagues, partners and customers. Organizations see video as an important tool for increasing employee productivity and communicating with their workers and others, as well as a way to reduce expenses, particularly travel costs. Cisco Systems and Polycom for years have offered video conferencing in big, expensive, room-based telepresence systems. But they and other vendors—such as Vidyo, LifeSize Communications, Avaya and Blue Jean Networks—are driving video collaboration to a host of endpoints, from desktop and notebook PCs to smartphones and tablets. And with such trends as mobile computing, remote workers and bring-your-own-devices (BYOD) taking hold in business, the demand for conducting video conferences from anywhere, at anytime and from any device—and among any number of people—is growing. However, regardless of the endpoints being used, there are certain do's and don'ts for video conferencing participants to follow. Here, eWEEK has collected a few of these tips from Cisco and Polycom to consider when preparing for and participating in video conferences.