Communication Technology Update and Fundamentals, 11th Edition

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Teleconferencing

Michael R. Ogden, Ph.D.^*

Teleconferencing has always held out the promise of increased productivity and efficiency, improved communications, enhanced business opportunities, and reduced travel expenses. But “we humans are a ‘touchy-feely’ species, who, in general, prefer travel and face-to-face encounters over the more impersonal [teleconference] experience” (Kuehn, 2002). As if to underscore this preference for face-to-face meetings, business travel slowly began to recover in 2003 (Destination Marketing Association, 2006) following an abrupt drop after September 11, 2001. It recovered so much that, by 2007, business travel accounted for about $165 billion of the roughly $700 billion spent each year on U.S. domestic travel ...