Video conferencing is a development in technology that has prompted even more collaboration internationally, domestically, amongst educational facilities, and internally within businesses. The ability to quickly and easily contact one or more people and talk to them face-to-face in a virtual environment is a huge asset in just about any endeavor. Video conferencing has allowed schools from around the world to collaborate together and offer their students different classes and experiences that would normally have only been possible through a visit to another country at great expense. With the instant connection provided through video conferencing, a much deeper level of collaboration is possible in all aspect of business, industry, and education. Research and Development are integral departments of any business or educational facility. According to Investopedia, R&D is defined as the places where businesses can choose to spend a good deal of resources (although most spend less than five percent of revenue) on searching for either new discoveries that could be used to create new products or on attempts to improve current products and procedures. R&D departments are not exclusive to high tech corporations that are constantly trying to push the boundaries of science and technology; they are also used by more mundane companies to work on developing improvements to current technologies and products.
Instant Feedback and Permission
R&D departments are critical to the future growth of not just the company or institution they are part of, but also to the growth of society and science as a whole. As such, R&D departments are expected to run efficiently and effectively on reasonable time tables in order to keep up with current technology and in hopes of developing something truly novel and potentially revolutionary. BlueJeans.com offers video conferencing is an excellent tool that can be utilized by R&D departments to drastically improve their work flow and efficiency. According to Smarter Interactive, the flexibility of video conferencing services allows researchers and teams working in the field or simply away from the regular office to stay in constant contact with their colleagues and managers throughout the time period they are away from their regular positions. Being able to instantly discuss the latest development or meet with colleagues and hash out a new plan for a project is a phenomenal way to improve collaboration and efficiency by removing the wait times and potential misunderstanding from using other means of communication. Video conferencing is also an excellent tool for getting permission from superiors for whatever project is being worked on. If a project requires the permission or clearance of a certain high ranking individual, video conferencing allows the project leads to easily and effortlessly contact the individual, explain the situation, maybe show some models or other digital evidence and get immediate feedback and clearance to either continue the current trail of inquiry or to shift to something else.
The Future of Video Conferencing with R&D
Communications technology has come a long way in the past century, with video conferencing being just the latest in a long line of advances. One of the problems with current video conferencing technology is that anything shown is relegated to 2D. There is no way currently to show anything in true 3D and while this isn’t the greatest detriment, it is a problem that needs to be fixed. It isn’t a problem like the system is broken, it’s just an issue that needs to be dealt with as the technology progresses. According to eWeek, the Pentagon has been spending a good deal of money in researching and developing improvements to real-time mission-critical battlefield communications technologies; this push for better communications gear will undoubtedly spur on improvements to video conferencing technologies in the private sector. Current military communications and mission planning rely on 3D modeling that shows terrain mapped by satellites for use by soldiers in the field. This military tech could be used to improve existing civilian video conferencing technologies by implementing a third dimension during calls. This advance would have huge benefits to not just personal and business communication, but to R&D departments as well. If a current project being worked on can be shown in full 3D during a video conference meeting with colleagues in another laboratory or in the field, the level of detail presented could make it much easier and more efficient to pick out potential flaws and brainstorm improvements to the design.
According to Lifesize, collaboration is the core pillar of research and development; it provides multiple angles from multiple minds working together to solve a problem. Prior to video conferencing, in order to fully cooperate between far reaching offices and labs, the workers had to travel a lot, which meant time and money wasted. With video conferencing, all the work and review and suggestions that would normally have to be done face-to-face after travel or via phone or email can now be done face-to-face virtually, providing better feedback, better collaboration, and less time spent on not research.
