The Context Analysis

The first thing that always comes to mind when talking about video conference calls is when I worked overseas for months at a time. I was able to easily call my wife and see her face while talking to her, it made for such better and more intimate conversation. It was better than a simple phone call, and drastically better than the solely email conversations we had been having the previous couple of weeks. There are numerous advantages of video conference calls that can help shape how successful your ability to communicate with someone is.

What makes video conference calling unique is that you can have a real-time conversation with people. Unlike sending a video, where you are freezing the information you are sending in time, like an email. The ability to have a two-way conversation with people changes how the conversation is conducted. When you can see the person you are talking to understand what you are saying, see them nodding as you talk, it allows for better communication. It can also be useful when you haven’t seen a person in a long time and hearing their voice just isn’t enough. Being able to see the people you are talking to opens the emotional aspect even more. Telling a story about something funny is never as good as the first time you saw it. That’s why there is the saying “I guess you just had to be there.”

Added benefits of video conference calling are the ability to share your screen and display what is on your computer, like a power point. Or you can bring up a split screen where they can still see you and the other data that you are trying to show. For instance, a teacher could be talking to a class online, while working on an electronic white board in a classroom. They could then share the board on the screen while still showing themselves using the board, walking students through it. If they couldn’t show the board simultaneously, then they would have to take the extra time of writing on the board and then getting out of the way for the video or standing in a way as not to cover the work from the video, which could slow the instructor down. Using the classroom example again, you can see how using this type of technology can allow you to reach multiple people all in one place, or different people in different places, all joined together in a meeting.

The downfall to this technology is that you are sending a lot of data with the video. Unlike a normal voice call, the video data connection requires high-speed internet and a computer capable of handling the data rate. This can exclude people without access to high-speed internet, or older outdated computers commonly found in third world countries from using this type of communication tool. People that live in remote areas or live on the move, such as an RV or boat, would require satellite internet which can be expensive for anything above the basic ability to just check email and surf the web. Because the live videos take so much bandwidth, you could find yourself not being able to get the video or, the audio and video not being in sync. Also, this type of technology is not very useful for the visually impaired.

You can see how the ability to have a real-time conversation utilizing video along with a voice call can make for better communications. Then adding the ability to expand the information you are sharing or who you are sharing it with, leaves endless possibilities for how such technology can be used. It adds that human personal touch to calls. It allows for face-to-face communication without having to travel to have that face-to-face conversation.