Videoconferencing

Videoconferencing can allow people in distant locations to join in meetings on short notice. Technology such as VoIP can be used by linking with desktop videoconferencing to enable low-cost face-to-face business meetings without leaving the desk, especially for businesses with widespread offices. The technology is also used for telecommuting, in which employees work from home. Videoconferencing is also now being introduced on online networking websites, in order to help businesses form profitable connections, quickly and efficiently without leaving their place of work. Videoconferencing on hand-held mobile devices is being used in businesses such as manufacturing, energy, healthcare, insurance, government and public safety. Live, visual communication removes traditional restrictions of distance and time.

Collaboration Technologies and Organizational Change

It’s not rare for web workers to get pulled into countless efforts to get more people using a specific online collaboration tool. Maybe some of the company is using some collaboration software (wikis, blogs, forums) that employees are expected to use, or you are helping users to use social networking software. In these type-of situations, the software is always the easy part. However getting people to actually use it is the hard part.
Some of the people who use these social technologies all day sometimes tend to underestimate the fear, hesitation, resistance, concerns and other problems from people who are more-likely to use them. These technologies are a huge change for many people. In many cases, asking people to go from being an inactive consumer of online information to becoming a creator of content by posting discussions, comments, or other resources that anyone can view. At the same time, the organization is adjusting to the idea that employees are communicating more broadly and need to be trusted not to reveal any sensitive information. All of this needs some changes in behavior, organizational processes, and a different way of thinking. Many people naturally resist these changes.

Presence Technology

Presence technology is a type of application that makes it possible to trace and identify a computing device where it might be, as soon as the user connects to the network.
Instant messaging (IM) is a very common example. Both trademarked products, such as Sametime (IBM Lotus Instant Messaging & Web Conferencing), and freely available ones, such as AIM, can be used to add an existence to any application. That ability makes collaboration possible anywhere and anytime users are online. In another example (from many possibilities), a driver with a GPS-enabled device can be tracked and sent messages warning about traffic delays and suggesting different routes.
Presence technology is an important part of third generation (3G) wireless networks, and is being active across a wide variety of communication devices, including cellphones, laptop, computers, PDAs, television sets, and pagers. Privacy issues are usually addressed by allowing a high degree of user-defined control, allowing people to choose situations in which they are obvious.

Conference Call

A conference call is a telephone call in which the calling party wants to have more than one called party listens in to the audio part of the call. The conference calls is designed to allow the called party to participate during the call, or the call may be set up so that the called party only listens into the call and cannot speak. It is often mentioned as ATC (Audio Tele-Conference). Companies usually use a particular service provider who maintains the conference bridge, or who offers the phone numbers and PIN codes that members dial to access the meeting or conference call.

Web Conferencing

Web conferencing is simply specified as a solution that brings people together from different locations to share information in a shared environment with other users over the Internet. From multi-million dollar corporations to home offices, web conferencing increases its output by having decision makers present in a single setting to discuss budgets, logos, campaigns, and other strategic topics.

Throughout these conferences, ideas are produced throughout shared applications, such as voting and virtual whiteboards, and the web conferences usually include real-time VoIP (voice over IP) to accompany presentations with audio. Web conferencing also has the ability to display and comprehend PowerPoint slides and documents, send text messages, and it can record a meeting session offline as well as online.

Advantages of Electronic Presentation

Electronic presentation is a multimedia of voice, images, and electronic files (such as Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint), with a computer, transmitted by the internet, as opposed to being presented in person and handing out a paper copy to the audience. Advantages of using Electronic Presentation are:

• A visual detail of the presentation
• Reinforce important information
• Link complex ideas - themes, build up diagrams etc...
• Summarize information
• Further definition of information

Voice Recognition Software

Speech recognition software is used in homes and businesses. A variety of software products allows users to command their computer and have their words converted to text in a word processing or e-mail document. You can access function commands, such as opening files and opening menus, with a voice command. Some programs are for specific business settings, such as medical or legal text.

People with disabilities that are prevented from typing have also accustomed to the speech-recognition system. If a person has lost the use of his hands, or for visually impaired persons; when it is not possible or convenient for them to use a keyboard, the system allows personal communication through transcription as well as control of countless of computer tasks.

What is Company Intranets?

An intranet is a computer network that uses Internet Protocol technology to securely share any part of an organization's information or network operating system within that organization. It is the connection of computer networks in a local area. The word “intranet” is similar to internet, a network between organizations, and instead it belongs to a network within an organization. Sometimes, the term also means only to the organization's internal website, but can also be a broader portion of the organization's information technology setup. It may host various private websites and create an essential part and main point of internal communication and collaboration. Any of the well-known Internet protocols may be found in an intranet, for instance, HTTP (web services), SMTP (e-mail), and FTP (file transfer protocol). Internet technologies are regularly arranged to provide modern interfaces to estate information systems hosting corporate data.

Handheld Wirless Device Playing a Role in Communicatin Technology

A mobile phone (also known as a cellular phone, cell phone and a hand phone) is a device that can make and receive phone calls over a radio link while moving around a wide geographical region. It does so by linking to a cellular network provided by a mobile phone provider (Rogers, Fido and etc...), permitting access to the public telephone network. In difference, a cordless telephone is used only within the short range of a single, private base station such as Homes or Offices.

In addition to wireless device, current mobile phones also support a wide variation of other services for example: text messaging, MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) , email, Internet access, short-range wireless communications (infrared, Bluetooth), business applications, gaming and photography. Mobile phones that offer these and more general computing capabilities are referred to as “Smartphones”.

Communication Technologies: Reshaping the World of Work

Technology affects nearly each aspect of our lives. If you look around you'll see how wired we are. Thanks to the Internet, almost anything you want can be delivered to your door in a matter of days. Today’s workplace is shifting drastically as a result of advanced software, promptly wireless networks, plus many technologies that let workers share information, work from faraway places, and also be significantly productive in or away from workplace. We are seeing a slow steady evolution from simple abilities, such as e-mail and the use of calendar, to a profounder functionality, such as distant information access, variety of operative devices, and Web-based shared applications. Becoming familiar with modern office and collaboration technologies can help you be successful in today’s ordinal workplace.