With all the news about airlines and airports, many a professional is thinking, “what’s a weary business traveler to do?” There are safety issues, airlines going bankrupt, airlines merging, and unfortunately, up until somewhat recently, you didn’t have a viable alternative to a long flight (and potentially an even longer trek through the security line, ticket counter maze, parking lot labyrinth, etc.).
To those of us in the Web conferencing business, the answer to this dilemma is a no-brainer. Fire up an iLinc session. For those of you who might experience airport withdrawal: stop off at a Starbucks, jump onto the new, free WiFi, and fire up an iLinc session. It’s just like traveling, but without the egregiously marked up coffee.
This whole airline/airport debacle has gotten me thinking that it’s high time for professionals to take back control of their time and their schedules. We’ve got the technology to transcend the old way of losing an entire day (or two) just to meet for an hour with a non-local client. Sometimes it’s necessary to do business in person, but let’s face it; most of the time, it’s not. Not to sound like a broken record, but fire up an iLinc session and call it a day.
Even in cases where you do succumb to air travel and get stuck somewhere mid-trip, don’t forget that you can set up a Web meeting in minutes (from the airport bar, no less). Simply invite the folks you were en route to see and proceed with the meeting. You’ll be hailed as a problem solver instead of a victim and you may save a client, close a sale, or impress a prospect. You may not be able to avoid business travel altogether. You may even get stuck sometimes and miss your scheduled in-person meeting. But, if you remember that your Web conferencing solution is as near as your laptop, you just might save the day.
Posted under Audio Conferencing, Travel Reduction, Web Conferencing, iLinc News
This post was written by James Powers on April 18, 2008
