The Virtual Meeting Coach

It’s been a wild and wooly first few months of 2011 and I’ve been so busy over at my new blog, BeingSocial.Us, that I haven’t updated much here. My sincere apologies to anyone who hasn’t yet heard about the extension of my work to helping Baby Boomer and senior thought leaders use BOTH social media AND virtual meetings to connect with their people.  I hope you’ll join me over at BeingSocial.Us

And I’m blogging back here today because the news is so important: Microsoft’s purchase of our precious Skype this week for $8.5B is a big, big deal. On so many fronts.

It’s going to take awhile to see what’s going to happen to us 700 million registered users of Skype. But here are a few things to bear in mind:

When Skype was part of EBay, the company used to issue all kind of data about its growth but solid recent numbers have been harder to locate. A couple of things we do know:

• At peak times, over 23 million users are logged into Skype.
• Skype is available in 29 languages and is used in almost every country around the world.
• 35 percent of Skype users utilize it for business purposes.

Skypejournal.com reports that Microsoft bought Skype because it pays for itself and has 180 million registered users actively video calling. That seems obvious.

It also makes sense because Microsoft seems like the most obvious player to offer the general public video chat at home, school and work using mobile phones tables, desktops, game consoles equipped with webcams (like the latest XBox units) and large screen televisions.

Microsoft stands well-prepared to build video chat into all sorts of applications – which only makes sense when everyone now wants to use all their senses to connect with others as we work, play and learn together – across the globe.

However, it’s my hunch that the Microsoft/Skype deal foretells  a much bigger game than this. A game I’ve been pointing to for the last five years, while feeling like John the Baptist crying in the wilderness.

The big game is moving counseling, coaching, and both traditional and alternative medicine into our living rooms quickly – and a lot more cheaply – than Cisco’s home-based telepresence system called Umi.

Today’s TeleMental Health Institute blog brings Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype into clearer focus for psychotherapists. I want to underscore everything Marlene had to say there. The fact that Microsoft was willing to spend a full $2B more to acquire Skype than either Google or Facebook was willing put on the table is waving the flag of big business, friends: the business of physical and mental healthcare.

Since way back in 2007, I’ve been urging counselors, coaches, health coaches, physicians, and alternative healers of all shapes and sizes to begin testing various virtual meeting tools and to start practicing your virtual meeting chops.

When Xbox consoles have webcams built it (which has been the case for at least the last six months) and Microsoft pays $8.5B to acquire Skype so they can “build Skype’s functionality into Microsoft apps and products” (as Microsoft announced it plans to do)… it’s maybe 12-18 months until it’s going to be possible for YOU to be meeting easily and cheaply with your clients- from your office to their living rooms.

So, if you’re not confident you can easily transition both

1) your crucial business processes and

2) your subtle healing skills

into virtual meeting rooms, now is the time to take a look at what it’s going to take for you to play the new game.

If you want some support for making the transition, you can start with my little ebook, “The Coach’s Short List,” or sign up for my 10-week FREE ecourse, “21-Ways to Build Trust and Respect Working With Others Online.”

I’m blogging several times a week over at BeingSocial.Us and I’m also happy to offer any reader of this blog a free, 30-minute consultation so I can hear more about your specific situation and explore the fit between your needs and my coaching programs. It would be my great delight to help mental health professionals of all kinds bring your services within easy reach of new clients.

How exciting! That $8.5B  purchase signals showtime’s just around the corner! And you’re going to be the show.

If you’re the kind of person who needs to SEE to BELIEVE, please take a look at this vid about Cisco’s Umi unit. And, take a very careful look at the comments beneath the vid there on YouTube. The comments tell the story behind Microsoft’s purchase. At least that’s my hunch. Wondering what you think…

Cisco Demos the Umi

First comment beneath this vid on YouTube as I pulled the link today: “I pay $43 a month for my internet service. I download Yahoo Messenger, with Video and voice chat, … with full FPS. hook up a HDMI or S-Video cord from my laptop to my TV, right click on my desktop, choose output to : TV, and in a matter of seconds, I see my desktop on the TV, “with the messenger Video Chat” and beats the $599 that you’d pay for this crap. even if I had the $600, “I Will NOT” buy this crap.” ~UserIsAnFBIAgent

And here’s a short vid showing how easy it is to use a Logitech TV Cam and Google TV:

Logitech TV Cam and Google TV

Get the picture?

Here’s a pretty exciting report from last week’s Consumer Electronics Show. I’ve been talkin’ ’bout this…writin’ ’bout this…waitin’ for this…And now here it comes: 2010. Take a look here.

Get ready to launch your boat and head for the New World. Think: Columbus taking off from Spain across the Atlantic.

If you haven’t yet updated your idea of yourself from “watcher” to “full participant” in two-way conversations that happen from home – as well as from work – using something that looks like that thing we used to call the “TV Set,” it’s time to get started this year. Whether for conversations with your distant relatives and friends, your coworkers – or your doctor – pretty soon you’re going to be talking outloud to a TV screen in your home.  And then someone you know is going to be talking back at you.

From my perspective, the best thing about this is that we’ll be able to use video technology to be present with the people who matter most to us and free ourselves, from the passive consumption of broadcast media – including corporate-financed advertising of all kinds! WooHoo!

Think about all the people you’d enjoy being able to meet with from your living room:

- People you want to learn from
- People you want to play with
- People you can receive healthcare from
- People you work with
- People you want to serve
- People in your family you can’t travel to be with face-to-face
- People across the globe doing things you care about
- People…people…people…

The list can be as long as your curiosity and desire for engagement!

What do you think? Damn exciting, if you ask me… I was born before there were any one-way broadcast reception devices (called TVs) in our homes.

Who’s used one of these new telepresence systems in your living room already? Please share your experience with us here…

I don’t know about you, but I’m watching the economic news from the sidelines.

On the one hand, things look truly bleak. Some days the future’s so far in the RED that it almost looks BLACK.

On the other hand, with everything in the toilet – now including the US auto industry – there’s a lot more room for new possibilities.

I never thought I’d find myself feeling gleeful watching so many things and so many concepts we’ve considered “valuable” get flushed away all at once. But as the news gets worse and worse, I find I’m often feeling better and better.

Call me perverse.

Maybe I’m finally getting the wisdom of hopelessness Meg Wheatley wrote about after 9/11.

Whatever it is,  besides feeling surprisingly okay watching most of my lifesavings float away,  I’m also getting more and more excited about helping friends and other independent business people develop their “telepresence.” Because it’s time now. Really time!

We simply have to do some things differently if we expect to save money and save time for what’s really important in 2009. And using social media – including virtual meetings – is one of the best ways I know to augment close business and personal relationships without driving and flying all over the place all the time.

So, what is “telepresence?”

The way I use that new word, “telepresence,” is a little different than the way the manufacturers of the expensive, high-definition video conferencing systems are using it. I’m not talking about buying and installing $50-$300K remote viewing systems in your home office.

For me, “telepresence” is a way of referring to your skill at being present with people you’re not able to be in the same room with.

Understood this way, “telepresence” has nothing to do with hardware and very little to do with software.

Instead, “telepresence” is about using your telephone, IM, text messaging, and now virtual meeting rooms in ways that make people feel like you’re with them, even when you’re across town, across the country, or across the globe from their physical bodies.

Looked at this way, telepresence is a set of engagement skills. Some of them are technical. Most of them are social. Some parts can become routine. Some will remain art and, therefore, require practice. But the good news is that all of them are FREE to develop and practice.

Skype, GTalk, DimDim, Yuuguu, Yugma, vYew, Elluminate, and WiZiQ all offer free places to practice and play with people around the block or around the globe.  New places are opening up every week. Get yourself a membership in one or more of these places and let’s practice!

Instead of wringing our hands about things too big for us to change, I’d like to suggest that the year ahead is going to be a great time to practice our “telepresence.” Like Meg Wheatley, I’m ready to “journey through this time of increasing uncertainty. Groundless, hopeless, insecure, patient, clear. And together.”

What have we got to lose?