The purpose of adding live video conferencing to your online business meeting is to enhance the human element in your meeting. Here are a few tricks of the trade to help you convey an image that feels close, warm, and natural to distant participants in your session.

1. Only use the live video if you know that your image projects you accurately and warmly. A quality camera, quality bandwidth, and quality lighting are essential.
2. Make sure the camera angle gives you good eye contact. If you are video conferencing in a web conference meeting, your camera is probably on your desktop, either attached to the top of your monitor, or placed somewhere around it. When the camera is on, be sure your eye contact is "straight on." Avoid positioning your camera too high, too low, or too far to the side in ways that direct eye contact is not established. When the camera angle is not "straight on", the image feels more like a surveillance camera than a warm conversational view.
3. Make sure the lighting in the room lets you project a warm image. Poor lighting or bright sunlight will distort your face and your features, making your look more harsh or unnatural.
4. Make sure the background behind you is warm and pleasant. Your camera is not only looking at you. It looks at everything behind you. Avoid backgrounds that appear messy or intrusive (such as a camera angle that looks down the hallway just outside of your home office). Make sure the area is neat and tidy, so people get a positive impression of your workspace.
5. Add personality to the background behind you. For example, if the background is at your desk, include photos, flowers, and plants. Position them so that people can see them. If the background is in a meeting room, warm it up, too. For example, include a large green plant, large wall pictures or posters, and a pleasantly-colored wall (not gray or white)
6. Only use the video for the first few minutes of the meeting. The look at the camera, freeze the frame, and then interact about the documents in front of you. The video will then act like a snapshot of you that continues to convey warmth.
7. Adjust the camera zoom so you look close. The bottom of the frame should show your shoulder, and the top of the frame should show just above the crest of your head. Avoid having the camera too close, so that your face fills the entire frame. Avoid having the camera too far, so that you seem far away.

Although video email has yet to take off on a worldwide basis, it is safe to say that this day is coming. After all, everybody loves to use videos when they can. Don't you agree that sending a video email could offer many benefits over simple words? The fact of the matter is that while video email is not hot with everybody right now, once it starts to spread it will catch on big time. All in all, there are too many benefits for video email to lag behind for much longer.

So what are the benefits of video email, you may ask? Here are three that you will definitely come in contact with the second that you begin to use video email on a regular basis.

1. When you send video emails the recipient is going to have a much easier time understanding you. After all, a video email is just like sitting across the table from somebody. While they cannot respond to you in real time, guess what? They can simply make another video of their own and email it back to you.

2. For many people, typing emails is not always fun. In fact, for those people who do not like to write or type it can be downright annoying. This is where video email can really pick up the slack. Instead of having to write each email out and then proofread it, you can instead say what you want and then send a video with one click of the mouse. This is a great benefit no matter who you are. The convenience factor is definitely something that you should take into consideration.

3. Getting started with video email is not as hard as you may think. The main reason that many people do not use video email is because they think it is too far advanced for them to figure out. But when it comes down to it this is not the truth. To get started with video email you need two things. First off, you need an email account. Luckily, you can register one of these for free. Additionally, you need to buy a webcam. This will allow you to shoot your video emails, and in turn send them directly from your pc. It is very easy to use a webcam, and once you send a couple videos you will be surprised at just how much you learn.

All in all, the benefits of video email are well varied. The three above are the ones you are sure to encounter early on, but as you send more and more video emails you will become aware of many other benefits. This way of communicating is definitely the wave of the future.

No matter who you are, there is a good chance that you use email as one of your primary modes of communication. This holds true not only at work, but also for personal communication with friends and family as well. And even though simple text emails will never go "out of style" there is another option that has begun to surface all over the world. Video email has a lot to offer, and will definitely become more popular as the months go by. While you may not think that you have a use for video email at this point in time, once the bug hits you, it is safe to say that you will not be able to get rid of it.

Here are five ways that video email is revolutionizing the way that people communicate.

1. Video email in the workplace is already becoming common place for some companies. While this has yet to take in all industries, the time is coming when that will happen. The nice thing about video email at work is that you can more or less communicate with co-workers, clients, or potential clients in a personal manner. This type of personalization makes the workplace much more efficient and enjoyable.

2. Just like regular text emails, video email has a lot to offer personal communication. Have you ever wanted to send a video of yourself to a friend or family, but had to settle for something less? If so, video email is probably right for you. This allows you to send videos via email to anybody who has a valid address.

3. With video email, travel time is being cut out by many people. Since video email allows you to show your recipient your face, it can often time replace having to see them in person. Even though there will still be a place and time for face to face visits, video email is definitely closing this gap.

4. Getting your point across is much easier when using video email as opposed to simple text. What is the reason for this, you may ask? Well, when the recipient can see you they will be able to read your facial expressions, body language, and much more. To go along with this, video email will help to cut down on misunderstandings as well. It is commonplace for somebody to misunderstand an email message because they are not exactly sure what the sender is saying. But with video email this will be more or less a thing of the past.

5. If you are simply dying to see somebody's face, video email will make this possible without having to travel. For instance, do you have a relative that lives hundreds of miles away? If so, you can now use video email to see them instead of only being able to talk on the phone or by text emails. This is one of the biggest benefits that video email has to offer. Video email will be just as popular for personal use as in the business world.

Overall, video email is most definitely changing the way that people communicate. If you have yet to look into this mode of communication, do so today. Even though video email is still in its infancy, you may be able to find a way to make it work to your advantage. As soon as you begin to use video email on a regular basis you will more than likely get hooked to the benefits that it has to offer. Who knows, there may come a time when video email is more popular than any other way of communicating!

Modern business operations all share the same rapidly depleting commodity: Time. When time is leveraged, productivity and output invariably increases within a business organization. Technology continues to provide workers and businesses with new tools to help leverage time. Video conferencing could prove to be one of the most important time leveraging business tools of the 21st century.

Once a luxury for only the largest companies, video conferencing is beginning to change the landscape of how businesses communicate with both employees and clients. In its simplest form, video conferencing allows two individuals to be thousands of miles apart yet still effectively communicate as if they were in the same room. Systems in use today can now connect multiple parties across multiple continents - in real time with excellent and high quality video and audio.

The Origins of Video Conferencing

Video conferencing capabilities originated in the 1970s. Similar to every other technology in use today, video conferencing has changed dramatically since first being developed. Early proponents of video conferencing technology had no standards or protocols to rely on. This fact made a teleconference via video an expensive proposition - one that only huge companies and government agencies could afford. In a time where cell phones were still a decade away for most consumers and businesses, video teleconferences were few and far between.

Today, affordable networks and systems are widely available across the globe. Interoperability of video teleconferencing systems is virtually guaranteed now that standards and protocols have been clearly established.

Specific Standards and Protocols for Video Conferencing

To make any technology usable for the masses, standards and protocols are required to insure systems, software and hardware are ubiquitous across the board.

To help guarantee video teleconferencing compatibility between manufacturers, the International Telecommunications Union developed and defined a series of video conferencing standards. In place since the mid-1990s, current standards are defined in terms of H.3xx.

H.3xx are "umbrella" recommendations for video conferencing. They include the protocols for coding video/audio, multiplexing, signaling, and control.

The core H.3xx recommendations are as follows:

H.320 - Narrow-band video conferencing over circuit-switched networks (N-ISDN, SW56, dedicated networks) H.321 - Narrow-band video conferencing over ATM and B-ISDN H.323 - Narrow-band video conferencing over non-guaranteed quality-of-service packet networks (LAN, Internet, etc.) H.324 - Very narrow-band video conferencing over the general (dial-up) telephone network H.310 - Wide-band (MPEG-2) video conferencing over ATM and B-ISDN H.323 is a standard for audio, video, and data communication over IP-based (Internet Protocol) networks.

All major video conferencing manufacturers produce ITU compliant equipment. When choosing video conference equipment, be sure that you select a system that does not offer only proprietary methods of operation.

How Video Conferencing Works

The success of a video teleconference depends entirely on the equipment and network capabilities behind that equipment.

Since real-time video contains a tremendous amount of data, it is imperative that the system being used can handle a high amount of bandwidth at any given time. Fortunately, video conferencing systems are designed to "sample" and "compress" a certain portion of data (such as the unchanging "background' of the room) to help conserve bandwidth. This compression is accomplished through what is commonly known as a "codec". A video codec is the device or software that enables video compression and or decompression for digital video.

It is the job of the codec to "sample" data at specific time intervals (fractions of a second) and then compress this data so that it can be delivered across the network. The codec on the receiving end then reassembles audio and video for transmission onto a television or computer screen. To conserve bandwidth, the codec focuses on the most important data - i.e. moving objects such as people, props, etc. Moving objects take a considerable amount of processing power, so the better the codec, the higher quality your video conference will appear.

Questions to Ask Yourself Before Choosing a Video Conferencing Solution

A wide variety of video conferencing systems are available in the marketplace. Before purchasing equipment or services from vendors, consider the following as a starting point to narrow down the requirements of a system that fits with your business needs:

How will you be using video conferencing? A simple video conference between employees in the same town, building or area will require a more basic solution than video conferencing multiple parties across the vast distances. Determine the maximum video conference scenario you will be utilizing to narrow down bandwidth and equipment requirements.

How large is the meeting room where you plan to conduct video conferences? Camera capabilities will depend on the size of the room and number of people involved. Conducting a video conference in a small auditorium with dozens of participants will require a quite different solution than 1-2 individuals transmitting from a small office.

On what type of network will your video conference be hosted? The network you choose to host your videoconference will play a key role in overall reliability and performance. Most video conferencing systems sold today include an IP interface with ISDN as an option. Determine the capabilities of your network before deciding on any one specific video conferencing solution.

The Future of Video Conferencing

Increasing productivity while reducing costs will always be an important part of any business. The popularity of video conferencing will undoubtedly increase in the coming years. Virtually all industries will eventually utilize video conferencing in some form to help bring people together - at considerably less cost than physical travel for face-to-face meetings. As more corporations, health care providers and governments experience the value in video conferencing as a time and money-saving tool, the technology will become more necessity than luxury. The age of the video conference has just begun!