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| Telepresence - the case intensifies |
| Posted Mon 25 August 2008 @ 4:21 p.m. by Ernie |
Its been a fascinating afternoon here in the Koru Club at Wellington airport. The fog settled in around midday, and no flights have been seen since. It now seems to be lifting so hopefully Sarah and I will get back to Auckland tonight - lots of TUANZ events later this week.
But its interesting how people are responding. Apart from international travellers, most seem perfectly content to toddle off home with their bags and have another go in the morning.
Which raises the interesting question of just how much travel could really be substituted by telepresence, audio or video, if we were really firm about it. Right now there have been around 5 Wellington-Auckland flights cancelled this afternoon, so you'd expect the rest would be very full. Yet there are still plenty of seats for sale for the rest of today and tomorrow.
That suggests to me a substantial proportion of the people whose plans were disrupted have simply cancelled their trips. And I bet that notwithstanding, the sun will still rise tomorrow.
There's a moral here. We need to distinguish more ruthlessly between trips we need to make - where relationships need to be created or nurtured - and those we could easily do electronically. It might be surprising just how much travel could be saved.
Meanwhile, the TUANZ Special Report on Teleworking has had a huge reception - all stocks are sold and we are about to re-print a week after publication. And we are well advanced in planning a special two day event on the subject on 13/14 November - hold the dates for details soon!
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