No More Talking Heads?No More Talking Heads?

Christmas at the Krapfs': Acutal comment about enterprise video after the jump:

Christmas at the Krapfs':

Acutal comment about enterprise video after the jump:On the 11th of her 12-Days-of-Christmas tour de force/wish list, Nancy Jamison quotes Ross Daniels of Cisco as promising "No more talking heads," for this generation of video. An admirable goal, but is it what users really want? Is it, to use Nancy's phrase, where we'll find the "value of video?"

Nancy gives some good examples of video that's other than talking heads that would be useful: Telepresence, of course; agent training; and video mail with screen captures for help-desk functions.

Talking-head video won't replace travel, as Cisco hopes telepresence will. It won't be particularly effective for distance learning (a talking head won't hold someone's interest for an extended period of time). But I think talking-head video is going to be something that enterprise network managers find is being used on their networks, simply because it's becoming more and more part of our culture, from camera-phone greetings to that "Leave Britney alone" guy.

It has less to do with whether video is a killer UC app than how you'll have to build your network as time goes on.