Dan O'Shea, the former Editor-in-Chief of Telephony Magazine, Fierce Telecom editor, and guru of all things electronic did a piece this month for Entrepreneur Magazine: Doing Business with No Walls and covered telepresence and Powwow Virtual, the Human Productivity Lab's business model for a network of publicly available telepresence conferencing centers.  Other commitments have forced me to keep Powwow bubbling on the back-burner but we continue to look for the right investor and/or partner that is looking for a sophisticated public telepresence strategy and the right business model, team, designs, technology roadmap, and global audience to get it off the ground fast! 

Room with a View
By Dan O'Shea, Entrepreneur Magazine, November 2009

Telepresence is as close as it gets to meeting face-to-face

Have you ever tried to shake hands with a business partner sitting directly across from you, even though you know he's in his own office 2,000 miles away? Telepresence makes you want to do just that. It's no hallucinatory drug, though the sensory experience it provdes via ultra-realistic, life-size videoconferencing does make it seem as if someone spiked your java. it's like interacting with a hologram from "Minority Report."

Publicly available telepresence took off like a moonshot this month with major announcements from Marriott Hotels, Starwood Hotels, and Regus to deploy telepresence systems in dozens of global locations ranging from Sydney to Hong Kong to Frankfurt to Shanghai.     Check out the details on each and get Human Productivity Lab President and Telepresence Options' publisher Howard S. Lichtman's Thoughts and Analysis on the market opportunity for telepresence in public places as well as a look at some of the other start ups and entrepreneurial efforts around publicly available telepresence including: Powwow Virtual, F2F Biz Cafe, and MEETnHD.

Howard Lichtman, President of the telepresence consulting firm Human Productivity Lab and publisher of Telepresence Options recently authored an article on Designing Telepresence Spaces for ARCHI-TECH Magazine, a journal for architects and other specialty designers focused on integrating emerging technologies and systems into building design and architecture.  The article covers what architects, designers, and systems integrators need to understand about designing telepresence spaces, environments, and installations. 

Plus: An update on Telepresence People and our telepresence industry networking group on Linked In: Telepresence Industry Professionals is about to hit 650 members!

In November Nortel and Verizon Business announced that Nortel Global Services had been selected by Verizon to deliver a new telepresence managed services offering. The deal would combine Verizon Business' global IP network that spans 110 countries with Nortel's global network of eight Multimedia Network Operations Centers (MNOCs).  Here is an article on the partnership from Anamika Singh from TMCnet with Human Productivity Lab President Howard Lichtman's Thoughts and Analysis. PLUS:
We're looking for a CEO for Powwow Virtual, our business model for publicly available telepresence and Telepresence People   

This morning, HP Halo has announced an alliance with Marriott to make HP Halo telepresence systems publicly available at Marriott properties. HP Halo also announced the new customers AstraZeneca, Dow Chemical and Toshiba, who are now available on the HP Halo Video Exchange Network (HVEN), which now extends to 22 countries on 5 continents. The new announcements from HP do not end there; they now offer a new executive / small group telepresence system called The HP Halo Collaboration Center. On top of all of this good news, HP revealed that 80% of HP Halo clients have purchased additional systems. After the jump, get Human Productivity Lab President Howard Lichtman's thoughts and analysis on the announcement.

Masha Zager at Broadband Properties did a superb article on the need for and challenges of publicly available telepresence. Human Productivity Lab Board of Advisor member and former CEO of telepresence pioneer TeleSuite, Tom Jackson, is interviewed and Powwow Virtual, the Human Productivity Lab's business model for publicly available telepresence is mentioned. One of our early designs for a telepresence conferencing center is featured in the article as well with HSL's Thoughts and Analysis.

The European edition of CXO Magazine published an interview with Human Productivity Lab founder and Telepresence Options publisher Howard Lichtman in their January issue.  In the interview Howard discusses the differences between telepresence and videoconferencing, how enterprises can measure the ROI of telepresence conferencing, publicly available telepresence, telepresence Community of Interest Networks, and the future of telepresence.

March 16, 2007 - Regus (LON: RGU), the world's largest provider of outsourced workplaces, is delighted to announce that it will be the first to offer its clients and the public the facility to have real time meetings across the globe using Cisco TelePresence.

A veteran of the local communications scene is raising $25 million to develop a chain of videoconferencing facilities with new technology championed by several industry heavyweights.

Howard Lichtman, a former vice president with Internet protocol applications company Savvis Communications, had been advising clients on so-called "telepresence" technology, which uses high-definition audio and video feeds and life-size images to simulate face-to-face contact for business meetings or even medical consultations. He left Savvis in 2001, and after a series of other jobs in the industry launched Ashburn consulting firm Human Productivity Lab.