There aren’t many people who look forward to going on business trips. They’re a hassle and expensive for the organization. Business travelers often feel rushed, which results in insufficient sleep and poor eating habits, which exacerbates stress. Not to mention dealing with Airports and long-term parking. Therefore, many businesses choose to use videoconferencing if possible. But do you think that business travel is on its way out? Will Videoconferencing replace it altogether?

The End of Business Travel?

But is this a thing that we should strive for in business? Is it the best thing if videoconferencing replaces face-to-face meetings altogether? Perhaps not, consider the differences between meetings that are face-to-face versus videoconferencing.

During a videoconference, people from across the globe sign on, say their hellos, and get to the business at hand. The level of brainstorming is usually limited because people worry about the stability of their connections or succumb to the interruptions of the offices where they sit.

The Benefits of Face-to-Face Time

At in-person meetings, however, agendas have a way of falling by the wayside, and that is a good thing. Meetings may start only after a few minutes of personal chatter and they might end with attendees swapping office stories. Again, this is good. Often, the best business ideas arise from these moments of off-topic discussion.

Business Travel is Here to Stay

Yes, business travel is an inconvenience and videoconferencing is convenient. However, there are times when meeting face-to-face is the best option for generating the most innovative business solutions. Due to this, don’t expect savvy business executives to ever totally replace business travel with videoconferencing.  I’d love to hear your opinion!

I know, that’s a bold statement but let’s just agree to hang on for a week or three as I expand on this idea.  I’m also in the middle of writing a series of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) articles but I thought it might be fun to intermingle a few of these, like I said, Just For Fun!  I’ve always been fascinated with many of these “Laws” and there are a TON of them to thumb through, but I’m just going to focus on ten such Laws for our purposes here.  It doesn’t matter whether you’re looking at Murphy’s Law or some of the more “heady” ones, like the laws of thermodynamics, they can be used to explain everything from the way your browser works to what makes us laugh.  The ten laws that I’ll mention over a series of posts explain everything  from the popularity of Facebook to what’s going to happen with your smartphone.  Let’s start here:

Kryder’s Law

Kryder’s law is the storage equivalent of Moor’s Law (we’ll cover that one later in the series).  Seagate’s vice president of research and Chief Technology Office said way back in 2005 that magnetic disk storage density doubles approximately every 18 months.  That also means that storage costs will reduce by half every eighteen months as well, which allows online services to give us more storage without charging any more for it.  Now THAT’s a cool thing that help all of us.  It seems that our need for space to store all of our data (pictures, documents, spreadsheets, databases, etc.) continues to accumulate, so being able to get more without paying more is really nice. 

Now, if you're into the newest technologies, like SSDs (Solid State Drives) I'll have to add a disclaimer here for those devices.  I mentioned Moore's Law just a few seconds ago, which applies to SSD much more than Kryder's Law applies.  O.K., now that we have that behind us, let's look at one more "Law".

Wirth's Law

O.K., here's the deal; it seems like every couple of months that a new processor is released with additional "core's" (core 2 duo, Core i3, Core i%, etc.) but even with all these additional cores these PC's aren't noticeably faster at all those everyday tasks then the PC's we used years ago!  This is where Wirth's Law comes in.  Simply put, Wirth's Law says that: "Software get's slower faster than hardware gets faster."  There are a few variation of this law, which are often cause this law to be attributed to others (Google's Law, Page's Law OR the Gates Law) but Niklaus Wirth is the first to state this one back in 1995.

I think we'll stop here for today, but come back regularly soon to see the rest.  And, if you have any interesting and relevant Laws that you'd like to discuss, please post them here and let's start the discussion.

We always read about the most popular gadgets on the market. But for every technology that changes our lives there is something that flops. It’s difficult to judge what the general public will take a fancy too, so companies take a risk when they release something. Below we explore a handful of technologies that fall outside of the “took flight” category.

Famous tech failures

• Apple TV: This device gives users the ability to purchase entertainment from iTunes then stream it to the device of their choice. Good idea? Probably, if it wasn’t so restricted to iTunes.

• Sony Mylo: You will possibly not remember the Mylo. That is because it came and went without eliciting much reaction from consumers. This Wi-Fi-enabled mobile device permitted consumers to connect to the Internet, send e-mail, and hold online chats. In addition, it came with Skype for free Internet calls. Sadly for Sony, the iPhone and its massive app store simply overwhelmed the Mylo.

The Segway peters out

• Segway PT: The Segway PT scooter hasn’t exactly been a flop. Nonetheless, it never caught on in the way its manufacturers supposed. This two-wheeled transportation machine was supposed to be a must-have for commuters traveling to work and for family members taking short trips to their local supermarket. Unfortunately, the scooter makes people look kind of silly when they’re riding it. Maybe this is why the device hasn’t become a mainstream alternative to cars.

The CueCat doesn’t purr

• CueCat: Shaped like a cat, the CueCat was a barcode reader released to the public in 1999. It permitted consumers to open a link to an Internet address by scanning a barcode on an item. The idea was that consumers would appreciate surfing to a website without having to enter in that site’s address. This hypothesis proved flawed, and it wasn’t long before the CueCat’s maker, Digital Convergence Corporation, was out of business.

What’s your favorite “Less Than Successful technology?

Usually when people file lawsuits it’s very serious business, but every so often lawsuits are filed that are rather ridiculous.
Below are a few interesting and amusing tech industry lawsuits which have been filed in the last ten years.

Pentium Hives? – In 2002, a Dutch woman filed a lawsuit against the government and Intel because she said that she got hives from her Pentium processor. Her 486-base processor did not give her the hives however and no judge was “itching” to take the case.

A Woman Lead into Danger by Google? – In 2009, Google was sued by a woman who had been hit by a car on a dark narrow highway that did not have pedestrian paths. She blamed Google because she was just following the walking directions they gave her. A judge dismissed her case and Google “dodged” the lawsuit.

Star Wars Galaxies Killed by Sony! – In 2010, angry fans of Star
Wars Galaxies filed a class-action lawsuit against Sony for shutting down the game. The MMORPG had had a steadily lessening subscribership for several years.  I guess the “force” was not strong enough to sustain the game, the fans, or the case.

Failed Mafia Wars Romance Ends With a Lawsuit – A woman sued a man over for damages from their broken Mafia Wars romance. After meeting and falling in love over the Facebook game, Mafia Wars, the woman spent thousands of dollars on game credits and gifts for her new love interest. After the relationship ended, she sued him for the money spent. Both the relationship as well as the case are now “sleeping with the fishes.”

If you have heard of any interesting lawsuits, let us know by commenting on this blog or on one of our other social media accounts!