I caught up with an former colleague Charlie from Reuters on Wednesday night, and amongst other things we chatted about the things that have been being done in our respective organisations with providing interactive meeting spaces. Thomson Reuters have gone down the Cisco telepresence route. I've done something a bit cheaper. Here's a summary…
We have a small meeting room, which has a standard matt finish whiteboard on one wall. Opposite is a ceiling-mounted projector, and we've spent some time making sure that the PC connected to all of this is calibrated so that the image from the project fits the whiteboard perfectly.
Underneath the whiteboard is a c. £100 webcam which has 1.3 mp resolution and also proper autofocus. Those elements combined mean that we can use WebEx to have multi-party web conferences with video, and the video element of WebEx has been substantially beefed up in recent months so that you can do full screen/float video windows, etc. On a big whiteboard, however, the standard small video window comes up at about the size of a 12″ monitor anyway.
So far, nothing much of note except for the fixed nature of the room (everything bolted in place). That's so it works rather than so it doesn't get nicked.
The interactivity of the whiteboard is achieved using a Mimio Interactive device. This comprises a plastic strip that attaches to the top left hand corner of the whiteboard, and a “pen” which (using infrared & triangulation) then acts as a mouse on the whiteboard. The high angle throw of the projector means that you don't get many problems with shadow. There are some specific whiteboard apps that mimio provided (it's a whiteboard, but one where you can paste in images etc, and also click on a button to have a new clean whiteboard – with the ability to step back to previous ones), and it can also interact with any other app (including the whiteboard function in WebEx, which suddenly becomes useful, and things like Powerpoint as well, which also have “write on the screen” functionality built in).
Finding it's of great use both when used as an interactive whiteboard on it's own, and then also when it's combined with WebEx.
Downsides –
– the audio in the room is a bit crap, there is a lot of background noise from the projector fan, and also lots of echo. Need to investigate a bit of acoustic damping.
– either you are using the Webcam or the mimio… when you switch to the white board, because the camera is facing out from underneath it, you get a lot of unintentional crotch shots.
– other than in the WebEx whiteboard function, control is solely at one end. Networked-apps that allow for multi-party whiteboarding would be good (although there are a few things about.)
Cost of all of this?
PC – £400
Mimio – £550
Projector – £500
WebCam – £100
Wireless keyboard and mouse – £100
plus the cost of an electrician to run the cables required, a conference phone, and our monthly WebEx subscription.
mmitII 