Bill Cottle, Director of the Student Technology Assistance Program at Boise State University, tells me that their distance learning rooms are used for more than college classes.

Examples? One company couldn’t afford to send everyone to see a particular speaker, so they brought him to a distance learning classroom in Boise. He stood in the room alone with a camera fixed on him while people gathered in other locations around the country.

The speaker could see his audiences projected on a screen (think ‘Brady Bunch’ squares) and he was able to take questions and interact after his speech.

Cottle says lawyers also like to use the rooms. “Because of our recording capabilities, we can have a witness, a court stenographer, and lawyers sitting here in one room while lawyers from Florida and New York are at their respective locations. It not only saves time and the costs of travel, but because we can timestamp the recording, the deposition can serve as valid testimony in a court of law.”

Corporate classes happen, too. Recently I taught a few management classes to rural/remote hospitals in the Midwest.  Over 50 middle managers from critical care hospitals gathered in six locations in Illinois while I sat alone in a BSU classroom.  With the touch of a button, I could switch the signal to show either me or the PowerPoint slides.

Cottle says some companies even use the rooms to interview job applicants.  “It’s a great way to get a face-to-face interview before deciding if they want to buy the candidate a round-trip ticket and put him up in a hotel.”

Renting these rooms is not expensive (most rent ‘by the hour’) and can save a LOT of time.

So, if you don’t want to buy webcams and/or ramp up on Internet videoconferencing, check out your local college campus. Chances are they can set you up with live “face-to-face” meetings . . . . even if the faces are several thousand miles apart.

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Filed in Technology, Training, Workplace, Meetings, Job Seeking, Interviewing