http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2006/10/cisco_telepresc.php

Cisco has recently started to move away from their main business of routers and switches and more into facilitating the building of human networks. One of their newest technologies is Teleprescence. This is a $300,000 system that comes with three 65in high definition TVs. What this allows is next generation video conferencing. The fault with the current generation of video conference is the low resolution that does not make it appropriate for important meetings. Cisco claims that 60% of all communication is body language which is lost in regular video conferencing.

This causes many of the upper managers in global companies to spend a good portion of their time catching their next flight instead of doing work at the company. This puts them in a spot of less power in the social network of the company, when they should have more power. In addition if the manager is responsible for groups in India and England, and the US, and splits his time flying between the different groups, he now has less power in all three social networks. This new tool allows him to spend more time with the different groups, and have more follow up meetings with clients all over the world, so putting him in a spot of greater power in client networks as well.

A good example of what this would be the T from class. Let’s say that we have 5 nodes at the top and 2 on the vertical. We’ll called the A,B,C,D,E,F,G. Node C is the manager, however he does not have power in this relationship. Lets say that nodes A,B are in the US, DE are in India, and FG are in England. When he visits the US he only meets with B, D in India, and F in England, because he doesn’t have time to meet the other nodes. This put him in a position of little power, and nodes B,D,F of weak power. However, now with Teleprescence he has more time to meet with nodes A,E,G, giving him greater power.