When Executives don’t want to travel, remote presenting is… easy?
One of the best benefits of live streaming is that you can speak directly to your employees without having to fly them all in. With this thinking, it makes sense that you could do this for VPs who cannot be at the webcast location. If they want to present from a remote location, it seems like a cost-effective solution to flying them out as well. But you have to be careful. Remote presenting is much more complicated, and can be more expensive than a plane ticket.
We handle remote presenters in one of two ways. We can use something like Skype or WebEX. This option is relatively cheap, and if you have skype for business, it can be added for free. Skype is good at is “real time” communication, but it sacrifices video quality (it looks blocky or stutters) in order to stream quickly. This is different from a regular livestream, which usually has a two-minute delay, but can look like beautiful HD video.
If you want to have perfect-looking video that acts just like a satellite feed on the news, that is where the cost comes in. If you have more than one remote location, those costs increase exponentially. You are safely looking at 10,000 dollars per location. If the event is important, go for that, but for smaller meetings, we suggest Skype.
Ultimately, you have to decide how flashy you want this part of the meeting to feel. The worst things we see are when a group uses a poor telepresence system that breaks down mid-meeting. That is not a good look.
A work-around we use often is having the executive record a short video beforehand. This gives you another video element for your presentation without all the complications of a remote presenter.