Oprah gets webmeetings better than the big Consultancies

If you ever think big companies don't seem to "get it" when it comes to helping their people communicate effectively I have seen an alternate future, and (as usual) it is Oprah.

Picture two visions of how we can communicate in the future- actually it's possible this very second but let's leave time for committee decision making:

The first is from one of the big, famous consultancies. They just invested millions of dollars in giant state-of-the-art video conferencing facilities in their main offices around the world. Very cool stuff, as you can see.

Killer high-definition, very classy and a marvel of IT engineering.  I'm impressed, and as that great sage Jesse "The Body" Ventura always said, "I don't impress easy, McMahon".

There's just one little snag. In order to access this electronic communication marvel you have to be in one of the offices that have the capability. I'll let the idea of traveling  somewhere to avoid travel expenses marinate.

On the other hand, over coffee this morning, Oprah was doing a whole show on Skype, and how it allows mere mortals to talk to each other anywhere in the world with perfectly functional video and sound for free. Let me repeat that: For. Free. Anywhere. Anytime.

For most of us, what we need is instant communication that allows us to connect to the people we're talking to in all the ways that matter- verbal, vocal and visual communication. It doesn't need to be state of the art, it doesn't need to be impressive, it needs to be there.

There are all kinds of reasons to use the big facilities- scale, audience, branding, IT ego, and I'm not saying if you can afford it you shouldn't use it. What I am saying is that while companies continue to look for hte biggest hammer they can find to fix a problem, there are plenty of other solutions out there that are cheap, easy and would allow managers to get on with the job.

It's not just video conferencing, you can see the same things at work in knowledge capture (a giant inhouse networked system vs. Google docs) Social networking (Sharepoint vs. Ning) and pretty much everywhere you look individuals can find solutions to solve their communication challenges if the "experts" will just get the hell out of their way.

The major problem is that these low-tech, low-cost solutions are implemented at the individual level. Empowered managers and team leaders can use them immediately.. For reasons too numerous to mention, this gives IT people and the funders who love them fits.

Here's the question at the heart of this debate: do you trust your people to do what they need to do to get the job done? Yes or no. It's a closed ended question.

So while the CEO might beam with pride at their new system, Oprah is teaching housewives how to talk to anyone in the world from the comfort of their home for free. One of these is world changing.