Talking Points

I've been participating in a discussion on Linkedin which has to do with the impact of teleconferencing, telepresence and such on the air travel industry.  There is a move to use these means of communication in order to eliminate or reduce air travel for business.  It seems to me that we in aviation can either embrace this technology and try to turn it to our advantage, or moan about it and hope it goes away.  Well, it won't just go away, so we might as well get used to it.  

The advantages as I see them are that the tools could be very useful for conducting safety seminars, training and conferencing.  This would be particularly true in the case of telepresence technology, where everyone can see and be seen. This would lend itself to a classroom or seminar type environment, where group participation can be promoted and developed.  The ability to see each other and make eye contact would render the experience more intimate and personal than something like a conference call.  

The technology could also be used to conduct ground school and systems training in initial and recurrent training for aircrews, and cut down on the time currently spent away from base on such activities.  If a crew could complete all the classroom activity at the home station and only travel as necessary to complete the simulator or aircraft portion of the training, flight departments might be able to save a bit of cash here and there.   

Any thoughts on this?