The State of the Modern Meeting...and What it Means for Interpreting

Apr 16, 2015 / by Katharine Allen & Barry S. Olsen

From BlueJeans.com...

Article Excerpt: Blue Jeans Network is back with its second semi-annual State of the Modern Meeting report, revealing additional data benchmarking trends in collaboration and demonstrating how technology is reshaping meetings around the world. Blue Jeans makes meetings mobile, productive, and cost-efficient by allowing people to meet face-to-face from anywhere.

Some key findings from the survey:

• 94% of the respondents said face-to-face meetings improve business relationships

• Most popular days for holding meetings are Tuesdays and Wednesdays

• During the six months prior to the survey respondents saved US$1.3 billion on travel expenses by meeting virtually

Link to complete infographic HERE.

InterpretAmerica's Take: The story, or rather infographic, featured in this installment of Interpreting the News (ITN) is not a traditional news story from the mainstream media but it is news for interpreting nonetheless. Virtual meetings (whether audio conferences, videoconferences, or web conferences) are on the rise. BlueJeans, one of the fastest-growing cloud-based videoconferencing services has started tracking and reporting on meeting traffic on its own network, and the results are at the very least informative and at the most astounding.

One thing is for sure, virtual meetings are on the rise. They take place most frequently on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and they don’t last a whole day or even a half day. Their average duration is just under one hour. Interestingly, the largest volume of videoconferences occurs between the United States and the United Kingdom—two countries that share a common language. One can’t help but wonder how usage might change if videoconferencing and web conferencing companies focused on developing a way to provide high-quality, remote interpretation for multilingual meetings taking place on their systems.

As ever more virtual meetings go global and multilingual, so too will the demand for interpreting at those meetings. But it is likely to be interpreting that does not fit any of our profession´s current pricing models. In other words, it will be disruptive, but it will also provide opportunites, if we can figure out how to take adavantage of them. 

In an effort to further this conversation, these are the forward-looking questions we will be asking at InterpretAmerica 5 on June 12-13, 2015, in Monterey, California. Won't you join us?