But besides that the iSight has been collecting dust for years. Besides that one moment I never neaded it. When I did use it with someone we would both stare at each other, and the sight of a hazy face didn’t add anything to the conversation except an awkward feeling and some distraction…

At 30 Boxes we really couldn’t have done our product development without iChat A/V. Our third partner Nick is in Boulder and we routinely have product discussions/debates this way as well as talk about the business.

As an aside, I have an uncle in the movie business who says iChat is spreading like wildfire in Hollywood and is creating real efficiencies.

As far as the issue of video v. F2F for closing business deals, clearly the power of personal persuasion and confidence building cannot be leveraged via videoconferencing. There’s a time and place for technology tools – and complex sales activity is not one of them.

I see IM and videoconferencing coming into play in 3 areas:

1. Commodity-driven sales, where the questions of product quality are moot – perhaps because you and your competitor are selling the same shrink-wrapped box, and price/shipping are the major obstacles 2. Service of existing customers, regardless of the complexity of the business – If you have already established the personal confidence level needed to secure an account, I can see quick customer maintenance “calls” being performed electronically. Ex: An insurance client IM’ing their agent to inform them of a change in property ownership.
3. Back office communications – When everyone is on the same team, working toward the same goals, I can see communications flowing electronically via IM and videoconference.

Everything has its place, and IM/videoconferencing can certainly assist in the work of business. But, like most technology solutions, they aren’t universal cure-alls in most cases.

I’ve found that the best thing for meetings is a telephone call, and an IM session. This way you can still easily communicat over the phone, and use the IM session to pass links or files back and forth.

I can imagine cases where a video conference would be superior, but for the most part, they are just not that useful.