Fun_People Archive
16 Dec
The Dangers of Videoconferencing

Date: Fri, 16 Dec 94 16:00:07 PST
To: Fun_People
Subject: The Dangers of Videoconferencing

Forwarded-by: bostic@CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: Herb Peyerl <hpeyerl@novatel.ca>
Forwarded-by: olaf.@digirule.com (Olaf Schroeder)

Taken from ComputerWorld Canada...

The power of Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) and the
dangers of videoconferencing were embarrassingly - and pointedly
- demonstrated in front of a vast audience at Comdex.
  An Intel Corp. marketing executive in Hillsborough, Ore.
demonstrated ISDN videoconferencing with Intel CEO Andrew Grove
here at a Compdex ISDN panel discussion. Grove said good-bye to
his Hillsborough colleage and sat down to wrap up his
contribution.
  But as Grove made his closing comments on the pressing need
for ISDN, the audience began laughing. Grove paused to ask what
was so funny. Looking up, Grove saw his colleague unknowingly
still on the auditorium screen and appearing to pick his nose.
Grove asked his demonstration assistants to shut off the screen
projector, but the embarrassing video continued, the audience
grew louder, and Grove -- smiling in frustration -- buried his
face in his hands.
  Finally, panel moderator Bob Metclafe, a columnist for the
trade newspaper InfoWorld, got up and walked to the demonstration
machine, where he gingerly minimized the videoconference window.
  Asked later about what happened, Metcalfe, who had been
sitting only a few feet from the demonstration machine, insisted
that the executive in Hillsborough had not been picking his
nose, but merely twirling his mustache.

© 1994 Peter Langston