Rudd gets TP

Last Friday I was lucky enough to participate in a world first. Cisco, along with Telstra and the Australian Federal Government, held a press conference across four different states and territories in Australia. How is this possible you ask? The magic of TelePresence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO5sD8Y69nU

Whilst the Finance Minister, the Hon. Lindsay Tanner and Cisco VP Les Williamson sat in Melbourne, Telstra big wig David Thodey joined from Brisbane and journalists made up the numbers in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne. Everyone could all see and hear each other as if they were only separated by a table.

Now whilst I’ve participated in TelePresnce sessions in two different places before (i.e. Sydney to Hong Kong) never have we had four different places happening at once!

Coverage from the press briefing appeared everywhere – over 18 publications including The Australian http://tinyurl.com/djvg3g and twice in the AFR. Forrester analyst Tim Sheedy blogged about it http://tinyurl.com/aso3na and a hash tag was used on twitter (#govTP). All in all quite a success!