Lee Aase has a cool title at his day job. He is the Manager for Syndications and Social Media at the Mayo Clinic.

In his off hours, he runs the Social Media University, Global, cheekily known as SMUG. It is essentially a blog which includes a curriculum that teaches the practical application of tools like WordPress, Twitter and Facebook to business people.

Lee has blogged about his reintroduction to Skype Video and his plans to use it for tutoring his students at SMUG.

Recently he needed to plan for an upcoming videoconference at his workplace. He naturally presumed that he’d be using the traditional videoconference equipment that companies pay tens of thousands of dollars for. When he contacted the coordinator at the other end to get the IP address to connect with their video conferencing system, they said, “We just always use Skype.”

So, while still on the phone, he downloaded the latest version of Skype onto his Macbook Pro, signed into his previously created Skype account and in a matter of minutes he was face-to-face with his remote colleague.

That story is a perfect example of the power of personal videoconferencing.

There is no scheduling of a dedicated videoconferencing room or setting up specialized equipment. Two people with relatively new computers, a camera (many now come with webcams built-in) and a broadband Internet connection can set up a high-quality video chat session almost on a whim.

Lee will now be using Skype videoconference for tutoring and offering students a “Chat with the Chancellor.” Experts sharing knowledge with people all over the globe is a perfect use for Skype.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 11:46 am and is filed under Examples in Use. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.