More Effective Ways of Serving?

Perhaps those who are poor have discovered something we could use in our service. A NY Times story today about how video conferencing is being used by immigrants to keep in touch with their families in distant lands points the way to how we might conduct some business meetings, etc.

Visiting with family in South America

At $1.50 per mintue (and I am sure someone is making money even at this rate) we might be able to cut down our costs in time and travel for many of our business meetings.

Here are some excerpts from the article.

“Jesus L., a 42-year-old construction worker and illegal immigrant from the southern highlands of Ecuador, had not seen the three children he left behind for 11 years.

But there they were just before the New Year, conjured up on a wall-mounted television screen by the hocus-pocus of the Internet in real time in a storefront in Jackson Heights, Queens….

“…. Their conversation took place the way it did because of the wizardry of videoconferencing, a technology first devised for chief executives to communicate with their far-flung underlings. The format is slowly becoming popular with the city’s poor immigrants as the most vivid way to communicate with their families back home.

At some of the storefronts that offer cheap flights home, money transfers and other services in immigrant communities, Ecuadoreans, Colombians, Pakistanis, Mexicans and others are finding what Jesus L. found: a small room with a computer-driven flat-screen television and a video camera.

With a few clicks of a remote and at a relatively low cost – $1.50 per minute for Jesus L. – the setup takes them back to their hometowns and brings their hometowns here.”

For the full story visit The New York Times (Free subscription required)

Just as a thought starter for other uses… how about hooking doctors with missionaries in poor countries in a kind of virutal “Doctors Without Borders”