For years, individuals who work in remote offices have had mixed blessings. They're away from the mothership ... and, they're away from the mothership. The results vary depending on the company. But for the most part, ambitious people must move to the corporate location if they want to advance beyond a director-level position. (Of course, in certain disciplines such as sales, that's not always the case because they're on the road the majority of time.) Enter telepresence. As this technology becomes more pervasive, will individuals still need to move to locations they may dislike to work in an atmosphere filled with politics? I don't think so.

For those of you who haven’t been involved in a telepresence, it’s worth the time to schedule a demonstration. The rooms are engineered to make each participant feel as though he/she is sitting at a table with all of the people on the conference. For example, the table on the real world continues at the same height and in the same color as the table in the virtual world. People are the actual size they would be if they were in the room. The resolution is high-quality, and when you look at someone on a screen, you truly get lost in the conversation, thinking that person is right across the table.

For now, this technology (offered by companies such as Cisco, HP, and Polycom, among others) remains very expensive. But prices are dropping. For example, 18 months ago, it was common to see large global companies justifying $500,000 on a single telepresence suite. That price is less than half that now, and it will continue to decline.

As the prices drop, we’ll see more telepresence suits in both urban and suburban areas, enabling branch-office employees to become more fully engaged in meetings. Rather than being a voice projecting from an audio bridge, they will be a visible meeting participant, able to project their voices, facial expressions, and hand gestures in a virtual meeting - one that is much more life-like than traditional ISDN-based videoconferences.

The end result: Working in a branch office will not limit employees’ potential for climbing the corporate ladder.

Robin Gareiss is executive vice president and senior founding partner of Nemertes Research. Click  here for the newsletter archive.