Volume 31 • Issue 09 • September 2006

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Face to face, yet miles away
Mount Vernon company offers video conferencing,
support services to area businesses

by Dana E. Blozis

After working out of a home office and traveling throughout a six-state territory for five years, entrepreneur Candace Johns wanted a change of pace.
Rather than looking for employment with another firm, she created her own solution. Johns left her job as a manufacturer’s representative for Polycom, a leader in video conferencing and collaborative technologies, to open Interactive Business Solutions.
Opening for business in July 2006, Johns created Interactive Business Solutions to better meet the needs of the community. In addition to sharing her video conferencing expertise with others, Johns wanted to provide a one-stop shop of support services for those who work out of a home office.
“This is a way for me to better meet the needs of the community based on requests I’ve had,” she explained, “and to be able to get out of the home office.”
In particular, after having worked out of a home office herself, Johns wanted to provide a spot where business people could hold meetings, consult with clients, send faxes and do mailings when not working at home. She designed Interactive Business Solutions to provide a location for business people to access all of those services, each customized to meet their needs.
The 2,200-square-foot Riverside Drive location in Mount Vernon offers computer workstations for surfing the Internet and sending e-mails, video conferencing kiosks, conference rooms equipped with audio and video conferencing equipment, private offices, a mail center, and a work station. In addition, Jason Mobraten of Spider Domain, whose office resides on site, offers computer networking, Web hosting, design and consulting services for clients. Along with these services, clients can use Interactive Business Solutions as an answering service.
Johns explained that the idea came from Johns and Mobraten operating out of their homes and contractor Jake Covert of CFM operating out of his truck. They needed a professional business front and access to external office support services, while providing a location for client meetings and remote training.
“This is geared toward those types of folks who need a physical, commercial address,” Johns said. “We offer a physical location for virtual offices.”

Bringing people together through video conferencing
While Interactive Business Solutions offers a variety of business support services, the company’s primary offering is video conferencing services and equipment rental. Utilizing Polycom equipment, Interactive Business Solutions offers both audio and video conferencing in both individual and group settings. Johns said that while many people see such technology as too futuristic to utilize, shows like “CSI” and “24” are bringing it more into the public eye. As a proponent of the technology, Johns said that applications are far-reaching and are becoming more commonplace than people realize.
“Video conferencing has some really cool applications,” Johns said. “There are a lot of benefits personally as well as to the community. There are opportunities out there now that we didn’t have 10 or 20 years ago.”
In fact, according to Johns, it seems that the video conferencing applications are endless including education, tele-medicine, tele-arraignments and depositions and tele-psychiatry. One of the more popular uses in Washington is providing educational opportunities to students across the state.
For example, the Anacortes school district hosts a video conferencing training program for the deaf, offering training segments geared specifically to parents and to students who each learn differently. While each school district throughout the state may only have a few deaf students, this training program is now available to any school district regardless of budget or location.
An elementary school age child from the Mt. Vernon school district was diagnosed with cancer and admitted to Seattle’s Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center. To keep him connected with his classmates and to allow him to participate in classroom education and activities, he utilized video conferencing.
Video conferencing is also bridging the gap in the healthcare arena where services and specialties are needed but no qualified physicians exist. For example, in Alaska, in some remote towns, health clinics are often run by nurse practitioners. When additional consultation is needed, patients and healthcare staff can video conference with physicians in Anchorage. In another instance, a woman with a rare brain condition who needed neurosurgery was not healthy enough to fly to Chicago to access the services of a specialist. Instead, physicians at the UW Medical Center were able to consult with the neurosurgeon through video conferencing to learn the specifics of her situation and how to best treat her.
“It saves lives, it saves travel, and it saves our state money,” Johns said of today’s video conferencing technology.
As the parent of a nine year old, Johns is particularly thrilled at how video conferencing is being utilized in schools, not only to bring new subjects into the classroom but also to create an interactive learning environment where kids can participate without realizing they are learning. This has taken place in programs like “Where in Washington?” where students research their town and offer clues to other school districts about their economy, topography, etc. The other students must guess where the students are from. Schools are also able to offer virtual field trips to places like the Intrepid Museum, the Smithsonian, Indianapolis Museum of Art and NASA.
Johns is so excited about the virtual fields that she will offer them free of charge to families on Saturdays once school is back in session.
“At the end of the day it’s about communicating face to face,” Johns said. “It’s exciting to see the things that are possible.”

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Candace Johns, owner of Interactive Business Solutions in Mount Vernon, just started her business; primarily to serve those who work from a home office.





Meetings can include board members or clients in other locations with the video conferencing capabilities of Interactive Business Solutions.