Following the resounding thumbs-up we got from the guys at the Conversation Network about using Skype for interviews, I thought I'd share this little nugget from the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum Blog (via the Melcrum Blog) about using Skype to bring speakers in to conferences:

Euan Semple dialled into the conference over Skype and I have to say that the connection robustness was impressive. There was me thinking it was going to be something much more complex, but it wasn’t needed. Very tempted to suggest it as an option for a conference we’re holding in May.

At last July’s media and blogger event in Tallinn, we used Skype to allow people who’d suffered from the same cancelled flight as me to go ahead and give their presentations from London. I’d agree with Alex Manchester at the Melcrum Blog — using Skype like this certainly isn’t complex — but here are three tips to make sure that your Skype conference speaker experiences go smoothly:

• Turn off screensavers, popup alerts and anything else which might obstruct the video in full screen mode — there’s nothing worse than having your speaker’s face obscured by an email or Twitter notification halfway through his or her presentation.

• Make sure the internet connection speed is reasonably high, and avoid using any other high-bandwidth apps at the same time — at July’s media event, we asked attendees to stop running Skype on their laptops while the speakers were presenting in order to make sure the video quality was outstanding.

• Set up a webcam on the computer which you’re running Skype on in the conference room, so that the speaker can see the audience while they’re speaking — this is incredibly helpful for the speaker, as it allows them to gauge the audience’s reaction to what they’re saying.