This paper describes a telepresence device called PortaPerson. This is the first project in a larger initiative known as the Connected Conference Room, which aims to improve the user experience for remote people connected to meetings taking place in conference rooms. The Porta-Person is designed to enhance a sense of social presence for remote meeting participants. It does this by providing a high-fidelity audio connection and a remotely controlled telepresence display with video or animation. Keywords Telepresence, distributed meetings, video surrogates. ACM Classification Keywords H.5.3 [Group and Organization Interfaces]: collaborative computing, synchronous interaction, computer-supported cooperative work, organizational design.