I'm presenting tomorrow at Reboot on "What's your presence strategy?" and been collecting stories and illustrations. This babysitting monitor solution is one I identified with. Here two industious couples who combined laptops into a fun solution!

We checked if the baby monitor would work, but the distance from the room to the hall is too far. Another couple was in a similar situation, though they had two rooms, one for them and another for their boys. We came up with a great solution. Their room was within range of our baby monitor, and naturally their two rooms were adjacent. So, after all the children were asleep, we put the receivers for their monitor and our monitor in their (the other couple's) room. Then, we put our laptop next to those baby monitors. Fortunately, the hotel as free WiFi, something all hotels should have. We installed Skype on our laptop and theirs. We then made a call with Skype from our laptop to theirs, and all the adults went down to the gaming hall with their laptop which could "hear" any noise coming from either room. It worked great.... Matthew Gray

Just another example of the uses people put new technologies to and a "presence" aspect that's important --- baby on "do not disturb" --- is not quite it...