Enhance your Conference Room Technology

It appears that a million things have changed about how we do business in the last century. From carrying briefcases and wearing power ties to transmitting faxes and how meetings were conducted, trends have come and gone. One thing is consistent, though: people need to meet, and there’s no better place to gather than a conference room.

Good conference room tech is a huge factor for holding better meetings both in-person and via remote links. Not only does the right technology impress participants, but there are also many modern tech solutions that streamline communication and operations. And more efficient meetings mean success for you and your team.

First impressions count. Strangers form lasting opinions in the first seven seconds they meet. The same holds for your conference room. Clients, customers, partners, and employees. They are all influenced – positively or negatively – by your conference room’s design, layout, furnishings, and more. Visible tech makes a strong initial impact.

The future of work is here, and it’s digital, empathetic, diverse, and adaptable. Preparing to lead the workplace of the future, however, means more than adjusting beliefs and attitudes. In a digital environment, you also have to make virtual collaboration simple, seamless, and intuitive for on-site and remote workers and vendors.

Part of building the future of work, therefore, is as simple as creating a state-of-the-art conference room system with effective audio-visual setup.

A well-equipped, well-functioning conference room helps in the following manner:

Connecting Remote Participants

Connection is critical. For one thing, more workers are in the office less often. Flexible work arrangements are at an all-time high. Work-from-home time grew 103% between 2005 and 2015. And some experts predict that half the workforce will telecommute by 2027. Beyond support for road warriors, video conferencing reduces costs, expedites decision making, and boosts productivity. Fortunately, reliable cloud-based video conferencing makes it easy to convene effective video meetings from your conference room.

Appeal to Top Talent

With a talent shortage expected to last at least through 2021, this one’s a biggie too. Details like compelling design and current tech impress job-hunters with options. Tech-savvy millennials are unlikely to settle for a company with outdated tech that doesn’t support their collaborative work style. That’s important, given that millennials are the largest generation in the workplace. And they will account for 40% of all workers by 2020.

Boost Productivity

Connectivity issues, incompatible dongles, pass-the-cable content sharing. These are common conference room setbacks that waste time, sap creativity, and fragment focus. When everything works as it should, meeting participants get objectives accomplished more quickly.

Sadly, it’s not uncommon for conference rooms to fall short of their potential. If yours does, you are not alone. Complaints about technology, seating, sound quality, shortages of cords or power outlets – and much more – are common.

Nearly two-thirds of companies use video conferencing daily. Yet setting up those calls eats up around 15% of the time in an average meeting. Background noise and video quality interrupt so often that they result in about $34 billion of lost time value every year. With between 36 and 56 million meetings per day, ineffective meetings cost the US economy between $70 to $283 billion annually.

Think it’s time to enhance your conference room? If your meeting space doesn’t have the right appeal, consider ways to upgrade your conference room.

Here’s a roundup of 10 overlooked ways to improve your conference room and help it rise to its potential.

STEP UP YOUR SOUND

A picture may be worth a thousand words. But a conference room meeting without strong sound can be utterly unproductive. Unfortunately, the plague of poor audio is surprisingly widespread. In the US, 67% of workers say background noise interrupts their meetings at least some of the time.

Forty percent say audio quality issues occur frequently. Having taken a back seat to advances in video and collaboration tech, audio is making a comeback. 28% of US AV hardware budgets for large meeting rooms are being invested in audio. And demand is up for pro-grade speakers and microphones.

REDUCE REVERBERATION

Let’s say your conference room display speakers are top-notch. And you have invested in pro mics and speakers. Even so, the room itself may be sabotaging your sound. Conference room acoustics play a big part in whether participants can clearly hear one another. The culprit is reverberation time (RT), the time it takes for sound to fade in a closed space. Absorbent surfaces quickly squash sound.

In rooms with lots of reflective surfaces, sound lingers longer. Modern conference rooms with glass walls, hard ceilings, and large displays are susceptible to high levels of RT. Sounds bounce back and forth between these surfaces. This often results in muddled-sounding speech for those on the receiving end of a call or video conference. Participants in the room can also find it difficult to clearly hear one another. Room acoustics also impact privacy. Sound leakage is a common problem that can reveal conference room conversations to those beyond the closed doors.

Adding sound-absorbing materials is a surefire way to reduce reverb and increase sound clarity. An impressive array of attractive options let you customize the look, from subtle to sizzling. Beautifully printed sound panels even pass for artwork – including prints, photography, graphics and logos. Tackle sound leakage with sound masking tech positioned around conference rooms. Often referred to as white noise machines, these devices are discreet and inexpensive to deploy.

GET SMART

Smart film is poised to revolutionize conference room design. Also known as “switchable film,” this tech has come a long way lately, with formulations that can be easily retrofitted onto existing surfaces. Glassed-in meeting rooms create a distinctive aesthetic and keep spaces open and airy. Smart film keeps the look minimalist and modern while enabling on-demand privacy by becoming opaque with the flip of a switch. On windows, smart film filters UV rays and makes it easy to block out glare.

GET COMFORTABLE

Go beyond good looks and great tech. Conference room guests need to be comfortable to be truly impressed – and truly productive. Comfort promotes productivity. Discomfort distracts and derails thinking and creative energy. Annoying fans, flickering lights, and wobbly tables top the list of irritants. Overcrowding is another source of discomfort. Attention to detail is key to maximizing conference room comfort.

Make a list of discomforts and distractions and check it regularly. Provide adequate seating and enough table space for personal comfort. Allow ample room for attendees to stand up and move around during lengthy meetings and to facilitate breakouts.

STAND UP

Comfort is one thing. Design for health and wellbeing goes deeper. It’s a growing trend backed by ample evidence and proven productivity impacts. Forward-thinking companies are incorporating it into their conference room design. Standing-height conference tables build on the popularity of sit-stand desks and address the health hazards of prolonged sitting. Beyond the health boost, studies show that standing meetings can improve focus, collaboration, and creativity.

Because not everyone can (or wants to) stand for an entire meeting, bar-height chairs, stools, and “standing supports” complete the package. Another hot health-minded design trend is bringing the outdoors in, with natural light, plant walls, and other natural elements having been shown to improve health and productivity.

MAKE A STATEMENT

Consult with your marketing team about incorporating branding elements like colors, logos, and brand personality into your conference room design. Some choices may be obvious, like sticking with a corporate color palette. Others may be subtler, like extending your company’s personality through a quirky or formal design.

INTEGRATE

Your conference room technology facilitates seeing, hearing, and collaborating efficiently. Integrating that tech into the room design kicks things up a notch. It’s a trend that’s going gangbusters. A chief concern is concealing the masses of wires that often accompany tech.

Any technology that’s skillfully integrated into the environment helps guests get down to business quickly. And amps up positive impressions. Think tables and other furnishings with built-in power adapters. Multi-media capabilities. Wireless charging options. Source options that add convenience and functionality while minimizing clutter, inconvenience, and cords.

BE AGNOSTIC

Device-agnostic that is. The last thing you want is for your conference room tech to derail meetings. For the ultimate in ease, the pieces all need to play nicely together. Whether you are doing a complete ground-up installation or want to upgrade your conference room as budget allows, choosing components that work well together is key.

GO WIRELESS

This one is essential to creating a top-notch conference room. Relying on cables to connect presenters to your display is becoming beyond old school. For one thing, it saps loads of valuable meeting time. For another, today’s wide range of connectivity options makes it nearly impossible to accommodate every need. Wireless presentation solutions save time and facilitate an easy flow of information. Good solutions allow multiple users to share content from any device. The best solutions enable content cast-in from around the globe, plus annotation capabilities.

INTERACT WITH IMPACT

Brighter and clearer than projectors, these display screens let you keep the blinds open and lights on. This enables easy note-taking and collaboration-boosting eye-contact. Built-in web browsers make it easy to access virtually any content. Integrated annotation tools let presenters write atop content.

Content-sharing apps let guests cast onto the display for easy, group-wide participation. All of which are huge improvements over the days of dark rooms and static projected PowerPoints. Want your conference room to rise to its true potential for impressing, connecting, collaborating, and creating? This tool is a must-have.

At Al Reyami Technologies, we ably rely on our hand-selected mix of suppliers to bring the most advanced, reliable solutions to our customers. Our team takes complicated, multi-vendor systems and transforms them into intuitive, stable platforms for our clients.

We take care of your audio-visual needs from start to finish. The entire system design and installation is completed by a knowledgeable, experienced team.

The 3 pillars based on which our offerings are encompassed are as follows:

1. Custom Design: Our team designs an AV solution tailored to your unique needs, space and priorities on an optimized budget.
2. Professional Implementation: Trained AV technicians will deploy your solution and ensure everything is functioning correctly.
3. Ongoing Support: Our success is built on long-term relationships. Our dedicated support team is here to help at every stage of the project.

The desired experience, and how the solution supports a company’s workflow, will impact the equipment and technologies featured in the space. Conference rooms may feature dual-screens with ceiling-mounted microphones and touch panel user interface, while a huddle room may include an interactive display.

Our projects range from a single conference room to enterprise-wide standardization for meeting room design and integration.

Keen to know more – please do get in touch with us if you would like to revamp your meeting room infrastructure and learn about the various possibilities applicable to your scenario.

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