7 Reasons Behind the Rise of the Intelligent Meeting Room
One of the biggest challenges organisations face today is how to make hybrid working ‘work’.
The global pandemic forced a switch from traditional office-based operations to a ‘Working from Home’ (WFH) approach. The focus then was on ensuring employees had devices and software to carry out their tasks remotely.
Now attention is being turned to how organisations can create a workplace and 5-star experience for employees – through solutions that serve flexible, remote and hybrid working.
An increasingly important element of the smart workplace is the Intelligent Meeting Room (IMR). Here are seven reasons why IMR is featuring in so many business conversations.
1. Encouraging Employees Back to the Office
People, whether they like it or not, have become accustomed to attending meetings online, via platforms like Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams.
Organisations which want to successfully encourage employees back to the office, are having to look at ways of making that more desirable than staying at home or working from a remote workspace.
Smart tech is enabling leaders and managers to provide their employees with what they need: a mix of good meeting space, high quality audio, better visual display screens and effective team collaboration tools.
2. Creating a 5-Star Workspace and Meeting Experience
Not everyone is a fan of home or remote working. But surveys suggest most employees find the advantages outweigh the negatives, and productivity does not seem to be the issue many bosses feared.
This means organisations wanting to get people back into the office must make being and working there a 5-star experience. That could be around the design and layout of the space, improved facilities, or the food and drink options available.
But it’s also about making meetings a great experience for all participants – those in the room and those taking part remotely.
It’s why Nureva have developed ‘microphone mist’ technology for a better audio experience, Valarea’s software offers ‘one touch’ access to meetings, Intuitive Huddly cameras make smart use of AI and MAXHUB have created a range of ‘all-in-one’ displays in different sizes.
3. Removing Fuss and Frustrations from Meetings
Expectations of the modern meeting room are higher today than a few years’ ago. People just want to be able to turn up (in person or remotely), get started and have a successful meeting with colleagues.
They don’t want difficulties setting up, cables running everywhere, faffing around with remote controls or a tiny speaker parked on a table. They want neater solutions. Fast and simple.
This, for example, is what makes ‘all in one’ displays like the Raptor range from MAXHUB appealing to organisations. It has a slimline LED wall design with built-in speakers and video processing and onboard powerful processing functionality to make content sharing easier.
Visitors to ISE 2022 in Barcelona had the opportunity to see the first ever installation in Europe of MAXHUB’s huge 220-inch LED wall – a demonstration of just how far integrated screen technology has developed. Increasingly, tomorrow’s world is accessible today.
4. The Need for Effective, Visual and Real Time Collaboration in Hybrid Meetings
One of the concepts of the Intelligent Meeting Room is about providing a suitable display in the meeting room and presentation locations, inside an office building or even a university or other establishment.
Hybrid meetings, with in-room and remote attendees, present the challenge of how to ensure everyone is seen, heard and can fully participate.
Choosing the right size and quality of display is more important than ever for creating a greater sense of connection – and delivering a high-class collaboration experience.
The increase in unified communications technology, the desire for people to able to access meetings from any device, and the requirement to be able to share whiteboards, presentations, ideas and content in real-time is also driving advancements in Intelligent Meeting Room solutions.
For example, MAXHUB’s LED wall displays can be paired with the MAXHUB Smart Lectern – which has an in-built PC – to deliver seamless presentations, to specific teams or across a global organisation.
5. The Changing Face of Hybrid Meetings
Technology is driving changes in the Intelligent Meeting Room. And so is the user experience.
The increased use of unified communications technology and new screen layouts is pushing the requirement for greater screen real estate.
If a meeting has many participants, it can be hard to see everyone on screen if the room only has a small display. Organisations may consider investing in bigger screens, dual screens or multiple screens – like the seamlessly interlocking range from MAXHUB.
Microsoft has added new features to 365 and Teams to support flexible and hybrid working. These include Front Row in Teams Rooms, where meeting participants can be seen in a video gallery along the bottom of the screen – leaving the centre for screen sharing and asynchronous collaboration. There’s also a Together Mode, which ‘seats’ people so everyone is equally visible.
Developments like Front Row make a stronger case for having bigger screens or multiple screens, to ‘fit everything in’ and make the viewing experience better.
6. Talent Recruitment and Retention
If employees can see an organisation is investing in Intelligent Meeting Room solutions, they are more likely to feel supported and do their job well. It’s another reason to resist the Great Resignation urge and to stay instead.
In similar thinking, talent looking for a fresh challenge is going to be more impressed by an organisation with a modern outlook, progressive and supportive culture, and cool tools to help them be their very best.
7. Flexibility Gives Decision-Makers Greater Confidence
The push towards including more things on a display for hybrid meetings is likely to drive a need for bigger screen real estate.
That could mean investing in a bigger screen for each room – or having integrated dual screens. It may also make it worth exploring options made possible by using multiple panels to create large and smart LED walls.
Having the means to start with small proof of concepts and build on them in a flexible way allows organisations to invest with greater confidence. They can bring in new tech, test it, analyse the data and use the findings to decide the next step.
Ready or not, the Intelligent Meeting Room is here. And getting smarter by the day.
