The Intelligent Meeting Room is Coming
Ascentae Sales Director John Vickerage shares his thoughts and reflections from ISE 2022
Now the dust has settled, and we’ve had some time to consider what we have seen, I think it’s fair to say that this year’s ISE was probably the most enjoyable and exciting I can remember.
Of course, we all enjoyed the new venue, which made the show much easier to navigate and seemed to mitigate “ISE time” (where everyone is at least 30 mins late to meetings). It was also impossible not to enjoy the beautiful May weather in Barcelona. Sipping sangria in the evening sunshine with patatas bravas (mandatory for a tapas meal, as I understand it) winging their way to you is always going to make my top 10 things to do during business travel.
However, these things did not contribute to the enjoyment and excitement that I was experiencing.
Here at Ascentae, we have spent the last year talking about intelligent meeting rooms and workplace experience & analysis. This strategy has been driven by hybrid and agile activity accelerated by the pandemic.
Intelligent meeting rooms have characteristics that fall into three categories:
Design
They are intelligently designed, featuring furniture and technology solutions suitable for the activities that take place within. They have an easy-to-use UC solution, capable of supporting the UC platforms the company and staff wish to use. The screen may or may not be interactive, but it is the right size, and suitable for the audience to see remote participants and content. Collaboration technology is available as required. If preferred, a drywipe whiteboard is accessible to room users and viewable by remote participants. Room microphones pick up users consistently and UC cameras can automatically zoom-in on in-room participants. Intelligent rooms should be bookable based on room style, capacity, functionality and appropriate technology.
Feedback or Analysis
Intelligent meeting rooms can provide feedback regarding their usage. No shows, time spent occupied, quantity of room users, UC system platform and other applications used, possibly even the position of room users and the success of the experience. Analytics should be accessible and easy to interpret.
Management
Technology in meeting rooms should be easy to manage and update. Multiple devices may be deployed across numerous locations, but they should be managed using a common interface to seamlessly deliver system updates.
The Future is Now
The intelligent meeting room comprising all of these characteristics doesn’t exist yet, but it’s coming. ISE 2022 showed the progress being made by multiple vendors in this space. UC hardware vendors are thinking differently about how camera and audio technology can deliver a richer meeting room experience and work together to complement each other. Vendors such as ReMago, Huddly, Nureva and MAXHUB showcased solutions providing flexibility and accessibility of UC platforms and other applications to improve meeting collaboration. Finally, multiple vendors showed how data can be gathered and presented as a dashboard in tools such as Power BI.
The good news for end-users is that the technology that will ultimately deliver this experience is available and in stock now.
To learn more about the Intelligent meeting room click here or contact Ascentae directly on 0800 3688074 or via email at [email protected].
Alternatively you can keep up to date with all the latest news and updates on the Ascentae LinkedIn page
