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| P2P Magazine | Autumn 2014
01732 759725
MEETING ROOMS
Upgrading meeting room
technology: where to start?
Enhanced collaboration within
businesses has many benefits,
from cost savings and increased
productivity to more effective use
of resources and better operational
efficiency. Greater awareness of these
benefits is encouraging businesses
of all sizes to upgrade technology,
equipment and working practices
to support collaborative working
between employees regardless
of whether they are in the office,
travelling or at a customer site.
From IT and office technology
to mobile and remote working,
organisations are adjusting their
strategies to support and enable more
collaborative, interactive working.
Inevitably, this is having an impact on the
meeting room – arguably the area of the
office that has most to gain from new
collaboration tools.
Meeting rooms host internal and
external meetings, training sessions and
conference calls and, as a result, must be
able to satisfy a range of requirements,
from viewing presentations to interactive
sessions in which several people share a
presentation screen simultaneously. In
order to accommodate these evolving
needs, many businesses will have to
upgrade their existing meeting room
technology.
What, then, are some of the factors
that an FM or IT department should
consider when planning such an
upgrade?
Fit for purpose
First, decision-makers need to look at
what the room will be used for and
who will be using the technology. The
larger the organisation, the more specific
functions a meeting room may have. As
a result, any presentation hardware and
software needs to be fit for purpose.
Can the technology effectively handle
video calls? Can more than one person
use the shared screen at the same time?
The latter might be of great importance
if the meeting room is used mainly
for brainstorming where a number of
employees share and compare content
on the same screen simultaneously. For
internal and external meetings, there may
be a requirement to access information
hosted on the company network or even
use the Internet.
This brings the issue of security to the
fore, as unsecured technology can lead
to data breaches or loss of intellectual
property. Selected technology should
feature appropriate security measures
to ensure that visitors and staff cannot
access information or material they are
not authorised to see.
Collaboration technology
Second, the technology needs to meet
the requirements of the organisation and
its employees. More than that, it should
be relatively easy to maintain from an IT
perspective.
A large organisation may have dozens
of meeting rooms, each featuring a
collaboration solution of its own. Each
piece of equipment must be kept up-
to-date in terms of firmware upgrades,
security patches and so on. The ease
with which this can be done should be a
central factor in technology selection. It is
not practical or a good use of time for an
JanWillem Brands, general manager collaboration, Barco, outlines some
of the factors to consider when upgrading meeting room equipment
JanWillem
Brands,
general manager
collaboration,
Barco
IT department to perform these upgrades
by walking from meeting room to
meeting room. Meeting room technology
should have the capability to be updated
automatically or from a central location
using an app or web-enabled interface.
Any technology should also function
in such a way that minimum assistance is
required from the IT department in order
for it to work properly.
The user experience
Third, and just as importantly, meeting
room technology should be easy to
use from an end user perspective. From
logging into the company network to
connecting a laptop, user-friendliness is
key. In addition to saving valuable time
and allowing a meeting to flow seamlessly,
ease of use ensures that whoever is in the
room – client, prospect, consultant – can
make maximum use of all features and
functionality.
All devices welcome
Lastly, because so many different people,
from staff to potential customers, will
make use of your meeting rooms, any
technology must support a wide range
of devices, including laptops, tablets
and smartphones, as well as operating
systems, like iOS, Android andWindows.
An iPad should be able to connect to
a collaboration system as easily as a
Windows laptop, preferably without the
use of cables or connectors. This is where
wireless presentation technology, such as
Barco ClickShare, is especially beneficial as
it allows all devices regardless of operating
system to show and share data on the
presentation screen.
There are a number of issues to be
considered when upgrading current
collaboration or meeting room software,
apart from concerns around ever-
important budgets. However, with the
growing need for technology that enables
and supports the long-term objectives of
collaboration, each factor can shed light
on the best option to choose.
For further information, please visit
Barco’s website at:
/
News/Tag/collaboration.aspx
