Category: Meeting Room Tips

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What Employees hate most about your Conference Room Technology

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In this day and age, avoiding technology in the workplace is like trying to avoid dairy at an ice cream shop. The best we can hope for is to harness technology and control its use.   Controlling the use of technology in the conference room is no different.
As technology becomes more pervasive in our personal and work lives, here is a look at some of the biggest reasons why employees my actually hate the conference room technology that was intended to make life easier.

  1. Constant Dependence on Technology. The number one reason employees might dislike technology is the very fact that we are dependent on it to get the job done. How many times has everybody gone home early because the computers went down? How many meetings have been called off because of technical difficulty?
  2. Crippling Effects of Technology Malfunctions. Along the lines of point #1, employees hate attending a meeting where the wireless presentation equipment isn’t working, or where a computer has crashed. These meetings become extremely unproductive while all attendees wait for a solution to be reached.
  3. Work Time Infringing on Personal Time. It used to be that when you were at work, you were at work, and when you were at home, you were at home. This is not always the case now with modern technology. There is often an expectation for employees to “call in” to important meetings, even if you are on vacation. This can start to feel rather restrictive.
  4. Limited Interpersonal Communication. There are many reports and studies on how rare personal conversations are becoming. Have you ever sat in a conference room waiting for a meeting to start and nobody is talking to each other because they are all staring at their phones? Digital messaging can be harmful to an employees ability to verbally communicate.
  5. Emails, Texts and Other Interruptions Affect the Productivity of Meetings. It can be very frustrating, as a meeting attendee, to be forced to wait for the presenter to stop and answer a text, or a phone. It is equally as frustrating when a presenter has to deal with attendees who are more interested in their phones than what is being presented.
  6. Assimilation to New Technology. Employees are often required to upgrade to new devices that are compatible with new technology at work and in the conference room. There is always an assimilation learning curve with any new device. Employees, especially those that are not as technologically savvy, can get very frustrated when learning a new device.
  7. Cost of Required Technology. Similar to point #6, Employees can get frustrated with the cost of required upgrades. That is, unless the employer is willing to foot the bill.
  8. Technology Taking Over Jobs. In today’s workplace, many jobs are being automated and employees are being replaced by technology. This can create a general resentment toward technology in the workplace. Current conference room technology also allows for more remote working arrangements and can dramatically widen the talent pool.
  9. Excessive Monitoring Inhibits Creativity. Many employers are choosing to implement monitoring devices and software to keep closer tabs on employee productivity and other activities. Some of the most creative employees feel that this type of rigid monitoring of activity can stifle the free spirit of creativity and innovation.
  10. Microphone Feedback and Distortions. Last, but not least, one of the most hated technology problems in the conference room is the microphone. From ear-splitting feedback, to conference phones that can’t quite pick up every voice in the room, the microphone can be a very frustrating piece of technology.

While it is impossible to solve every problem that employees have, there are a few things companies can do to help their workforce feel more comfortable about new technology.
First would be to create a progressive environment which embraces change and subsequently embraces technology. Second, plan and budget for regular technology upgrades. This keeps your equipment compatible, and will reinforce your commitment to staying technologically current. Lastly, take the time to train employees on new technologies, and allow for open dialogue about what will help the most.

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Is your Conference Room Tech-Savvy Enough?

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Some businesses treat their conference room as a showroom of talent and success. Some treat the conference room as a blank canvas for ideas. However you organize your conference room, how does technology play into it?
Sure, cutting edge technology can take your conference room from being a Toyota to a Ferrari. However, it’s all about HOW and WHY you and your colleagues use it. The hells and whistles can only do so much if most people don’t know how to best work with them and why they are necessary.
You should look at how technology, both hardware and software, can enhance meeting experiences. We know that meetings are meant to bring people together. The tools available are meant to make meetings run more efficiently and effectively. Technology is a means to greater collaboration and knowledge management, while enhancing your skills, your business and the quality of work being produced.
Is your conference room “smart?” Here are some ways to optimize it!

  1. Benchmarking. IT managers get approached by sales people all of the time about new products and services. You don’t have to take what comes your way. Evaluate the landscape, be aware of trends for both hardware and software and look at how your peer businesses are working. This will help you identify and create the ideal conference room experience for your company and begin to word towards that.
  2. Auditing. Just like with benchmarking, you need to evaluate your current technology and IT infrastructure. Is there room for improvement with upgrades? Do you require any system overhauls? Take what you’ve learned from your benchmarking and take stock in your equipment and software. Conducting an audit of how your tools are operating and being used by employees will help you prioritize the needs versus the wants for enhanced conference room technology and experience.
  3. Road-mapping. Comparing the needs and wants is just a start. Now, it’s time to be realistic. Working with your fellow C-Suite members and executives, you’ll need to see how any conference room enhancements will benefit the company’s strategies and goals. Can the costs for upgrades be justified? You may have to spread out enhancements over time. Create a roadmap in line with your company’s strategy to show when and where technology can be useful and effective to reach targeted goals.
  4. Training. Tools are only are good as the people who use them. Want your conference room to be “tech-savvy?” You’ll need to train your colleagues on how to use any new or upgraded technology. By empowering and supporting them, you can create a user-friendly, proactive environment. It can change the work culture in how people do business and communicate. It’s not just the equipment that will make the conference room experience; it’s also the people.

The conference room environment can speak volumes for both internal and external parties. Having the latest and greatest equipment isn’t enough. Make your meeting rooms work smarter, not harder for your business. Bring people and technology together.

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5 Ways to Save Time When Making an Instant Presentation

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Time is a precious commodity in the workplace. We want to get down to business, complete projects and tasks and do it all as quickly and efficiently as possible. Booming conference technology, like the wireless presentation, can help to alleviate “time suck” or obstacles in productivity.
Here are 5 ways to help you save time with wireless presentations:
1. Centralization: Having a centralized location, like a Hive, can connect people from different platforms through a single access point. There’s limited need to shift calendars and reschedule based on location. You can eliminate the need for travel of remote team members and guests. Everyone can be a part of the meeting.
In addition, your IT team can manage wireless presentations from a single dashboard. It allows them to monitor activity from their desks, rather than going from room to room or waiting on a help desk ticket. To have a central management point, your team is able to be proactive in assisting employees and meeting company expectations.
2. Coordination: Wireless presentations promote greater collaboration. However, with any team activity, there needs to be some coordination. By organizing your presentation as to who will share content from where, it’ll help your meeting run smoother and stay on task and time. You should also work with your remote colleagues and guests to ensure they know how to access the presentation, and how they can contribute. During your presentation, you want the focus to be on your content and message, and not on logistics.
3. Capitalization: Wireless presentations allow you to bring together subject matter experts who can really speak to the issues and topics at hand. Use the wireless presentation to allow them to share their content from their devices to deepen conversations and really hone in on where the opportunities are. Your employees don’t want to go to meetings to sit in a room and make small take. They want takeaways and insights from those in the know. Really work the meeting and the attendees to create a productive session and save time with focus. Carpe diem (and the meeting!)
4. Creativity: The instant nature of wireless presentations gives access to content and people in about 10 seconds. This opens the door to make creative use of everyone’s time. Your wireless presentations need to be engaging and team building, while respecting everyone’s time and efforts. So, find ways to promote time efficiency to begin and end meetings as scheduled.
5. Communication: Conference room technology like wireless presentations have changed the way we do business and how we communicate. They break down silos with enhanced audio and visual connectivity to create real-time experiences. Wireless presentations allow for immediate responses and interaction. Bringing people together from different areas quickly to find solutions promote proactivity over reaction. That helps to save time, not just in a meeting, but for the business overall.
Meetings can break up your workflow. How you manage them will tell if those meetings will benefit or become an obstacle to your work. Wireless presentations are instant means to bring people together and create value. However, time has respected and to be on everyone’s side for your team to be successful.
What tips and tricks have you used to save time in meetings? Let us know how wireless presentations have helped you!

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Wireless Projection vs Traditional AV Installation: Which One Do You Pick?

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There’s no doubt that the evolution of smartphones, tablets, and laptops has forced us to examine new ways to adapt old conference room technologies. But before we can draw a conclusion as to what exactly has changed with regards to conference room technology and AV equipment, let us first define the characteristics of Traditional AV versus Wireless Projection.
Traditional Audio Visual
Traditionally, when we gather for a meeting or presentation, attendees sit quietly in their seats and listen to a presentation from a speaker who is tethered by cords and wires to one location in the room.
Traditional AV limits the presenter’s options and forces a static presentation, with little opportunity to adapt and change the presentation on-the-fly. This setting limits perspective, audience contribution, and collaboration among attendees.
With traditional audio visual setups, wires and cords only add complexity to the presentation and can be messy. This mess is further complicated when multiple presenters enter the equation. Presenters sharing the same stage must share plugs and cords which creates delays and potential technical difficulties.
Connecting Your Laptop to the TV or Projector Wirelessly
In the past, laptops and other devices came with many different connection portals (VGA, DVI, HDMI, USB, etc…) Today’s smaller devices have minimal connection points, and some have NO connection points at all. This new design is encouraging the broader use of wireless presentation connections, which is much simpler than carrying around myriad adapters to fit all of the traditional AV connectors.
The evolution of mobile technology and wireless connectivity are fostering the growing expectation that employees Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) to today’s conference rooms. Wireless presentation technology enables this new approach to meeting collaboration by allowing attendees to plug in to the meeting wirelessly and participate in ways that had previously only been imagined.
From screenshare applications to HDMI wireless projection to software that creates digital forums for idea sharing, this is the face of today’s wireless presentation technology. The only drawbacks seem to be concerns about security, scalability, and some platforms’ inability to support multiple presenters and devices.
Conclusion
We have come a long way with conference room technology in the last several years. We are at a crossroads right now where businesses that don’t adapt and invest in the latest technologies will be left behind. If your conference room is stuck with traditional AV equipment and outdated audio visual setups, you will be at a disadvantage when presenters show up with new devices that won’t plug in to your old cables. You will also be missing out on the efficiencies of collaboration made possible by today’s wireless presentation technology.
 

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Are Your Meetings Productive Enough?

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Calling a business meeting shouldn’t be met with sighs and groans from your team. Any sense of time being wasted can impact their levels of efficiencies and performance. Just like you, your team has their set priorities and they want to be as productive as possible while at work.
As a leader, your meetings should be informative and engaging. They should present opportunities to have two-way conversations and exchange ideas. Your team members work everyday to support the company in reaching its goals. Your work should also be to support them.
How to Ensure Your Meetings are Productive:

  1. Purpose: Any gathering should have a purpose, whether it’s to share company updates or to check in with individuals to see how they are doing. That purpose should be clear to you as well as each team member. It will set the right expectation for when you do meet.
  2. Agenda. An agenda is an outline of what should be covered during a meeting. Again, you want to set the right expectation. You and your team should be as prepared as they can be. Presenting an agenda before the meeting gives everyone a chance to put together feedback and questions. It helps to make meetings run smoothly and more efficiently.
  3. Time. If your meeting is scheduled for 30 minutes, keep it to 30 minutes. Team members have set roles, responsibilities and priorities that they need to attend. It’s very easy for a meeting to become a distraction to their workflow. As much as your team should respect your time, you should also respect theirs. Remind yourself of the meeting’s purpose and follow your agenda. If the discussion goes off on a tangent, reel it back in! If you see you’re going over your scheduled time, it may be necessary to schedule another meeting. Check with the team. There are a few things we do at Ubiq, we ensure that wireless presentation is used so we don’t have to waste time with cables. Secondly, the organizer of the meeting would integrate their calendar to ensure that the meeting is run on time, and won’t go overtime.
  4. Action. Your meetings should be conversations. There’s nothing worse than leaving a meeting confused and not knowing what to do. As you share feedback and ideas, you should look at what is meant to come out of the meeting. Work with the team to create actionable items as “next steps.” Reinforce the purpose and make sure everyone is clear and is aligned with who should work on what items. We use Asana to document all actionable items, and make sure that everyone is accountable for their tasks.
  5. Follow-Up. The follow-up is just as important as the meeting itself. Your meeting may be over, but there is still more to do. Recap your discussion in an email. This includes the purpose, the agenda, anything missed and scheduling a next session, if necessary. In addition to the recap, meet with team members individually and as a group to check on progress on those actionable items, gauge their sense of motivation and performance and ask them questions. Your meeting doesn’t end conversations. You need to continue to sincerely engage with the team, as it will demonstrate how productive your meetings are.

Meetings are meant to be informative and conversational. Whether it’s a presentation or a project status check, you and your team should work together to make sure goals and expectations are being met. Clear communication, sharing and follow-up will help teams stay on task and be motivated. That motivation will increase productivity and performance across the team, and hopefully across the company.

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How to Overcome Meeting Distractions

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Anything can happen when you have a meeting in the workplace. Distractions abound and if you aren’t prepared for them, you can find yourself losing composure and your meeting could lose its effectiveness. Being prepared is the key to successfully navigating any distraction. If you are confident in your objective and you know your material, you can make it through almost any distraction. Here are some common distractions that can happen during a work meeting and ways you can overcome.
1) Your Computer Crashes. If your audience recognizes what has happened, you can play along with humor and attempt to go through the material without your computer. If they don’t realize what has happened, you might consider playing it cool and carry on as if you never intended to use your computer. Your ability to adapt on the fly has a great deal to do with how prepared you are. If you are really prepared, you may have already saved your presentation in the cloud, or on a thumb drive, and you probably arrived to the meeting room a little early so you could work through any such distractions before the meeting starts.
2) Connectivity Issues. What should you do if you can’t find the right connector for your projector? Again, be prepared – make sure to do several test runs before your presentation. There’s no need for carrying multiple adapters when the meeting room provides wireless presentation. This ensures professionalism, reliability and predictability to all presentations.
3) Disturbing Background Noise. Maybe there is construction work going on outside the conference room, or maybe there is a thunderstorm going on outside. Watch your audience for their reaction to the distraction. If they are ignoring the distraction, so should you. If your audience is visibly distracted, you can briefly acknowledge the distraction and move on. If the distraction is bad enough, you might consider switching locations, or attempting to stop the distraction until the meeting is over.
4) Somebody’s Cell Phone Rings. Our society puts a lot of pressure on us to obey certain cell phone rules of etiquette. Unfortunately, not all adhere to this etiquette. If a phone rings during your meeting and the offender does not silence it immediately, you have a couple of options for handling it. You can acknowledge what happened with humor and hope that the offender got the message, or you can stop the presentation and wait for the offender to silence the phone or leave the room. The best solution would be to ask all meeting participants to silence their phones before the meeting starts, thus setting the tone and expectation that such disruptions won’t be tolerated.
5) Meeting Participants Pay more Attention to their Phones than to the Presenter. It is common in our society for people to be constantly looking at their smartphones. Smartphones are great and definitely can increase productivity. However, if facebook and twitter are distracting your meeting attendees from active participation in the meeting, you might be tempted to ban cell phones at all meetings. As this is not realistic, you are better off setting the expectation that phones be used ONLY for matters pertaining to the meeting. If you discover offenders during the meeting, consider drawing attention to them in a light-hearted manner. Nobody likes to be pointed out as inattentive.

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The importance of BYOD to the Conference Rooms

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Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is starting to become the norm for meetings and work session. As companies begin to provide access to multiple devices, like smartphones, tablets and laptops, these tools should promote productivity and the changing styles of communication. Conference room technology needs to support those changes across device type, location and platforms.
How to prepare for a BYOD strategy?

  • Create a company-wide BYOD policy. Determine if your company’s BYOD will involve employees bringing their personal devices or using devices issued by your organization. Outline what security measures will be put into place. This may include requiring passcode protection on personal devices. detailing which programs and apps will be permitted or granting access to third-parties (clients, vendors, etc.)
  • Get wireless/upgrade your wireless. If you’re not wireless, get there! If you are wireless, make sure you are up to standard. Ensure that your Wi-Fi network provides the optimal speed and connections to support multiple devices and platforms, especially for audio and video communication, for internal and external team members.
    • With Ubiq, we make a P2P connection over Wi-Fi between the user’s device and the Ubiq’s hive to ensure that no one else can view the information. This makes it both secure, and easy for your users.
      Change the culture. Empower your employees to move away from the desktop. Show them how they can perform the same tasks on other devices, especially tablets and smartphones. Encourage employees to work away from their desk and to be more collaborative with their co-workers. Have opportunities for work sessions in a conference, create independent workspace (i.e. “genius bar” or “café”) and or promote working outside of the office.
  • Organize Your IT. Your IT team needs to be able to provide proper support to support any new software and hardware being implemented to support your company’s BYOD strategy. You may need to add resources based on skillset and experience with tools, training and network connections. You’ll also need a help desk that can process and filter support tickets.

How to update your conference room technology to support BYOD?

  • Hardware. Review your current conference room set-up and how it is being used. If you are working with mostly internal employees, look at how the equipment works with different devices, especially smartphones and tablets. You will need to determine how the different hardware will work in connecting with multiple users for any teleconferencing or video conferencing with clients and vendors.
  • Software. Software on BYOD devices should be similar across platforms ensure all team members can connect and share content. If your BYOD policy does not permit certain software usage, review what current software will meet conference room needs. If there is anything missing, it may be time to invest in new software tools.
  • Communication. For meetings, all invited parties need to be able to access the conference from various locations. If any members are working remotely, their devices need to have the capability to connect with the home office’s conference room or line through audio and/or video. In line with wireless presentations and networks, the connections need to be stable to allow for clear communication exchange.

The goal of BYOD should be provide both flexibility and empowerment to employees while promoting productivity to reach assigned targets and goals as a team. To do that, there needs to be a clear policy with the proper tools to support all.

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5 Ways to Manage Virtual Teams With Your Conference Room Technology

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Managing virtual teams and working in different time zones has become increasingly popular. It’s estimated that around 10 million people work in this way and IT professionals in particular have been a big part of this shift in work culture.
More companies than ever before are outsourcing their IT projects across the world, whether for cost-saving purposes, or for the need to acquire specific expertise.
Managing virtual teams across time zones is not without its pitfalls though. If you are responsible for people working across multiple time zones, here are some handy hints that should help you work more efficiently:

  • Keep everybody up to date – It’s easy for virtual employees to feel disconnected from their team especially when most of the team members are based in a different location. Keep teams in the loop with regular, scheduled virtual meetings by utilizing conference room technology such as wireless presentation, remote presentation, or videoconferencing.
  • Set clear expectations – This applies especially to deadlines. Make it clear to your team members that the task needs to be completed by a specific time zone. For example, 4pm PST or 2pm EST. Setting clear expectations will help eliminate any complications and misunderstanding.
  • Have all teams work from the same schedule – If most of your team members are based in the Pacific time zone, it would make it easier if your calendar is changed to the Pacific time-zone to accommodate their schedule. Additionally, placing all files on the corporate network or a shared drive would help team work collaboratively and efficiently.
  • Unified Communication is key – Integrating enterprise communication such as instant messaging, data sharing, or even desktop sharing can help teams stay connected and gets responses in real-time.
  • Get everybody together in the same room – If it is an on-going project, it might be valuable to bring the whole team together in one central location so different time zones wouldn’t be an issue

You will have noticed there is one common theme with all these suggestions: ‘communication’. Effective communication is the key to successfully managing virtual teams. Take a closer look at what Ubiq’s wireless presentation technology can do for you.

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How to Present Wirelessly With Ease

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When preparing for your big presentation that you’ve been preparing for weeks, the last thing that you want to have to worry about is fumbling around to get your AV equipment set up right before you get ready to give your big presentation. Everyone’s been there before – where you have a big presentation to give but for some reason, you can’t get your laptop connected to the conference room tv, or you forgot to bring the HDMI adaptor for your MacBook, or the channel needs to be changed on the projector to the right channel to be able to view what’s on your laptop screen on the projection screen. Well, all of that is about to be a thing of the past now that the conference room technology to wireless projection is becoming mainstream.
It’s 2015, and we shouldn’t have to go through the agonizing process of setting up our AV equipment every time we give a presentation. When giving wireless presentations, you shouldn’t have to struggle with getting cords untangled, trying to figure out where to plug the cord into the back of a TV, have IT to get the audio visual setup for you, connect your laptop with a cord to projectors or monitors, or use adaptors. Every technological device should just connect to every other technological device wirelessly, and connect with ease!
Although presenting using cords is a daily obstacle, it doesn’t have to be. Using wireless presentation solutions will help save you time, so you can spend your time doing what you’re actually up at the front of the room waiting to do… give your presentation! In addition to eliminating many of the technological obstacles to presenting by implementing wireless presentation technology in your office or boardroom, you will also save time from having to fumble around with setting up the technology, become more focused on preparing to give your presentation, and appear more professional in front of your audience.
Furthermore, if you have a large office with for example 10 different meeting rooms, think about all of the people who work in your office who struggle with the same challenges as you do on a daily basis by having to go through the process of always having to struggle playing around with cords to connect their laptop to the monitor or TV before every meeting. In addition, imagine all of the clients who come into your office to meet with your employees, who have to sit around and wait for the AV to connect and how impatient they get while waiting to be presented to. We’ve all been there before – wishing that the AV problem would just fix itself so the presentation can get underway before we get distracted any further. Imagine how much more tech savvy your business will be, and how much more efficient and productive your office will be by not being slowed down by having to fumble around with AV technology from 10 years ago. To learn more about how you can present wirelessly with ease contact us by clicking the link below.