The number one complaint of folks who have to manage tech hardware tends to be all the wiring and configuration. A functional conference room will likely have at least three major systems that need to be installed, including the conference screens and video, a phone system, and a computer network connection setup. That creates a rat’s nest of wiring that ends up being placed willy-nilly as each component is added to the meeting room for functionality. There’s a better way to do business, especially when the employees are tripping on the very wires involved that are supposed to help them communicate.
There are the Best Practices and Reality
In an ideal design, the wiring for meeting room equipment or communications is never seen. It’s tucked away in the walls, routed through hidden channels, and it only appears briefly from the wall or table to connect to the equipment itself. However, in many cases, meeting equipment is bought after the fact versus integrated with the interior design and construction of the meeting room. So, no surprise, wires are run outside and there is awkward visibility. That doesn’t even include the problem with software configuration or training people to understand how to operate the equipment in the meeting itself. Keep it simple; there are enough challenges with meeting agendas. No one needs more reasons to avoid meetings.
Principle One of Elegance – Keep it Simple
The designs that tend to be the most powerful are those that ascribe to being the most simple in appearance. Steve Jobs understood this extremely well and required every Apple product to be as intuitive and simple as possible. It doesn’t compromise capability, a common myth often used as a complaint to defend the need for complexity. Instead,
Principle Two of Elegance – Make it Work Really Well
Of course, anything that doesn’t actually perform its expected function and only looks good on the outside gets immediately labeled as lipstick on a pig when discovered. So, consistent performance and quality function matter as well. And with meeting equipment, there are a lot of cheap-grade options that might seem to save a few dollars upfront but break or perform poorly within a few months of regular use.
Putting It All Together
The Neat Bar Pro model, for example, meets all the criteria of a streamlined master meeting equipment package. As mentioned above, the program you need must be simplistic in design and intuitive about how to use the tool. Secondly, it should be able to run multiple screens, audio, microphone audio pickups, and more for professional communication delivery in the meeting room it’s installed in. The key advantages come with such model designs, specifically crafted to provide surround-sound audio delivery while managing visuals in a synced manner. Folks who’ve used similar programs consistently note how real the tool delivers meeting communications, almost as if the people in the meeting remotely are in the room with everyone else.
While there are plenty of other choices out there for equipment, and digital meetings aren’t going to disappear, the key is finding a system that stays out of the way but delivers communication in an experiential manner. Many programs live up to that standard and push it higher. Folks will be hard-pressed to find better equipment that can also consistently handle commercial usage and frequency.