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3 Big Meeting Room Technology Trends to Modernize Your Meeting Room

Merge AudioVisual

Updated: Dec 13, 2022


Young man in front of a monitor having a virtual meeting

The conceptions of meeting rooms and settings have transformed. Whereas a "meeting room" is used to simply refer to any venue with a large table and a full set of chairs, the concept has evolved to encompass all of the infrastructure and technologies that enable employees to meet and discuss.


And, increasingly, that "room" may be entirely virtual, with workers communicating via internet videoconferencing capabilities.


Modernising conference rooms has become a major goal for IT teams all over the world in the last few years. Reimagining the meeting experience for today's workforce entailed creating adaptable meeting and collaboration solutions for employees who increasingly work remotely on their own devices, prefer interactive video-based interactions, and expect technology to just work.


A number of common trends in upgrading meeting and collaboration rooms have evolved, influenced primarily by the changing ways teams collaborate. According to Gartner, an independent analyst group, firms all across the world have comparable techniques for modernising meeting venues, which include the following:


- Creating more flexible meeting infrastructure to accommodate variable equipment and space requirements

- Reducing the usage of expensive and difficult-to-manage custom-built multi-vendor conference room solutions

- Developing reliable solutions and services that can adapt to changing consumer needs over time


Furthermore, meeting and collaboration technologies continue to increase their capabilities, allowing firms to create meeting solutions that provide richer, more integrated experiences for both in-room and remote personnel. As a result, modern meeting rooms often include:


- Facility scheduling that is intelligent

- Videoconferencing through the cloud

- Wireless connectivity allows you to share content from any device.

- 360° and PTZ cameras, whiteboards, document cameras, and remote screencasting are all included in the integrated displays.

- Meeting recording software


Of course, while each organization's requirements for modernising meeting spaces and systems are unique, an increasing number of IT leaders are turning to comparable solutions to assist update meeting solutions and overcome productivity challenges that add up quickly at scale. Three significant themes are emerging in efforts to modernise meeting venues and collaboration tools, as well as the experiences that can be created when they all operate together.


Three Major Trends in Meeting Room Resource Modernisation


1. Smarter conference rooms


At some point, everyone has had to do the conference room shuffle. While many meetings are arranged ahead of time, they occasionally run late or do not take as long as expected. Other meetings are spontaneous, with individuals jumping into whatever venue is available. Even with corporate calendaring tools and meeting room scheduling solutions, it's a fact that makes finding and booking acceptable meeting places fairly difficult.


The good news is that what was once formerly standalone conferencing and collaboration technologies are now becoming smarter, integrated systems. Smarter, integrated meeting resources make meeting spaces as flexible and efficient as your people, automatically showcasing resources as available if meetings don't happen or end early, and reducing the need for end-user interaction with meeting technologies by automatically starting and recording video conferences as scheduled.


Instead of struggling with messes of cables and switching inputs on in-room screens, modern meeting room arrangements increasingly enable participants to connect to technologies remotely. Newer tools can even incorporate the physical characteristics of the space, such as lighting, window shades, and HVAC, into your meeting system. And, in addition to delivering new meeting performance data that can help your business get more out of meetings at scale over time, workplace analytics can help your team optimise resource planning.


2. Flexible meeting spaces and huddle rooms


The number of private rooms and office spaces is reducing, while open office plans and concepts such as hot-desking are rapidly becoming the new norm. These trends have prompted corporate executives to think outside the box when it comes to meeting and collaboration room design, equipment, and allocation.


Although fully equipped conference rooms are still in high demand, most teams do not require all of the infrastructure and services that premium meeting spaces provide. Modern meeting methods place a premium on the characteristics that are most frequently employed to outfit huddle rooms and other unconventional meeting spaces.


These solutions keep things simple and perform consistently and predictably without a lot of user training. They're also simple to set up and may be quickly distributed to other locations as demand shifts.


3. Everything is clouded.


Local setup should not be required when deploying a new device. Instead, IT administrators are turning to cloud services, which allow them to plug in a device, have it work, and then push any upgrades out to various rooms and settings at once. It's a godsend for teams pressed for time and resources for other mission-critical activities.


Furthermore, cloud-based meeting solutions offer even more interoperability, allowing for adaptations that improve the user experience for your organization's unique requirements.


Meetings Aren't Just Held in Conference Rooms


Meetings don't necessarily have to take place in a conference room, and they don't have to end there either (or when the video conference ends).


Meeting recordings can now extend cooperation beyond the meeting by allowing individuals who couldn't present in person to view and participate later, offering a point of reference and context for ongoing work and even new contributors, and much more. Employees can easily record their meetings by simply pushing record on the video conferencing equipment they now use.


And they've already started. In a recent study of Project Management Institute (PMI) members, more than a third admitted to using video conferencing software to record meetings.


This creates a problem you may not be aware of.


Can you be sure that the meetings your staff are currently recording, which contain important business information, aren't falling into the wrong hands, either inside or outside your organisation?


The issue is that, unlike other types of files, an mp4 cannot be password protected. Even file sharing services like Dropbox and Google Drive allow the right persons to grab and share private meeting recordings with anyone. Internal meeting recordings may even be shared with the public on YouTube, the site where everyone goes to share videos. A fast search on YouTube for "internal meeting" yields 883,00 results as of this writing. Even if we assume that 95% of them are relatively safe, that leaves 44,000 videos that were most likely not intended for public consumption.


Although it is hoped that no confidential information from your company has been made public, the possibility should give any company concern.


The Solution: Using a Secure Video Management System to Automate Meeting Capture


A meeting recording management system helps businesses manage new security threats that develop when employees have limited alternatives for storing and sharing internal films. A video management system works with your video conferencing technology to collect conference recordings automatically, upload them to a secure online video library, and transcribe everything said in the meeting so that the contents of your recordings can be searched. It also gives administrators fine-grained permissions management controls, ensuring that only the right persons may see meeting recordings.


Furthermore, businesses are increasingly employing meeting modernization strategies to improve productivity and cooperation, such as automating meeting capture at scale.


However, pushing the record button is insufficient. To get the most out of these valuable knowledge assets, your employees must be able to easily access, search, and share those recordings, as well as watch and interact with them on any device.


BlueJeans is an example of a videoconferencing solution that delivers secure meetings through standards-based encryption, ensuring the highest levels of confidentiality and security for all your business communications, regardless of hardware environment.


BlueJeans official distributor in New Zealand is Merge AudioVisual. Merge AudioVisual has years of experience ensuring that our clients have the greatest and most up-to-date communications and digital tools, as well as the assurance that their business and people can communicate at all times. To safeguard your company's digital future, contact Merge AV today.




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