Some of the most important decisions happen inside conference rooms. It’s typically the heart of a business and hopefully where you celebrate many successes. That’s why it’s so important to get it right. While there are a million ways to make a conference room work, there is one way to ensure it’s a failure: get the display size wrong.
During our search for the perfect memes that illustrate everyday office life, we found a few that teach valuable lessons when it comes to improving your conference room experience and the AV technology you find in those spaces. Don’t let your meeting be the next meme inspiration.
1. Keep your technology simple.
The most important aspect of a small conference room is simplicity. A small conference room typically has dimensions no less than 12 x 15 feet and no larger than 14 x 18 feet. It is designed to seat 4 to 8 people comfortably. Every small conference room should have an appropriately sized monitor or projection system, a reliable audio setup that allows everyone to hear, and a quality conference phone.
In today's workplace, the most common challenge our clients say they face is the time it takes to get a meeting started. When they walk into a conference room, they want to begin immediately. Time is valuable, and the number of meetings spaces are often limited. Losing meeting time connecting to the room's technology is inefficient and frustrating.
Five Questions to Answer Before You Act
It's not the answers that enlighten but the questions. You've heard some version of that quote before and it's no different here. Knowing the questions to ask before overhauling the AV technology in your meeting space will set you up for success.
What is your ideal classroom set up? Any certain classroom audio visual technologies you think you need? Do you think there is a perfect classroom? University of North Carolina’s School of Media and Journalism’s Reese News Lab is trying to accomplish just that.
We caught up with Gary Kayye who has been teaching new media technologies, branding and advertising at UNC for ten years. He played a huge role in the creation of this prototype room. Kayye says “This classroom was designed with millennials and generation Z in mind, and they learn differently than anyone over the age of 30 or 35 years old. They are electronic collaborators.”
Huddle rooms. They are everywhere. Most businesses have at least one, if not 100. When we say huddle room, we are talking about 10x10 foot space (maybe a 10 x 12). It fits 2-5 people comfortably. Most of the time it has a little table or credenza.
"Our goal for clients in huddle rooms is simplicity," said Lori Cook Smarter Systems VP for Strategic and Global Accounts. She added, "This needs to be a space where a team can meet quickly and comfortably without any setup." So when you're thinking about technology ... keep it simple!
When I was in K-12 classrooms, we had rows of desks. They were facing the front of the class, where the focal point was a chalkboard. If I ever entered a classroom with a different setup, it felt refreshing, even inspiring. That's the idea behind flexible classrooms. Classrooms don't need a designated front, and they certainly don't need a chalkboard. Most modern classrooms have mobile technology making it easy to move the classroom around.