On Workplace 3.X: Extron

Joe da Silva, Vice President of Marketing at Extron
(Image credit: Future)

AVT Question: Please share insight and best practices for ensuring meeting equity for all employees and how to deliver the best collaboration experience regardless of location.

Thought Leader: Joe da Silva, Vice President of Marketing at Extron

Organizations are continually rethinking how to leverage their physical space and technology to best empower their workforce. As hybrid work models are adopted, maintaining excellent collaboration, regardless of where employees are, remains paramount. Hybrid employees need access to familiar, job-specific tools regardless of their physical location. They need to be seen and heard in meetings without technology getting in the way.

These new rooms must be built for collaboration—not only within the room but across distances." —Joe da Silva, Vice President of Marketing at Extron

There is a crucial human connection that must be maintained across distances and among a broad spectrum of technologies. Extron recognizes the importance of this connection and works with companies to make sure our enterprise technologies are in place to facilitate collaboration in every space.

Traditional spaces are designed around how many seats can fit within the space. In these rooms, essential AV infrastructure included the basics: audio and video sources, projectors, displays, and control interfaces, just to name a few. For the most part, these rooms were designed to host any type of meeting for any group.

Today’s hybrid offices have fewer day-to-day employees in the office, so we have the freedom to rethink these traditional spaces to targeted, feature-rich conference rooms based on, among other things, job function.

These new rooms must be built for collaboration—not only within the room but across distances. These spaces can be smaller and fitted with AV technology focused on the specific needs of the user or group. Here, the human connection comes into play, as individual needs are met with meeting experiences tailored to specific job duties, with tools available in each room that connect people to their work, presentations, and peers on a whole new level.

Cindy Davis
Brand and content director of AV Technology

Cindy Davis is the brand and content director of AV Technology. Davis enjoys exploring the ethos of experiential spaces as well as diving deep into the complex topics that shape the AV/IT industry. In 2012, the TechDecisions brand of content sites she developed for EH Publishing was named one of “10 Great Business Media Websites” by B2B Media Business magazine. For more than 20 years, Davis has developed and delivered multiplatform content for AV/IT B2B and consumer electronics B2C publications, associations, and companies. From 2000 to 2008, Davis was the publisher and editor-in-chief of Electronic House. From 2009 to present, as the principal of CustomMedia.Co, Davis developed content plans and delivered content for associations such as IEEE Standards Association and AVIXA, content marketing for Future Plc, and numerous AV/IT companies. Davis was a critical member of the AVT editorial team when the title won the “Best Media Brand” laurel in the 2018 SIIA Jesse H. Neal Awards. A lifelong New Englander, Davis makes time for coastal hikes with her husband, Gary, and their Vizsla rescue, Dixie, sailing on one of Gloucester’s great schooners, and sampling local IPAs.