I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but no one is using those fancy new features that you spent millions of dollars to develop. This is, of course, hyperbole, but it opens up a discussion about one of the biggest issues plaguing the videoconferencing industry.

Let me paint you a picture. You are part of the AV buying team for your company, tasked with improving collaboration in this new age of work. You have to solve challenges like bowling alley views, disconnected teams, and the social awkwardness of holding a meeting across a screen. Naturally, you look for products that have the most innovative new features because the old gear just isn't cutting it anymore.

Quick, Shut It Off

Now let me paint you another picture. I'm an employee at a company that just deployed a new fleet of videoconferencing products. I join my meeting and jump right into the conversation. I’m not super familiar with the technology, so I just consider it a success that I was able to get it started without any hiccups.

On the other side of the call, a few of my colleagues join from a different conference room. The camera has some sort of automatic framing that zooms in on them, but they quickly notice the framing is switching around seemingly with no pattern and they worry it's distracting. A teammate from that conference room quickly fumbles through the touchpanel to turn it off. Phew, now the meeting can actually begin.

That story I just told is not just AV lore that I made up to scare you. That recently happened to me—and it’s not the first time. In fact, I can’t count on two hands how many times I have run into this issue since joining a non-AV industry tech company.

I’m not going to share what platform we were using or what hardware was in the room because, frankly, this is a systemic issue. Companies can point the finger at each other and say this would never happen on their products, but the truth is that no one is immune. In a rat race to be the most innovative, I fear that we, as an industry, have lost track of what truly matters.

I have some thoughts on how we got here, but it needs to be broken down into several pieces. One piece is why industry contenders feel impending pressure to keep churning out the latest and greatest. That one's easy: Buyers are asking for it.

As an AV purchasing decision-maker for your company, the best way to evaluate which products are the best is through a spec sheet war, or by testing a few products and their fancy new features against one another in a controlled setting. The problem is that neither of those methods provides an accurate view of what the product experience will be like for an end user.

High Stakes Video

The second piece of this puzzle has to do with why end users have such a low tolerance for hiccups when it comes to videoconferencing. It doesn't matter how innovative the new features are; videoconferencing is a unique setting where the stakes are higher and a normal amount of messing up is simply not acceptable.

Video calls take place within a finite period of time, most commonly 30 minutes, so time is of the essence. To fit everything you need to within that small window, you need everything to go as smoothly as possible. If you lose five minutes because the technology is doing something weird, you just lost 15% of the time to get done what you needed to get done. For many people, it’s just not worth the risk to try something they don't trust.

Plus, your reputation is on the line. Even if you aren’t the one explicitly disrupting the meeting, it’s your responsibility to resolve the distraction if it's coming from your room. If you struggle to resolve it, it can be embarrassing. Suddenly, it starts to feel like you are the one disrupting the meeting, and all eyes are on you to pull it back together.

Finally, your performance, as well as the ability to accomplish things within your role, affect your livelihood—and video calls are one of the key situations in many roles where the magic happens. Most people probably won’t make this connection consciously, but the subconscious is a powerful motivator and guides your feelings and decision making even when you don’t realize it.

A Matter of Trust

Because of how high stakes video calls can feel, it doesn’t take a lot to lose trust in a new feature. One bad experience is enough to turn you off completely, particularly because most people won’t take the time to figure out why that bad experience happened or how to avoid it in the future. Instead, the easiest path forward is to go back to your trusty old ways; they may not offer the most optimized experience, but they get the job done with minimal hassle.

Where does this leave us as an industry? How can we start to solve this systemic issue? Each stakeholder plays a necessary role in the solution: the videoconferencing vendor, the AV buyer, and the end user.

For the end user, your role is to speak up when things don’t work. It takes only a few minutes to provide feedback to your IT team on your experience, but that can make a world of difference if everyone commits to doing this.

Similarly, AV buyers and IT teams need to be actively absorbing that feedback from end users. Rather than focusing on what company does the best marketing, it’s time to focus on what the end user really wants. And I can almost guarantee what they want is not the latest and greatest, but the most reliable and consistent.

[USB-C Conference Room Connectivity]

And for all you videoconferencing vendors, don’t get caught up in the rat race. Invest time and resources into creating the most reliable technology above all else. At the end of the day, your vision for the future doesn’t matter if no one is willing to participate.

To paraphrase Greek philosopher Heraclitus: Change is certain. That’s absolutely true of the AV industry, where new innovations are being developed at breathtaking speed to meet the demands of a shifting horizon. If the past two years has revealed anything, it’s that change can drastically speed up and shake up any expected trajectory. One area where this has been profoundly felt is in the conference room.

The mission of a conference room or huddle space is to enable collaboration and communication that is simple, scalable, equitable, and ready, no matter the device or the participants’ locale. The biggest impact to conference room technology is coming from four letters that spell out trouble for AV system designers—BYOD.

[SCN Hybrid World: Look Up, Listen Up with These 9 Ceiling Mics]

Bring Your Own Device is a continuing shift in how we accommodate mobile devices. It's beyond challenging to create a functional conference system when the very components of the system can change from user to user and from day to day. 

Built for Change

How can integrators assist companies in building out spaces that will stand the test of not only time but change—and without a large investment? The answer lies in the system’s foundation: connectivity.

By creating a hyperflexible connectivity foundation, organizations can more readily and affordably respond to change. The devices that need to connect to the projector, camera, microphones, and interactive displays will vary from person to person and year to year, even within the same organization. 

According to Business Tech Weekly, the estimated lifespan of a laptop is around 3-5 years, with five years being on the long side. With the price of laptops having fallen drastically in recent years, it’s much more economical for companies to upgrade an aging laptop than suffer the consequences of poor productivity due to its limitations.

[Productivity Starts at the Desktop]

Five years in the electronics industry is a long time. In just the last five years, we’ve seen a wholesale reengineering of ports and protocols to the point that connections that were ubiquitous half a decade ago are disappearing quickly. 

For example, USB Type-C  is enjoying the fastest growth, but even within USB-C there is a need to support multiple connectivity standards including USB 2.0 and 3.0, DisplayPort Alt-Mode, Ethernet, DisplayLink, and HDMI. Legacy connections like Mini DisplayPort, Mini and Micro HDMI, VGA and Apple Lightning add yet another layer of complexity.

A critical factor in all of this change is the usability of the room. Conference rooms and huddle spaces need to be intuitive. Users should be able to walk in and know what to do, and the best way to ensure the value of an installation is by having one consistent and simple workflow. When everyone connects in the same manner, the meeting can be a plug-and-play experience.

A Survey of Solutions

With all this in mind, creative and flexible connectivity solutions are the answer. At home we can do many things wirelessly. Wireless presentation systems have their place in the conference room, but security concerns and peripherals that require a wired link can limit the utility of such solutions. 

Most of the inexpensive wireless solutions are designed for playback only and are not full-function codecs. This means they might not offer a connection to webcams and mic arrays.

Other solutions, such as a centralized 4K adapter ring mounted to the center of the conference table, can provide a customizable and affordable option for viewing content. HDMI is the most ubiquitous AV connection on the planet, and virtually any source can be converted to an HDMI output.

However, HDMI doesn't support bidirectional communication. Because of this, an HDMI adapter, like a wireless solution, may not provide a pathway for all of the input devices in the system.

Docking stations are rising stars in this space. Most users can simply connect their Type-C enabled laptop to an installed dock via a single cable and experience instant connection to the camera, microphones, display, network, charging power. and more. This is the power of USB Type-C. Rooms can be reconfigured, and devices upgraded as needed, but the workflow and the productivity stays consistent.

[Rust Never Sleeps ... and Neither Do Display Manufacturers]

Heraclitus was right that change is guaranteed, but what’s more important is where that change occurs. This won’t be the last evolution of the conference room and other collaboration spaces, but firm ground can be found. 

Instead of organizations having to shake up workflows and productivity, integrators can introduce connectivity solutions that are adaptable and affordable. This hyperflexibility will ensure consistently great meetings and presentations for years to come.

SCN: When did you start NEARITY, and what are your responsibilities?

Andy Xin: I founded NEARITY back in 2018. In addition to leading the company’s overall direction, I also continue to be heavily involved in overseeing R&D and engineering. 

SCN: How has your background prepared you for your role?

AX: Prior to founding NEARITY, I had been running a company that supplied enterprise-grade computing solutions. I gained a lot of insight into companies’ evolving IT device needs from a business perspective. It was clear that AV capabilities were already intrinsic in enterprise work, and that trend has further accelerated as remote working proliferated during the pandemic. One of the things I noticed was that as laptops got smaller and thinner, built-in audio and video capabilities were not improving significantly. This was part of the inspiration for NEARITY to develop professional AV accessories to supplement laptops’ built-in functionality.

SCN: Where do you see the Pro AV industry heading?

AX: One of the ultimate goals of the AV industry is to make online meeting experiences as close to their face-to-face counterparts as possible. There have been many innovations in this field in the past five years, but there are so many different scenarios to cover that achieving this is still complex. People could be chiming in from their home office, a Starbucks, an open-space office desk, or a meeting room. Each scenario needs a different AV device to make the experience optimal. You can’t simply make one device that covers all use cases—but as a manufacturer, if you offer multiple devices, you want the user experience to be consistent across all of them. NEARITY has been working on this problem for the last four years, and offers optimized products for a wide range of environments.

[Executive Q&A: Lights, Camera, Action]

SCN: In addition to the separate devices, you sell all-in-one speaker/mic/camera units. When is an all-in-one unit the best choice?

AX: All-in-one units are ideal for smaller spaces like huddle rooms and small meeting rooms, where they can sufficiently cover the room from both an audio and video perspective. By combining the camera, speaker, and microphone into a single unit, they offer a very space-efficient and visually unobtrusive solution. They also minimize wiring requirements, which saves both installation effort and the number of ports that you need to use on the connected laptop. Our all-in-one units such as the NEARITY C30R can also be daisy-chained with our A20 SpeakerMics, so if the all-in-one camera is enough to capture the whole room but you need additional audio coverage, you can pair an all-in-one with additional audio endpoints.

SCN: You announced earlier this year that MVD is distributing your products in North America. How important do you see this region for your future, and how is your progress so far?

AX: The North American market represents a tremendous growth opportunity for us, and with our solutions well-established in Asia already, the U.S. is our most important strategic initiative. While we’re off to a good start in North America, the reduction in in-person trade shows in recent years has made it difficult for integrators and customers to truly experience the advantages of our products. We were excited to exhibit at InfoComm in June so attendees could experience the NEARITY difference first-hand, and look forward to carrying that momentum into the rest of 2022 and beyond. 

SCN: What is the greatest challenge you face?

AX: As a global company, we want to attract and hire the best R&D talent to make world-class products. We have invested heavily in audio technology innovation, and continue to look for talent and expertise to expand our team. We also are expanding our sales team to best serve the unique needs of each country. In addition to working with distributors such as MVD, who have extensive local-market experience, we want to make sure we are hiring the right people in each region to best support our systems integrators, resellers, and customers. 

SCN: There is a lot of competition for conference room AV products. What are some of the unique technologies that NEARITY offers?

AX: One of our unique strengths is our audio algorithm innovation. Deep learning can be used to solve some very tricky problems with audio, and there have been significant advances in the past couple of years. For example, traditional echo cancellation could not totally cancel out all echo, so nonlinear echo suppression was often used to cancel the rest of the echo—but it could also detrimentally affect important speech. This can be solved quite effectively with deep learning, and we are one of the first companies that has combined deep learning with traditional signal processing in practical, real-world products.

SCN: How important are features like speaker tracking and auto-framing in today’s corporate environment?

AX: These features are very important in helping achieve "meeting equity" for all participants. As mentioned earlier, our goal is to make the hybrid or virtual meeting experience replicate the in-person meeting experience as closely as possible. In a face-to-face meeting, an attendee will turn their head and focus their attention on the person who is speaking; speaker tracking and auto-framing are the closest equivalent to being able to simulate that experience for remote participants when using just a single camera.

[Executive Q&A: Avnu Alliance Stresses Interoperability]

SCN: Besides “buy NEARITY,” of course, what advice would you give an integrator looking to outfit conference rooms and huddle rooms across a corporate building?

AX: As discussed earlier, each type of room may need a different type of device to ensure optimal experiences. The ability to offer scalable, optimized solutions for each space from a single vendor like NEARITY makes life easier for both systems integrators and their customers. Integrators can meet the requirements of any room without needing to support multiple different vendors’ products, and their end users get a consistent operational experience regardless of which room they are using for their meeting.

SCN: What new initiatives are we likely to see from your company?

AX: While our initial products all focused on video and audio endpoints such as speakers, mics, and cameras, we plan to expand our portfolio with additional offerings such as collaboration whiteboards that can make the AV experience even more interactive and immersive.

Now that COVID-19 appears to be receding, employees are returning to work and reintroducing themselves to AV-enabled collaboration spaces like the huddle room. But things have changed since the pandemic arrived, and huddle rooms need to change with them.

“Generally smaller spaces such as huddle rooms facilitate co-worker collaboration both in-person and through video,” explained Kathy Katz, managing partner at Brightline, which offers the cMe2 huddle room light. “With a simple to deploy-and-use approach, the rooms enable communication through a ‘huddle.’”

“A huddle room is essentially a small meeting room designed to be used for collaboration between a small team of people,” said Nearity spokesperson Roy Wu. Nearity offers audio endpoints, conferencing cameras, and all-in-one conferencing devices for huddle rooms and larger spaces.

In a very real sense, a huddle room is a stripped-down version of a larger capacity AV-enabled conference room, and can be used for impromptu collaborations or scheduled events. “This is why huddle rooms are typically equipped with audio and videoconferencing equipment, interactive or static screens to project, share and save content,” said Brian Phann, senior business line manager of commercial displays at ViewSonic. ViewSonic not only offers displays and video projectors, it has cameras, speakerphones, and speakers for huddle rooms as well as other venues.

Flip the Script

Before the advent of COVID-19, huddle rooms were primarily used for in-person, face-to-face meetings with the occasional remote participant. But that was then. “The pandemic has ‘flipped’ the usage of huddle rooms for meetings, since there are often fewer participants on-site and more remote attendees,” Phann offered.

[Executive Q&A: Lights, Camera, Action]

Today, many companies are allowing some of their employees to continue working at home. This hybrid work approach, a mix between home and office-based employees, has a downside. When fewer people come to the office, the company’s social cohesiveness can weaken, and morale can drop—especially if at-home workers feel isolated and alone.

Huddle rooms can address this problem by “bringing together workers, products, and information dissemination in a manner that reduces the sense of isolation that excessive remote work can create,” said Katz. Videoconferencing is key to this process because it provides a degree of face-to-face interaction for team members on site and at home.

Using a huddle room as a hub for such meetings helps create a sense of community and shared experience for participants, no matter where they may be physically. “For team members who are in the office, having them each connect to the videoconference from their own workspace is inefficient,” Wu said. “Doing so can also be disruptive to those around them in shared/open workspaces. That’s why a huddle room is an ideal space for those team members to collectively conference with their home-based colleagues.”

Must-Have Room Tech

Because huddle rooms are smaller than conference rooms and serve far fewer people, they don’t need the full set of AV equipment that larger spaces demand. Still, there are some must-have pieces of AV tech that should be in every huddle room for them to function properly.

“A high-quality speaker, microphone, and wide-angle conferencing camera are critical for maximizing the effectiveness of video conferencing in huddle rooms,” said Wu. “Small spaces like huddle rooms generally don’t require separate speakers and microphones, because combined speaker-mics provide sufficient coverage of the entire room and are much more space efficient.”

[Proper Lighting Absolutely Matters During Meetings and More]

For greater space savings, all-in-one devices combine the camera, speaker, and microphone into a single unit, which can suffice in smaller huddle rooms. Whether installing individual components or a combo unit, it is crucial to purchase quality video cameras for huddle rooms, and even more vital to buy the right speakers and room-capturing microphones for the job.

“The nature of most meetings makes the quality of the audio even more important than the video,” Wu said. “You need to be able to clearly hear the person speaking, and to be heard clearly.”

[MVD to Distribute Nearity Brand in North America]

Because huddle rooms are collaborative spaces, they must be equipped with tools that make local and remote collaboration possible. “For brainstorming sessions, companies should consider dry erase boards as well as video displays,” said Phann. “There are several options for displays depending on a company’s needs—be they static or interactive—but screen sharing capabilities are key. As for size, since these spaces are generally smaller rooms, displays can range from 42-50 inches, mounted or on a cart for easy movability. Projectors are also an affordable option for display solutions.

“A larger display will help ‘democratize’ remote participants, so they have equal presence as those in the room,” Phann added. “If there is sufficient space, companies can also include a podium with a touchscreen display. However, this can blur the line between the casual huddle room and the fully equipped conference room.”

The choice of a huddle room’s furniture and its positioning also make a difference. “The illusion of a ‘huddle’ is best achieved with a U or V-shaped desk,” said Katz. “If daylight enters the huddle space, ideally blinds must be used to block/control the light. Background color should be considered, with blue/gray preferred, and it can be virtual.”

AV Equality in the Home

During COVID-19, many companies relied on at-home workers to provide their own cameras and microphones for videoconferencing, whether these were quality standalone units or laptop built-ins. The resulting lack of standardization and support, combined with inadequate lighting and improvised office furniture, put many at-home participants at a disadvantage. Poor video and sketchy audio turned them into second-class AV citizens, compared to co-workers in professional office spaces.

Now that ad hoc arrangements justified by the pandemic are coming to an end, companies pursuing the hybrid work approach may consider putting at-home workers on an equal AV footing. “Having a monitor with a built-in camera and speakers should be a mainstay for all remote and hybrid workers,” said Phann. “For companies allowing remote work, the cost should fall under IT purchases as if the employees were on site.”

[ViewSonic Roadmap 2022]

“The microphone, speaker, and camera built into home-based employees’ laptops may not be sufficient for achieving ‘meeting equity,’” agreed Wu. “The goal should be for all participants to have equal meeting experiences wherever they are located. This is where providing an at-home employee with a higher-quality camera and speakerphone/headset can put them on equal footing with their office-based counterparts.”

Allowing employees to work at home doesn’t absolve companies from providing them with decent working environments. And it isn’t just home-based AV equipment that should be brought up to professional standards.

“The ergonomics of furniture and adequate lighting to minimize fatigue should receive attention as well,” said Katz. “This is where the new term ‘Zoom fatigue’ comes from. It is really about fatigue resulting from poor audio and lighting, technical glitches, physical discomfort, and even emotional discomfort with your on-camera image.”

Twitch is more than a video game streaming service—it’s a vibrant community and global phenomenon. With more than 15 million active daily users, Twitch foregrounds a different kind of connectedness in gaming. It’s become a premier locus for video gamers, esports and music broadcasts, and “in real life” streams.

Rounding the corner of his two-year Twitch anniversary, Kevin Little, the company’s Collaboration Services manager, is ideally stationed to report on the fast-changing realities of the modern workplace. Little knows how the right technology can improve workflows, but tech is just one piece of the puzzle. For Twitch’s 1,600 employees it’s the vital culture of teamwork, equitable meetings, and frictionless collaboration that help everyone thrive.

Leveling Up

To claim COVID was an enterprise variable is a colossal understatement. For nearly two years, corporations large and small have navigated logistical changes in staffing, human resources, and supply chains. Many contend that the “office” will never look the same. Nor should it.

Accelerating an existing trend, but spurred by the pandemic, remote workers will represent “32 percent of all employees worldwide by the end of 2021,” according to Gartner.

The Twitch brain trust utilized time during the pandemic to level up its collaboration methodologies—for onsite, hybrid, and fully remote meetings. Through surveys and focus groups, Little pinpointed collaboration pain points and changing needs, and the strategies to address them.

“It was interesting to see,” Little reflected, “how quickly all the platforms tried to raise their bar—for remote workers, especially.”

Little also tracks the underlying tensions that can emerge for remote workers and ways the collaboration leaders can create bridges within existing infrastructures. 

One of the ways to make communications as seamless as possible is to create a bridge for various platforms and touch points.  

Twitch has long been a “Google shop,” said Little, and, because it is an Amazon subsidiary, “we live between Amazon Chime and Google Meet.”

Technology leaders like Kevin Little focused on designing and integrating ways of communicating between the codecs. “We’ve surveyed a lot of employees, both on the Amazon side, and on the Twitch side, and we’ve worked to bridge that gap,” he said. 

Planning for the Unknown

2020 saw Twitch stakeholders back at the drawing board: white boarding and workshopping “return to work” plans. But, as rapidly developing COVID-19 variant news keeps reminding the world, even surefire plans need to adjust.  

Little says the key to keeping the workforce agile and connected is listening to users. 

“We’ve read enough surveys about how Twitch wants to collaborate, and we plan in line with that [data],” he said. “Survey, survey, survey.”

As far as a Unified Collaboration and Communication (UCC) solution to pull disparate pieces together, Little said that Twitch chose Cisco to “bridge the gap between all the platforms—allowing internal meetings in the ways people want to meet, so Twitch can be inclusive and equitable at the same time.”

Invest in Community & Culture

With a headquarters in San Francisco, and employees around the world, Little helps “Twitch employees work the way they need to with Amazon employees.”  

With its deep knowledge of Twitch’s audience, “Our team always has a very good lens on what’s coming next,” Little enthused. “They’ve done a fantastic job of weathering the [COVID-19] storm. Personally, I’ve taken the initiative to work with our Workplace Team, as well, to understand future builds, to understand how we will move forward.” 

Mission matters more than ever, Little added. 

Twitch has “doubled down on the community and the mission of Twitch, which is our culture,” Little said. “There will always be a balance with remote work, where and when people want to work, but at Twitch, it’s important that everybody sees each other, plus or minus three or four days a week.”

Remote Management

To build systems “with very few failure points,” Little noted, “Twitch is becoming more vendor agnostic.”

Driving that functionality-first approach is the focus on remote management, remote access, and managed services. 

“All of this is done in real time now, so we can see and we can monitor, through a cloud service, or remote management,” he said.

Conferencing is Changing

Another notable trend at Twitch: Conference rooms are getting smaller and more multipurpose, trending away from the gilded, siloed executive suites of yore. 

“From what I’ve seen,” Little shared, “conference rooms are becoming more multipurpose. In some cases, it means smaller, where you can have one-, two-, and three-person meetings, but also have more remote people in the meeting, in real time.”

Today’s conference spaces must also be versatile enough to support bigger events—with the flexible tech backbone to instantly shift from a huddle into a training room or an all-hands meeting space.

No matter the size or scope of the room, “It is very important to build to our standard,” Little said. 

Tools Must Be Inclusive 

There’s no shortage of UCC and videoconferencing platforms, soft codecs, and hardware. But there was a perennial challenge in facilitating collaborations so remote workers didn’t feel “lost,” Little said. That’s where an investment in cameras and audio—endpoints that could track people moving around the conference room—was beneficial. 

There should be, ultimately, one platform. “Wherever you are, onsite or remote, you should feel included,” Little pressed. It’s critical to keeping people engaged and team morale high.

Little pointed to Twitch leadership as setting the tone for inclusion. “Lenke Taylor, our Chief People Officer at Twitch, is really dialed in and passionate about inclusivity and equitable meetings,” he said. “We want the technology to follow that vision.”

More AV/IT Team Articles

[ AV/IT Team: Building Blocks of an Immersive Experience ]

[ AV/IT Team: 5 Large-scale Displays for Immersive Visualization ]

[ AV/IT Team: Out of this World Visualization ]

[ AV/IT Team: The Digital Canvas of Fame ]

[ AV/IT Team: Purpose-built Displays ] 

Don’t Chase Technology

Technology is always in flux, but one core truth remains: Don’t chase the shiny new gadget. Kevin Little confides that he has “scrapped ideas” due to changing product lines. He believes tech managers should “stop chasing technology.”

He takes a broader view: “Manufacturers and vendors will give you a roadmap as fast as they can, but adoption and systems take time.’ 

The media is also quick to leap on the latest product or trend. “Don’t put the cart before the horse,” he said. “Do lots of focus groups. Do a lot of use-case studies. Find out what is or isn’t important to employees. Maybe there’s one group for which a new tool could be useful. Build your decisions for the company on how they want to meet.”

The takeaway: Technology decisions should always be centered around people. 

“Put people first,” is Little’s motto.

Next in Tech

Though Little envisions a time when Twitch might explore virtual reality (VR) as a “proof of concept in its lab,” he is in no rush. “I see us waiting a couple more years until adoption.” 

What he’s focusing on now is video. “Because we’re such a heavy video streaming company. It is interesting to see where cameras are going—a lot of them are using AR and they’re trying to compose in different ways.”

The evolution of video transport and camera technology will come with growing pains for users, “both remote and [onsite],” Little said. What he sees in the support channels illustrates this, including the latency of the home network. “A lot of the codecs are going into NDI and IP. I’m interested to see what this will look like over one big network, as we move away from more like video cabling. It’s all over Cat-6 now.”

If Twitch’s staggering growth is any measure, the game streaming company is poised to influence the network video game profoundly.

Crestron's new range of five network video solutions rounds out the DM NVX AV-over-IP product portfolio with introduction of five new interoperable encoders and decoders,. The 4K 4:4:4, 4K 4:2:0, and 1080p offerings address a broad range of projects and price points.

Every DigitalMedia solution is designed with unmatched quality, reliability, scalability, and support for security. The diversity of the DM platform empowers Crestron integrators and customers to select the optimized solution and meet the demands of every application at the right price. These new introductions leverage the same streamlined integration process with familiar web and programming signals.

“Our DM NVX portfolio provides fully interoperable solutions that deliver the highest image integrity regardless of resolution output,” said Michael DiBella, director of Commercial Product Marketing at Crestron. “These new offerings meet the demands of the market and enable our partners to bring the power of DM content distribution into new projects or add onto their existing deployments.”

[ Crestron Strengthens Crestron Flex Video Conferencing Platform ]

Ideal for higher education applications as well as smaller meeting spaces and collaboration rooms across enterprises, Crestron’s new network video encoders and decoders include:    

DM NVX Encoder
Key features: 1920x1080p, PoE  

DM NVX Decoder 
Key features: 1920x1080p, PoE  

DM NVX Encoder 
Key features: 4K60 4:2:0; 4K30 4:4:4, PoE  

DM NVX Decoder 
Key features: 4K60 4:2:0; 4K30 4:4:4, PoE     

DM NVX Decoder with Scaler  
Key features: 4K60 4:2:0 with built-in scaler and video wall processing, PoE   

Addressing lower resolutions without sacrificing Crestron’s commitment to security, Crestron’s latest offerings join the existing DM NVX Encoder/Decoders product portfolio and support Enterprise-Grade Security standards from encryption to both device and user access. All encoders and decoders reside on the same Crestron DM content distribution platform and are supported by the Crestron XiO Cloud.

Prior to the pandemic, acousticians and audio systems designers grappled with producing quality sound in “fishbowl” conference rooms—spaces featuring glass walls, concrete floors, perpendicular angles, and hard-surfaced furniture . As companies put their hybrid work strategies into practice, many of these issues remain … and a few new ones are presenting themselves.

One of the positive outcomes of our collective work-from-home experience is that people have become more aware of the need for a quality audio experience during conference calls, noted Rob Gilfillan, president of Cenero, an AV systems design and integration firm headquartered in Malvern, PA. “Over the years, everyone was so focused on the video and not as focused on the audio, but if there’s a glitch with the video, the call is going to be fine. If the audio is awful, however, the call is dead because it’s the primary way we communicate,” he explained. The struggle to hear and be heard while conferencing from home underlined just how important audio is.

[ The Future of Conferencing Audio ] 

Being forced into working from home for the last few months has many considering how to reconfigure in-office meeting and conferencing spaces so they deliver better experiences for remote participants in a hybrid work environment. “People were forced into having meetings using virtual tools and they had to figure it out—they were forced into adopting them,” Gilfillan said. “In doing that, they realized, ‘Wow, this is a really bad experience when you call into a room. I never realized how bad it was.’ When they go back to the office, I think people will be much more sensitive to that now than they were before, and they’re starting to think about the technology that they need to invest in.”

[ The Integration Guide to Conferencing & Collaboration ]

Joey D’Angelo, president of Joseph D’Angelo and Associates (DNA), an audiovisual and technology consulting firm based in Orange County, CA, relayed that one of the biggest trends he’s seeing is the creation of conferencing “rooms” within an open office plan, but without the traditional four-wall configuration. Instead, organizations are exploring partitions (usually ones able to accommodate a video display) that define a given meeting space within a large, open area. Unsurprisingly, this configuration creates speech privacy issues. “We’re trying to solve these problems with microphones that have directed lobes and cut-off points, and it takes a lot of testing, and trial and error,” he said.

These challenges spill into the open office space where people are participating in videoconferencing from their desks, and thus are exposed to extraneous noise such as ringing telephones, visitors to the office, and the chatter of neighboring colleagues. Acoustic fencing technology offers one solution to this problem, alleviating these distractions from the call itself so that participants on the other end don’t hear them.

[ Why 2021 Will Be the Year of Touchless Audio ] 

For those working in an actual office, sound masking solutions—such as those offered by Biamp’s Cambridge Sound—deliver speech privacy in open spaces featuring a lot of ambient noise and chitchat, noted Mark Higgason, executive vice president and partner at Encompass AV, an audiovisual systems design and integration firm based in Elk Grove Village, IL. While he acknowledges that sound masking isn’t a new concept, it’s one that’s being re-examined by organizations as they roll out their hybrid work strategies. “You’re not actually quieting anything. What you’re doing is making human speech unintelligible at a distance. You may still hear the mumble of a coworker on the phone, or one coworker who may be much louder in conversation than another—the sound is still there, but it’s unintelligible and it’s not really distracting,” he said. These solutions also mask noise coming from the HVAC system, and can be used for background music and paging as well.

Higgason also pointed to technologies like Shure’s Microflex microphone series that allow for more precise audio capture in spaces where, once again, ambient noise is a problem. “This newer generation has really allowed us to focus on areas that we want to pick up coverage from and reject the areas we that we don’t,” he said. “Even with bad acoustics, we can still make something far more workable than we could previously.”

[ Sound Reinforcement Remedies ] 

Huddle spaces are another area of focus for those returning to the office. With the need to distance people from one another, the concept of cramming three to five meeting participants in a small room is, for the moment, frowned on. For now, many of these spaces have been reduced to mini-offices, reconfigured for one or maybe two people. While capacity limits may have changed in these rooms, their technological makeup has not, Gilfillan noted. “The trend has been that every huddle space will be outfitted with USB video and audio devices, because conferencing in those spaces will be a constant moving forward,” he said.

He added that management platforms such as AppSpace, which feature analytics, monitoring, and reporting, give tech managers and other stakeholders insight into how these spaces are being used as the hybrid workplace evolves. “People are looking at being able to aggregate data to make better business decisions about their meeting spaces in terms of the rooms that are being booked, their size, who’s booking them, and how these spaces are being used. The huddle spaces are going to change based on that data.”

While the current focus may be on the hybrid workplace, D’Angelo believes that once the pandemic subsides, an increasing number of companies will require their employees to spend most of their time at the office. “People were working really hard [from home] during the pandemic because they wanted to keep their jobs and keep their companies strong,” he said. Post-COVID, he argues that productivity—particularly that of remote workers—will decline, driving organizations to make their remote work policies more restrictive. “I think it will be a boon for the AV industry because these companies will have built all of these less dense office buildings, and they’re going to need more, and there will be the need for renovations and changes and new buildings. I think it’s a win-win for the AV industry.”

Standardizing the Virtual Workforce

At the same time, Gilfillan noted that it’s wise to specify USB peripherals that are certified by the conferencing platforms that clients are using. “If, say, a USB microphone isn’t certified [by the platform in question], it might not deliver a great experience,” he said.

After a long spell of cobbling together remote work technologies, there is an argument that companies will begin standardizing the systems used by those who continue to work outside of the office, according to Rob Gilfillan of Cenero. In this model, organizations will list the make and model of the cameras, microphones, and USB devices they want their employees using for conferencing in an effort to control the quality of these calls. “Everyone is sick of being on a call with someone who just opens up their laptop and tries to use the microphone and speakers on that laptop, and they’re in a Starbucks with a lot of people around and shoddy bandwidth, and there is all this noise,” he said.

Click here to read more stories from the September 2021 issue of SCN.

More About Hybrid Work

The Future of Conferencing Audio • Ledetta Asfa-Wossen, September 18, 2020 • With meeting rooms at the nerve center of many companies, understanding the shifting use and technical requirements of the workspace is essential. So, what does the future hold for conferencing audio and specification?

How to Build a Killer Conference Room • Joe Dunbar, July 8, 2021 • We’re finally getting a glimpse of what things at the office will look like moving forward. We all know how we got here, so I won’t bother with that recap, but safe to say we’re seeing the predictions of hybrid offices filled with flexible spaces start to come to life.  As some of these discussions and plans turn into realities, I've been reflecting on the key components for a successful conferencing and collaboration space.

Adapting to the Hybrid Workplace • Jennifer Guhl , May 25, 2021 • Before the pandemic, companies were eager to integrate flexible conferencing and collaboration-based technology to increase engagement among employees and conduct global meetings more effectively. Now, however, companies are looking for guidance from technology providers to help them create not only a seamless hybrid working environment, but an intuitive one, too.

Work: In Progress • Margot Douaihy, Ph.D., January 4, 2021 • As more people return to offices, what tools and policies will prove to be essential? What lessons have we learned about UCC, AV, and visualization technologies and team morale during the pandemic?

UC Solutions Balance Safety and Productivity in Wake of COVID • Alex Peras, July 22, 2020 • When the pandemic struck, the move to remote work was swift, but even as more states open up and loosen social distancing restrictions, we will continue to see more companies opt for a hybrid work environment that comprises both in-office and virtual/remote students. This shift to hybrid work creates a unique opportunity for AV professionals to position their services and AV technology as one way to mitigate this challenge of balancing safety and productivity. This includes collaboration and unified communications (UC) solutions, technology platforms that support social distancing, provide important data and analytics, and can be easily added to existing or new systems in spaces of any size or scale.

Hybrid Work Model Increases Demand for Video Collaboration Technologies • Stefan Eriksson, April 26, 2021 • 2020 was a year of global societal change, and one of the most impactful cultural shifts has been the rapid transition to a distributed workplace, with nearly all traditional office-based companies instituting work-from-home policies on a part-time or full-time basis. For custom technology integrators, this movement has created opportunities to introduce clients to new digital tools—particularly video collaboration technologies—and upgrade them for effective communication between traditional offices and countless new home offices.

Office Design: Balancing Capability and Usability • Steve Greenblatt , December 01, 2018 • As organizations are doing more with less office space, technology has to support greater flexibility for multipurpose use, reconfiguration, and a variety of applications.

Nothing is worse than wasting precious moments of your meeting time getting your conference room technology to work, especially when you have to wait for the IT manager to show up to work out the issues. Conference room tech may not be made to dazzle, but if it’s good, your attendees will take notice—even if the technology is designed for them not to.

If you haven’t evaluated your conferencing microphone solution recently, you’re almost certainly not getting the best sound possible out of these vital meeting spaces.

Due in part to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, recent months have seen a flurry of innovations in conferencing mic technology from well known innovators like Bose and Sennheiser, including new pickup technologies and comprehensive sound control that make sure your meeting focus stays where it should.

Benefits of Conferencing Microphones

With adjustable lobes and audio tracking technology, new systems can adjust automatically to whoever is speaking at any given time, giving meeting attendees the ability to freely inhabit a space and making audio dead spots a thing of the past. Technology providers are not only putting their focus into the physical microphone but retargeting their product portfolios into all-in-one conferencing solutions, ensuring your audio quality and technology capabilities are exactly where you need them to be.

Seamless integration is the name of the game when it comes to recent advances in conferencing microphone design. Gone are the days when meeting attendees would need to crowd around a single microphone just to be heard. Now, microphones can be placed on the ceiling or the walls, or even built into the table itself to complement your overall conference room aesthetic.

Ceiling-Mounted Conferencing Microphones

Ceiling-mounted microphones are camouflaged in the conference room by the fact that meeting attendees rarely look up. Besides fostering a clean look, they eliminate cable clutter on the table.

Ceiling microphones may be installed flush to the ceiling or may hang down in a pendant style. Audio-Technica’s ES954 Hanging Ceiling Microphone Array, for example, may be used singly or in multiples to capture every person speaking in a room, with the total number of channels restricted only by the capacity of the mixer or DSP device controlling the system.

Related: Conferencing Survey Highlights Importance of Good Audio

Biamp’s Parlé microphones come in pendant (hanging), tabletop and ceiling configurations. The Parlé TCM-XA is an AVB low-profile ceiling microphone and PoE+ amplifier for use in Biamp’s Tesira systems. Each microphone includes Beamtracking technology with four 90-degree zones, providing full 360-degree coverage of the meeting space. The pendant version, called Parlé TCM-1 Pendant, includes Beamtracking and three 120-degree zones, providing 360-degree coverage of the space.

AVB in the Parlé microphone description stands for Audio Video Bridging, an open networking protocol for AV applications such as microphones and loudspeakers. AVB and Dante are very common enabling technologies for digital audio networks, but Dante is a proprietary technology developed by Audinate.

Another feature to look for in a conferencing microphone is Power over Ethernet (PoE), which makes integration of the ceiling mic very easy. PoE is a standard for delivering power to devices over Ethernet cable instead of requiring a separate power supply and outlet.

The kind of ceiling in the room is a factor to consider in choosing your conferencing mic. The Audix M3WHM tri-element installed sound ceiling microphone is constructed for hard mount ceiling installations without drop tile ceilings, while Vaddio’s CeilingMIC microphone’s design allows for custom ceiling drop cable length to support drop tile ceilings and open ceiling environments.

Related: Acoustics and the Modern Meeting Room

ClearOne’s Beamforming Microphone Array 2 features beamforming and adaptive steering technology which automatically keeps the beams focused on the speaker, no matter where they are. As well, it offers acoustic echo cancellation and noise cancellations for crystal-clear audio.

Shure’s MXA910 Ceiling Array Microphone with IntelliMix is a solid solution that aids transparent meeting intelligibility. Participants are often oblivious to its presence in a meeting, meaning they are clearer and more natural when speaking. The eight steerable lobes provide tight, directional audio pickup. 

Most technology providers offer a variety of sizes and models to ensure they offer a solution appropriate for every size and type of meeting space. The Beamforming option from ClearOne, for example, includes three mounting options—ceiling, wall and table—to suit most meeting room applications.

Sennheiser’s TeamConnect Ceiling 2 also offers beamforming technology to focus on the speaker and adapt to the acoustic condition of the room. Like many conferencing microphone products being developed today, it features support for Dante digital network connections, as well as analog options. Sennheiser’s TeamConnect Ceiling 2 may be flush-mounted into standard false ceilings, suspended above the conference room table if the ceiling is very high, or mounted directly on the ceiling.

Features to Look For

Beyond the flexibility that allows speakers to move freely around a meeting space, organizations are looking for user-friendly systems that are easy to install and require limited technical assistance. Many new products on the market also allow IT managers to remotely manage the system, allowing them to assist with multiple meetings taking place simultaneously throughout the company.

Related: Sound Reinforcement Remedies

Organizations are also looking for intuitive systems that automatically locate excess noise and echoes and balance them out in the broadcast. This process also helps to balance sound quality between the presenter and audience, ensuring that any side conversations don’t distract from the overall presentation.

With many teams separated throughout the country because of COVID-19 restrictions, meeting platforms like Zoom, GotoMeeting, and Microsoft Teams are being used more than ever. Conferencing audio systems are built to accommodate these platforms, keeping teams connected no matter their location and making sure the remote experience is just as good as the one in the room.

Can You Manage and Install Conferencing Mics Yourself?

If you have a limited IT team, there is no need to fret with conferencing mics. Ease of use is often at the forefront of the development process. These systems often offer guided prompts or have limited the number of steps, thereby simplifying installation. Many have also looked for ways to streamline the process, including limiting the number of cables required for connection.

With many systems using automatic updates and audio tracking, only minimal interaction is necessary between the user and the system for everything to work seamlessly. The key for most technology providers is developing something so intuitive that the user couldn’t possibly have concerns or issues. If they do, it’s easy to have an IT manager control the system remotely, limiting the amount of time they need to go room to room addressing constant tech issues. 

Related: Hot Mics – The Latest in Conferencing Audio Capture

Conferencing Mics at a Glance

1. Shure MicroFlex Advance Array Microphones

Best "not aware it's there" microphone solution  

Looking for technology that will blend seamlessly into your environment and make you forget you installed it? Shure Microflex Advance Array Microphones may be the option for you—the company says it pairs innovative design with superior capabilities and allows you to not compromise aesthetics for audio. 

With ceiling, linear, and table options available for integration, these microphones use Steerable Coverage for dynamic audio capturing and pairs with Shure’s Designer System Configuration Software and SystemOn Audio Asset Management Software, allowing your team to focus on the presentation on hand and not the technology. The MXA910 Ceiling Array Microphone with IntelliMix has up to eight adjustable lobes that use Autofocus Technology to adjust the positioning of the lobes in real time, allowing users to freely move within the space and not worry about issues with audio capture.

The MXA910 also features numerous mounting options to make sure that any ceiling type, including hard ceiling, VESA pole mount, or wire rope suspension, does not hold you back from integrating this superior technology.

Related: New Microphone and App Designs Connect Attendees at Conferences and Events

2. Sennheiser TeamConnect Ceiling 2

Best option for flexibility

The Sennheiser TeamConnect Ceiling 2 integrates patented automatic dynamic beamforming technology to help adapt to any meeting room environment without having to reconfigure the entire system. This technology not only allows for flexible usage within the space but easy collaboration with remote participants as well. 

Using Sennheiser Control Cockpit software, users have the ability to monitor and control the microphone through a web interface that can be accessed through any device within the network. This allows IT managers the freedom to deal with any issues or help control meetings remotely. The microphone can also be connected via analog or digital Dante audio outputs for usage within any conference system. The system can also be used by outside presenters, allowing them to present hands-free and focus on engagement with their audience. 

The system offers three installation variants, including flush-mounted, suspended, and ceiling-mounted, allowing for a variety of options for every type of meeting space. Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) allows for easy integration and open media control protocol (API) makes it easy for your team to make individualized adjustments whenever needed.

3. Yamaha Adecia Enterprise Audio System

Best for ease of installation and configuration

The Yamaha Adecia Enterprise Audio System is a great option for those organizations looking for a comprehensive package that provides intuitive technologies that overcome major challenges surrounding integration and room acoustics, allowing for reduced setup time, costs, and other integration-based challenges. The system automatically detects new components and configures new devices, limiting the number of hours your tech support team will need to devote maintaining and updating the device. 

It also auto-optimizes audio performance, picking-up reverberation and echoes to ensure clear audio sound quality. Multi-beam tracking technology ensures that your team can still enjoy vibrant conversations with multiple participants without having to worry about your lobe settings. With no fixed lobes, the conference space can be rearranged to a variety of configurations without worrying that dead spots will be created in the new setup. Organizations will also be able to install and set-up on their own using a three-step guided configuration process. Due to the multi-beam tracking, there is no need for preprogramming lobes and all of the components utilize a one network cable connection, limiting the confusion created by multiple wire configurations. With open API capabilities, the system can easily integrate with other Yamaha or third-party products.

4. Bose ES1 Ceiling Audio Solution

Best integrated solution

Combining the performance of the Bose Edge Max in-ceiling loudspeaker and the Sennheiser TeamConnect Ceiling 2 microphone, the Bose ES1 Ceiling Audio System is a premium solution for fully integrated meeting rooms. The system also uses a Bose amplifier and DSP to provide your team with a seamless experience that allows for a quick and easy deployment in a variety of different spaces. 

With fewer devices on walls or tabletops and echo-cancelling technology, users have the freedom to spread out throughout the room without worrying about not being able to be heard or the ability to participate fully in the meeting, allowing teams to focus on working together to move projects forward and focus on creating the next big idea for your company. 

The system also has the ability to integrate popular unified communications platforms, including Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Google Hangouts Meet, to make sure any meeting type can be streamed through the system. Through the combination of globally respected brands that you know and trust with reference configurations reducing the overall installation time, organizations can trust that this solution will be one they can rely on for years to come, according to the company.

5. Nureva Microphone Mist

Best full-room coverage

Helping remote meeting attendees feel like they’re in the room where it happens, Nureva Microphone Mist technology utilizes virtual microphones to be able to improve sound pick-up in a variety of settings, allowing participants to stay distanced and not worry about overall sound quality. When two or more physical microphones work together on targeting sound in a particular zone, this creates a virtual microphone or individual pickup point. 

Nureva Microphone Mist technology, which holds four patents, listens in on the full network of virtual microphones and optimizes them individually to create a seamless listening experience. The system has the ability for active zone control which allows the user to define a particular pickup zone and balance the audio between the presenter and audience. Intelligent sound targeting also identifies unwanted background noise and eliminates it from being picked-up during the meeting. 

The system has the ability grow with your company and is available in three different models: HDL 200 (small spaces), HDL 300 (mid-size spaces), and Dual HDL300 (large spaces). Continuous firmware updates and easy DIY installation allow for IT managers to streamline everything internally within no ongoing tech support inquiries and visits.

6. Audix Dante AES67 Integrated Microphone System

Best plug-and-play integration

Audix’s Dante AES67 Integrated Microphone System includes a Dante AES67 interface (two- or four-input), as well as a choice of flush-mount (M70WD) or hanging (M55WD, M3W, M3G) ceiling microphones, or a combination of the two.

Either interface (DN4 and DN43) acts as the centerpiece of a microphone system that transmits over Ethernet networks. The interface provides microphone functions including on-off contact closure and LED status indicators for meeting rooms, convention centers, educational facilities, and houses of worship through a single Cat 5/7 cable with RJ45 connections at both interface and microphone. This simple configuration eliminates wiring errors, accelerates installation, and reduces cost. And the gain structures of all Audix RJ45-equipped analog microphones are optimized for their intended placement, providing quality audio at the DSP.

The two-input DN43 interface features one port for the Audix M3W or M3G tri-element microphone and one port for Audix RJ45-equipped single-element microphones. The four-input DN4 interface features four ports for Audix RJ45-equipped single-element microphones.

The What: Elo has debuted the Huddle Kit, an accessories bundle that pairs with Elo’s 4K interactive displays to provide businesses with a simplified collaboration and videoconferencing solution. The company will show the system at InfoComm Connected from June 16–18.

The What Else: The Huddle Kit solution simplifies the selection, installation, and use of collaboration technology and provides an open platform supporting enterprise applications and popular third-party videoconferencing software, including Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Cisco Webex, GoToMeeting, and BlueJeans.

Elo Huddle Kit accessories pair easily with Elo’s 55- or 65-inch 53-Series displays and include a Conference Camera with capability to attach to any Elo Edge Connect device, full HD video, wide viewing angles and 30-degree multi-axis tilt for vertical and horizontal adjustment; an i5 Windows 10 slide-in computer module; digital stylus pen; and a preloaded dashboard for easy navigation to software applications including a preinstalled whiteboarding and wireless content-sharing software trial.

In addition to supporting videoconferencing, the Elo Huddle Kit comes ready with Qwizdom’s annotation and whiteboarding software and a full set of corporate features, such as multi-user writing and drawing, handwriting recognition, and full multimedia integration and capture. Also included is a free 30-day trial of DisplayNote’s Launcher for easy navigation and Montage for wireless content sharing from any device onto your Elo display without messy cables or time-consuming connection struggles.

“In this new normal that focuses on smaller huddles and remote workers, Elo’s new collaboration solution creates an easy way to boost engagement,” said Neeraj Pendse, vice president of global product management, Elo. “We’ve assembled everything needed—including an enterprise-grade high-def conference camera and our integrated Windows 10 computer module—for a complete huddle room solution that pairs easily with your Elo 4K display and current software.”

The Bottom Line: As corporate offices continue to reopen post-COVID, there’s an increased focus on smaller “huddle” meeting rooms supporting a hybrid mix of office-based and remote employees. With Elo’s new huddle room solution, IT leaders can add their current collaboration software to provide a complete interactive system that fosters engagement among users, regardless of location.

To read more InfoComm Connected stories, visit avnetwork.com/tag/infocomm.

For AV professionals, there are few things more exasperating than bad audio. With all of the meticulously designed, acoustically optimized board rooms sitting vacant as the COVID-19 quarantine drags on, business meetings have been reduced to conversations through tiny built-in laptop microphones. That’s no good. Not only do these default setups generate noticeably poorer sound quality, they can also introduce echo into conversations, frustrating all participants in the meeting. 

With all signs pointing to an enduring increase in remote work, there’s no better time than now to consider equipping your workforce with high-quality solutions for remote conferencing audio. Here are some of the latest solutions from top brands.

Related: How Crestron and QSC are Working From Home

Avaya IXTM Conference Phone B109

The Avaya IX Conference Phone B109 is a compact, portable personal speakerphone that delivers clear sound using the company’s OmniSound audio technology. With its USB and Bluetooth connectivity, it connects to a laptop, desk phone, collaboration computer, or a mobile phone providing high-quality audio calls. It is well suited for a meeting with a couple of colleagues in a huddle room, and fits easily inside of briefcase, making it useful for work on the road, in hotel rooms, or anywhere away from the office. If you’re alone in the room, the B109 Conference Phone is a good alternative to a headset. You can also play music with high fidelity when your meeting has finished. The clear LCD display screen and various colored LEDs let you see at a glance which feature is enabled. Its built-in battery gives users the option of complete cordless use.

beyerdynamic PHONUM

beyerdynamic’s ideal work-from-home product is the PHONUM Bluetooth/UCB-C Speakerphone. It is a simple-to-use device for impromptu meetings or creating a collaboration space virtually anywhere. PHONUM is compatible with smartphones/devices, laptops, and home/office computers. Using beyerdynamic’s audio and microphone technology, PHONUM delivers high-quality speakerphone sound for home offices or on-the-go work. PHONUM features three mic elements with Gecko 360-degree technology and the choice of three mic positions: omnidirectional, cardioid, and beamforming. It includes Fix & Follow Voice-Tracking with ANC (active noise cancelling) technology. PHONUM is also rated Best-in-Class Echo Cancellation according to Skype for Business certification guidelines. PHONUM is powered by a lithium ion battery that lasts up to 12 hours and can be charged through the USB port. It includes a hard case for meetings on the go and a USB-C cable for quick charging and conferencing.

Jabra Speak 710

Jabra Speak 710 is a portable speakerphone for business leaders that delivers high-quality sound for conference calls and music. The device features a small, compact portable design in an exclusive color and with an integrated folding stand for extra flexibility. Users can connect to a smart device or laptop in seconds via USB or Bluetooth, which provides a 30-meter range from a laptop or smartphone and 15 hours battery life. The high performing omnidirectional microphone is suitable for conference calls with up to six attendees. The Jabra Speak 710 features a "Hi-Fi-grade" speaker and the ability to pair two Speak 710 devices together for a full stereo experience, for conference calls with up to 12 people. The Speak 710 operation can be personalized by integrating a smartphone digital assistant using MS Cortana, Siri, or Google Now, with the one-touch Smart Button.

Logitech P710E

The Logitech Mobile Speakerphone P710e is designed to enable hands-free calling and high-quality audio for a phone or tablet. Users can pair up to eight Bluetooth devices or connect with NFC by touching a device to the P710e. The P710e’s innovative form factor holds your device for visibility on the other end of the call while you take notes or type on a second device or computer. The P710e provides long battery life, with up to 15 hours of talk time. A custom speaker and noise-cancelling mic offer clear sound on both ends of the call, and users can plug in headphones for additional privacy. When you’re ready to jump on a call, connect your mobile phone or tablet to the P710e speakerphone using Bluetooth with optional NFC pairing or the attached USB cable. Optimized for Microsoft Lync, Cisco compatible, and certified for Skype and Skype for Business, the P710e provides enterprise-quality audio and an integrated conferencing experience.

Poly Calisto 3200

Poly Calisto 3200 is a Teams-certified, portable personal speakerphone for your new remote working space or home office, designed with 360-degree audio to help turn any location into a professional-sounding environment. Poly’s Calisto 3200 provides high-quality audio up to 10 feet (3m) away and is Microsoft Teams-certified to ensure others hear you loud and clear on the other end of the call. Calisto 3200 is designed for intuitive control and features visual indicators and voice alerts that keep you informed of your call status. Powered by USB for plug-and-play setup and compatible with both PC and Mac, the device helps cut down on clutter. 

Sennheiser TeamConnect Wireless

Sennheiser TeamConnect Wireless is a portable wireless conference system for online meetings. Its ease of use, multiple connectivity options, fast setup, and high audio quality make unified communications more efficient. The system can be set up in less than a minute, according to the company, so users can quickly host a professional-sounding online meeting for up to 12 or up to 24 people in any room. TeamConnect Wireless supports all unified communications requirements for online meetings and offers multiple connectivity options. Users can connect with any laptop or smart device wirelessly via NFC-enabled Bluetooth or via USB/3.5mm jack wired connections. TeamConnect Wireless also supports multiple simultaneous audio channels, so joining additional callers to an ongoing online meeting is easy, too. The system is available in stationary tray-set versions for dedicated meeting rooms with two satellites for up to 12 participants or four satellites for up to 24 participants.

Yamaha YVC-330

Leading conference calls from home may be the new normal, but workers can be confident that the cacophony of kids and other background noise won’t interrupt and derail conversations with Yamaha’s YVC-330 portable USB and Bluetooth speakerphone. The device leverages Yamaha’s SoundCap technology to intelligently zero in and capture only the intended meeting participants to enable highly intelligible calls. To further enable clear meeting sound and prevent unnecessary noise from being transmitted, the speakerphone also features an automatic mute, which engages when participants are not speaking; Yamaha's Human Voice Activity Detection, which instantly distinguishes human voices from other sounds; and an auto-speaker volume adjustment, which regulates the volume to ambient noise levels.

The What: Key Digital has launched the KD-PS22UTx HDBaseT transmitter, presentation switcher, and soft-codec-enabling interface for professional installations utilizing the table cabling conduits in conference rooms, board rooms, huddle spaces, lecture halls, auditoriums, and more.

The What Else: When integrated with KD-UPS52U, KD-PS22UTx adds two additional inputs to an already loaded universal presentation switching solution, allowing systems to have sources located at conference room tables and remote locations as well as in equipment racks. When integrated directly with KD-X100MRx, KD-PS22UTx becomes more than a discreet plugin for presentation solutions mounted under the conference room table. This combination delivers ARC (Audio Return Channel) support for integration with smart TV applications enabling content streamed by the display to be returned to ARC supported surround audio receivers.

Related: Key Digital Launches Pro PTZ USB Camera for Remote Work, Education

The KD-PS22UTx features two HDMI inputs, two USB-A connections, one USB-B connection, LAN, audio de-embed, IR, RS-232, IP control, and is powered over HDBaseT from its receiver. It also includes a local pass-through output for an additional display. As a soft-codec-enabling system, KD-PS22UTx creates a connectivity hub for professional USB cameras and microphones, audio DSP, keyboard, mouse, or touchscreen display with connected computer.

KD-PS22UTx is HDCP 2.2 compliant and supports 4K/UHD 24/25/30/60 (4:4:4) resolutions with up to 18Gbps bandwidth. 4K/UHD signals are extended up to 100m (328 feet) and 1080p up to 150m (492 feet) via single Cat-5e/6 cable. In addition to AV signals, KD-PS22UTx extends USB 2.0, IR, RS-232, and LAN for controlling remotely located equipment.

Key Digital’s HDR10 delivery is handled as part of its proprietary Full-Buffer Technology (FBT), which manages TMDS re-clocking and signal re-generation, HDCP authentication with source and display, EDID control handshake, and hot plug detection control on both the source and display. Integrators have the choice of handshake delivered to the connected video source. Key Digital features an internal library with 16 EDID handshakes including an update to 4K handshakes, which includes HDR Header information. Additionally, the native EDID data from the connected output/display device may be provided to the video source.

For ease of design and installation, the KD-PS22UTx is natively received by the KD-UPS52U presentation switcher or the KD-X100MRx black box HDBaseT Rx, joining a full complement of presentation-focused products from Key Digital. In addition to joining Key Digital’s suite of app-ready products using the free KD-App, the KD-PS22UTx also supports Key Digital Management Software Pro (KDMS Pro), Compass Control Pro, and is fully controllable by all IR, RS-232, and TCP/IP-supported control systems via open API.

The Bottom Line: At its core, KD-PS22UTx provides two HDMI inputs suited for front-of-table and rear-of-table plugin options for localized presentation and auto switching between the two sources. USB 2.0 connectivity supported throughout the system creates a soft-codec enabling system for any connected laptop to professionally host video conferences or remote learning sessions with the assistance of Key Digital's PTZ camera, KD-CAMUSB.

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Keeping Human Connections at the Center of Collaborative Processes

Clients are looking to integrators to keep it simple and for a partner that can cover everything from A to Z for collaboration. The first—and most important step—in this process is fully understanding the situation and defining the problems that must be solved.

Collaboration Product Showcase

SCN dives into the newest collaboration products from major players like Atlona, Kramer, and TVONE. 

At Issue

Industry experts from Almo, TOA Electronics, Synnex, and more weigh in on utilizing the latest collaboration technologies.

Download the 2020 Integration Guide to Collaboration.

The age-old question for videoconferencing users is: “Who will steer the camera?” Few ever want the responsibility of camera control (or can figure out how to do it). Luckily, new video technologies have come to the rescue. Expensive videoconferencing appliances (aka codecs) have offered auto-tracking camera systems for years, but the original PanaCast camera was one of the first to support advanced video technologies for huddle spaces. The bright folks at Jabra have recently released a new version of this groundbreaking PanaCast camera. Does it live up to the hype?

The Easy Solution

It does, indeed. The camera easily attached to the top of my display and connected to my PC with a USB cable. That’s it, no drivers needed. I was literally up and running in seconds with my first Zoom call. Microsoft Teams and Google Hangout calls occurred without a hitch, too.

I spend a lot of time in video calls and my office often becomes an impromptu huddle space when colleagues join me for meetings. With a standard web camera, I can’t get a shot of my local participants without squeezing everyone together uncomfortably. However, the 4K PanaCast has a 180-degree field of view that uses a form of facial detection to automatically zoom the shot appropriately for the number of people in the room. The feedback from the participants on the far end of the call was positive, especially when others joined me and the auto-framing kicked in.

I was also pleased to see that the camera worked well in a small conference room when plugged into a Zoom Room. It automatically recognized the special features of the PanaCast camera and made those options available on the touchpanel. Again, no drivers or configuration were needed. 

The camera produced bright images even when the environment was less than ideal with varied lighting conditions. Importantly, I only caught the camera unnecessarily reframing a shot a few times, unlike some other devices I’ve tried that will make your meeting attendees seasick with constant zooming and panning.

Advanced Software Features

While most users will simply connect the PanaCast camera to their USB port and start collaborating, the more adventurous will want the advanced capabilities enabled with software. At the time of this writing there are two software packages relevant to the PanaCast 3 camera: Jabra Direct and PanaCast Vision.

Jabra Direct: Since absorbing PanaCast into the larger Jabra fold, efforts have been made to consolidate updates and management of all Jabra peripherals with the Jabra Direct application. For instance, the app recognized that my older Jabra Speak 510 speakerphone was in need of a firmware update. The process is the same with the PanaCast camera, too. It also allowed me to activate the built-in microphone, though I still recommend an external speakerphone for most conferencing needs. No matter how good a microphone is, the closer it is to your mouth, the better.

PanaCast Vision: Here’s where things get really interesting: You can control normal camera operations, such as digital pan, tilt and zoom, but you can also enable a “WhiteBoard” function through a virtual webcam. 

Let’s say that your huddle space has a traditional whiteboard on the wall that you’d like to share with your remote Zoom participants. You would start your video call like normal, launch the PanaCast Vision app, enable the whiteboard feature, and then switch your Zoom camera to “PanaCast Vision.” You’ll then broadcast a digitally enhanced image of your drawings that corrects distortion due to camera placement. The camera’s 180-degree field of vision plus the software intelligence adds up to a cool party trick that can actually be very useful for ideation.

Note, however, the WhiteBoard application requires fairly substantial computer resources, so don’t plan to use it with an older PC. I was also unable to get it to automatically recognize a printed “indicator” for defining the whiteboard, instead requiring me to manually define the region to be enhanced.

For true geeks, the PanaCast Vision app can also indicate what it thinks are the people that it’s tracking. It’s an interesting insight into the workings of the software and surely portends future functionality.

Jabra tells me that the features of PanaCast Vision will eventually be integrated into the slick Jabra Direct, but it was not ready for this review. While slightly clunky in use, it’s still exciting to see how technologies in the PanaCast Vision app are enabling better collaboration at a distance with existing tools in our meeting spaces.

Summary

Criticisms of the PanaCast are minor. The included USB-A cable is fairly short, so consider purchasing the optional 1.8m one or paring it with the Jabra Hub with USB-C support. I also recommend purchasing an echo-cancelling speakerphone to ensure high-quality audio. Jabra should consider offering a huddle space bundle of the PanaCast camera and a speakerphone.

Overall, I found the latest PanaCast camera to be an impressive plug-and-play huddle space solution. I appreciated the video quality, autoframing, and ease of use, and am looking forward to improvements in the WhiteBoard application. With an MSRP of $895, adding the latest PanaCast camera is a relatively economical way to improve the web conferencing experience for everyone on your video call.

James Scott McGookey is the manager of collaboration technologies at Indiana University.

The What: Debuted at ISE 2020, Kramer’s Omnivore KM-2B is a multi-purpose dual-boundary microphone designed for meeting and conferencing spaces.

[Kramer Announces XSPerience Family of DSP Solutions]

The What Else: The Omnivore KM-2B eliminates comb filtering and maximizes acoustic energy, providing improved clarity and flexibility. Omnivore KM-2B has three selectable polar patterns, allowing versatility for any type of installation: 

• Omnidirectional – For use in small/medium meeting spaces 
• Sub-cardioid – Under the display in a huddle space 
• Cardioid – On the podium for the lecturer 

A selectable high-pass filter (HPF) at 120Hz helps to avoid any “boominess” and table noises. A boost mode of an extra 12dB of microphone sensitivity allows an important gain stage—if the microphone is far from the speaker, or in case the volume is too high, boost can be cancelled to avoid clipping at the microphone.

Omnivore KM-2B is the brainchild of Yuval Kramer, director of audio at Kramer, who wanted a flexible corporate microphone that was simple to master. “KM-2B can be installed and configured by an individual with minimal audio expertise,” he said. “The switchable pickup polar patterns will help the user get excellent results in minimum time, allowing simple trial and error and providing totally flexible installation.”

The Bottom Line: The two microphones in the KM-2B can be summed into a single channel or output two separate signals for redundancy in critical installations or recordings of a conversation between two people, each with his microphone. 

Omnivore KM-2B will be available from Q3, 2020.

The What: BenQ has introduced the EW800ST, a smart projector for business. 

[BenQ Releases Voice-Activated Interactive Flat Panels Powered by AWS]

The What Else: The EW800ST makes it possible to start projecting from a smartphone, tablet, or laptop—whether it’s a PC, Mac/iOS, or Android device—in a few steps with no software required. Wireless connectivity eliminates cable clutter, and an included USB dongle means there’s no need to find the right dongle for each device.

The EW800ST enables participants to present in a way that’s most convenient for them. The EW800ST comes with a USB Type-A port that supports a wide range of file formats—including JPEG, PDF, Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files.

The BenQ EW800ST smart projector includes 16GB of storage and built-in business apps that increase productivity during meetings. Participants can start a video conference with Blizz—a global team collaboration app—remotely access another computer to view files or troubleshoot via TeamViewer, create documents collaboratively via WPS Office, as well as search the internet on Firefox. Through BenQ’s X-Sign broadcasting technology, any connected device can send text, images, and video links to the EW800ST, and everyone in the meeting room will see the message immediately on the projection screen. BenQ Smart Control turns a smartphone into a remote control, a mouse pad, and a keyboard, allowing users to navigate the projector and its business apps directly from their own device.

With its 0.49 short-throw ratio, the EW800ST is well suited for small meeting environments. It projects an 80-inch image from less than 1 meter away, which saves valuable real estate in the meeting room for participants to gather. It also ensures that speakers who talk with their hands don’t block the presentation. The EW800ST offers 3,300 lumens in WXGA native resolution, and Infographic Mode showcases texts and graphics in detail with high brightness and better color gradation.

The EW800ST features BenQ’s Dust Guard technology. A built-in anti-dust accumulation sensor rejects a large amount of dust accumulation to further improve durability and lower overall maintenance costs. In addition, the Lamp Save mode provides up to 15,000 hours of operation before lamp maintenance is needed. 

The EW800ST also features BenQ’s Device Management Solution (DMS) and Account Management System (AMS) tools. DMS enables remote and centralized management of multiple digital projectors via a local network, allowing IT managers to remotely monitor, control, and configure projectors individually or as groups at once. AMS allows IT personnel to access and manage files and personalized settings for various accounts, and they can update the firmware on the EW800ST over the air whenever an update is available. With AMS, any user can log in to their account to access and manage their files and personalized settings.

“Walk into today’s meeting room and you’ll see participants using their own devices, not just laptops, but smartphones and tablets as well, to brainstorm, take notes, and share ideas. Despite this new dynamic, it can still be cumbersome and sometimes impossible to connect to the room’s projector, depending on the device being used,” said Carly Burton-Sallay, digital marketing manager, BenQ America Corp. “The EW800ST gives meeting goers the tools they expect to collaborate freely without having to wrestle with technology. It’s the first huddle and meeting room projector designed for the future of intuitive and intelligent collaboration.” 

The Bottom Line: The projector’s wireless internet connectivity, screen-mirroring capabilities, and built-in browser and business apps enable colleagues to share ideas in today’s agile, collaborative workplaces, helping teams to be more productive. 

As the world’s most visited jobs website with 21 offices around the globe, remote collaboration tools are a key component of Indeed’s daily operations. It’s crucial that Indeed’s more than 8,900 employees have the best communication tools available, which is why the company has made the Jabra PanaCast 180-degree-view camera standard in all new or retrofitted huddle rooms, according to Jabra business development manager Frank Coussens. 

“Indeed recognized the value of small spaces for improved remote collaboration, but like many other companies, they were limited by standard videoconferencing equipment that inevitably cut off the participants seated closest to the camera,” Coussens said. “Then someone in the company got on a video call with a supplier who was already using Jabra PanaCast cameras and saw the resulting ultra-wide-angle view that captured every inch of the room. They immediately began conversations with Jabra to bring that same PanaCast capability to their organization.”

After a testing phase in late 2016, Indeed began deploying Jabra PanaCast cameras in multiple locations in 2017 and today uses more than 685 of them throughout their global office network. The company’s average huddle room is smaller than 10 feet square, and features two wall-mounted digital displays that enable simultaneous live video and screen sharing through the Zoom collaboration platform. As a true plug-and-play component, Jabra PanaCast cameras require no training or setup, so users only have to be familiar with Zoom.

“Indeed maximizes their use of space in huddle rooms, placing the conference table against the wall, and with Jabra PanaCast they still can get everyone in the camera’s view,” Coussens added. “The video quality is excellent, with no distortion, which is vital since they also use huddle rooms for meetings with suppliers and partners.”

Following the success of the 2017 rollout, Indeed made Jabra PanaCast its standard video solution for all new or retrofitted huddle rooms. The camera is currently deployed at offices in New York, California, Texas, Ireland, Japan, Australia, and Canada.

The Jabra PanaCast camera features three 13-megapixel cameras and integrated video stitching software that automatically combines the video in real time, resulting in a panoramic 4K output. It also provides data and information via API, helping companies be more efficient by enabling automation of workflows and easier resource management, as well as improving productivity and profitability through analysis of big data.

The What: Samsung Electronics America has announced the Samsung Flip 2 digital interactive display, the newest addition to the Flip lineup. Users’ presentations, notes and visuals are taken to the next level with the touch of an ultra-smooth digital pen and intuitive user interface. 

The What Else: Available in two sizes, 55 and 65 inches, both models offer collaborative features in an ergonomic design. The 55-inch model offers a hinge assembly structure and wheels for a portable solution that can transform any location into a huddle room, adding flexibility for businesses with limited conference space. With a slim and light stand, the Flip 2 allows for multiple units to be nested when not in use. The 65-inch model provides a larger screen which can be used as the main display in a meeting room, while the No Gap Wall mount removes space between the display and the wall, allowing for a cleaner installation.

The Flip 2 can be deployed across school campuses as a teaching tool for grades K-12 as well as higher education. By leveraging the Flip 2, teachers can creatively engage students in lessons and encourage participation in the classroom. Flip 2’s user interface is designed to be intuitive, enabling teachers to share content and present more easily.

In addition, The Flip 2’s menu has been simplified to ease navigation and save time. With the quick finder feature, users can preview content and make instant changes directly on the screen. By simply clicking the note layer button, users enjoy smooth writing on any content displayed without affecting work behind the original layer. Flip users can also access up to 20 pages of writing space with embedded search functionalities available to instantly direct participants to specific content. This continuous rolling stream eliminates lost time and interruptions that often result from searching through multiple sheets of paper or lines of notes to locate a specific detail.

The Flip 2 provides smooth and familiar pen-to-paper-like writing in a variety of colors, styles, and widths, while Brush mode allows users to create art at the stroke of a brush in watercolor and oil painting modes. Up to four people can write simultaneously and erase drawings with a finger or palm swipe, enabling teams to collaborate in real time. Each user can customize his or her own writing style, size, and color.

Samsung Flip 2 gives users the ability to open Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel, and PDF files directly with a built-in document viewer, ensuring easy access, regardless of the content source. The Flip 2 can also be leveraged as a calendar, scheduler, note or checklist board, enabling simplified meeting scheduling. With its reinforced six-digit lock system, each in-office team is able to safeguard sensitive content, lock the display, and remove critical content from view, ensuring meeting information is kept secure.

Each Flip 2 display can configure to portrait or landscape orientations to suit unique meeting needs. When coupled with its height-adjustable stand, the Flip 2 also maximizes available writing space at users’ preferred positions. Should a meeting require more centralized, roundtable-style discussion, users can remove and connect the Flip 2 display to a compatible wall mount.

Users can project content on the Flip 2 to another large digital display in real time using a Wi-Fi Direct or HDMI out connection. The Flip 2 display can even be shared while connected to a personal device for large meeting environments. USB, HDMI, NFC, and wireless connection capabilities provide interactive content visibility, notation, and sharing. Following any meeting, users can distribute recaps to all attendees and colleagues, removing the time frustration traditionally associated with handwritten meeting notes. Important conversations and content are stored within the Flip 2 in real time, easily shareable across mobile and digital channels.

“Today’s workers require more user-friendly, flexible, and innovative technologies to create their best work life,” said Harry Patz, senior vice president and general manager, B2B Enterprise Display Division, Samsung Electronics America. “The new Samsung Flip 2 offers enhanced collaboration capabilities to foster creativity and increase productivity for teams, allowing them to work faster, smarter, and better.”

The Bottom Line: Tailored to meet display demands in corporate, education, retail, sports, and hospitality, the Flip 2 helps users bring ideas to life by allowing them to write, design, and share their ideas more easily. The Flip 2 is optimized for many applications, including classrooms, product and fashion design, sports training, and smaller huddle spaces in corporate offices.

The What: ClearOne has announced the immediate availability of the new UNITE 50 4K ultra-wide angle video conferencing camera.

The What Else: USB plug-and-play ready with a 120-degree field-of-view and digital zoom, the new UNITE 50 4K camera is designed for collaboration and supports the USB Video Class (UVC) 1.1 standard for maximum compatibility with a wide variety of cloud and room-based solutions, including Google Hangouts.

Along with 4K30 resolution, the autofocus camera features 3x digital zoom and a full-function USB 3.0 interface for video and power. Its wide dynamic range provides support for optimal image capture—critical for all videoconferencing. It can be mounted on any display by using the clip or a standard damping rotary-shaft support. Additionally, the UNITE 50 4K is fully compatible with popular applications such as ClearOne’s COLLABORATE Space, as well as Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business, Zoom, WEBEX and GoTo Meeting, among other solutions.

The Bottom Line: The UNITE 50 4K camera’s ultra-wide-angle field-of-view is well suited for PC-based videoconferencing, web conferencing and unified communications, and other collaboration experiences in huddle spaces and small conference rooms.

Been to a brainstorm, strategy session or touchbase recently? Gatherings like these, no matter what the name, are occurring constantly in the work world. Whether it’s for a corporation, bank, hotel, retailer or other venture, digital transformation is modernizing the way we convene for the better. It’s prompting companies across all industries to reimagine their workspaces and meeting rooms to more closely align with how their teams actually function.

Meetings are now likely to involve multiple teams—some of which might be remote or international. Personal communication preferences are shifting, too. Email can be impersonal, so teams are complementing it with cloud-based options and video conferencing.

Demographics are playing a role as well. Millennials account for 30 percent of workers, the largest generation in the labor force, and these tech-savvy folks favor on-demand exchanges in smaller, more unique spaces.

Even as these dynamics impact traditional meeting practices and places, the net result is the same—everyone still needs to collaborate, and it’s generating incredible prospects for providers of integrated experiences through audiovisual solutions.

“When you look at all of the challenges facing the modern workforce, collaboration is at the very top,” says Sandi Stambaugh, vice president, product management for SYNNEX Corp..

Office environments remain the single largest source of audiovisual solution revenues for the Pro AV market. According to AVIXA’s Industry Outlook Trends and Analysis (IOTA), this segment generated an estimated $40 billion in 2018 alone, or one-fifth of the industry’s total revenue.

Say Hello to the Huddle

Keep in mind that the concept of collaboration will translate differently depending on the company culture. Collaborative solutions can be anything from a single-user desktop experience, to innovative huddle spaces, to traditional conference rooms.

Recognize that customers may prefer certain platforms: Skype for Business, Teams, WebEx, Hangouts, Zoom or Blue Jeans. Once that’s been addressed, then integrators can build in the appropriate displays, cameras, computers and audio packages as well as the desks, tables and décor.

And don’t overlook offbeat spaces like the increasingly popular huddle. Convenient for spontaneous meet-ups, it offers teams a chance to gather quickly in what can be more creative, yet technology-driven areas. Due to their size, huddle spaces are ideal for the SMB to mid-market. 

“Collaborative meeting rooms have become table stakes,” says Stambaugh. “Our goal is to provide streamlined solutions that are also immersive. We’re pleased to deliver a cohesive offering that combines the expertise of multiple SYNNEX business units as integrators look to address opportunities in this high-growth market segment.”

SYNNEX has robust solutions in various technology areas as well as financial services offerings that make it easier to move from commitment to implementation.

Here’s a quick look at what SYNNEX offers:

• Bundled AV and Digital Signage:  Bundles can support small, mid-size, and large conference rooms with products from Poly, HP, Legrand AV, Logitech, Peerless, ONELAN and Kramer. Integrators can choose a display from a variety of SYNNEX’s leading manufacturer partners.
• Cloud: Organizations have more remote workers and employees using various devices. SYNNEX offers leading collaboration platforms including Microsoft Teams and Workplace by Facebook for easy adoption and execution. SYNNEX also provides its own streamlined platform for ordering and managing cloud subscriptions.
• Cisco: The SYNNEX Comstor Division and Cisco are uniquely positioned to ensure partners are capitalizing on the cloud-first approach that Cisco is taking with collaboration. They deliver training, consulting, and enablement tools through the EDGE collaboration program. The Cisco offering provides the flexibility of on-premise, hybrid cloud, and cloud calling solutions for SMB to large enterprise opportunities. 
• Unified Collaboration solutions may also involve personal endpoints requiring headsets, or larger room systems requiring conference phones and larger-scale video collaboration systems.
• Services: SYNNEX provides value-add assessment, design and installation services to ensure accurate, complete and high-functioning collaboration solutions are delivered on behalf of its integrators. 
• The DaaS offering has several pre-defined solutions with monthly pricing in place so customers can create their own bundle and offer it at subscription pricing. Integrators can also utilize a self-service portal that allows them to build a quote and incorporate their own services.

As workflows become even more complex, there are huge opportunities to help companies evolve with the times. It means updating meeting spaces from old-school conference rooms to pioneering collaboration points tied together with powerful networks. Collaboration is truly the key, and those companies who build around that will be primed for productivity.

To learn more, contact SYNNEX VISUALSolv at: visualsolv@synnex.com.

This article was sponsored by SYNNEX.

Almo Professional A/V has joined forces with Zoom to offer fully kitted Zoom Room Hardware Bundles, all of which will be stocked and ready for shipping in the U.S. and Latin America, and designed to transform any area into an easy-to-use collaboration workspace. 

Almo has also entered a new distribution partnership with Huddly, and now offers Huddly Cameras, which are Zoom Room-approved with the Huddly IQ featured in the “Huddle Room” bundle. This bundle is being shown in a dedicated Zoom Room demo area during the Almo E4 Experience, coming to New York Metro on September 25 and Atlanta on October 15. 

In addition to the E4 Experience, the Huddle Room bundle is being shown in the Avocor booth at Zoomtopia in San Jose, October 15-16, and in the Almo Professional A/V booth at InfoComm Colombia, October 23-25. 

“Being able to work with Zoom to provide these readily available hardware bundles is a true advantage for our partners and their end user customers,” said Sam Taylor, executive vice president and COO for Almo Professional A/V. “At Almo, we evaluated collaboration software options for several years and found Zoom to have the best features and intuitive user options available. In fact, Zoom has become a key communication tool that is prevalent in the day-to-day business life of more than 350 Almo employees.”

“We worked with Zoom to design specific bundles based on their ease of installation for our integrators and to help them create the most seamless customer experience,” said Brian Rhatigan, CTS, director of business development for Almo Professional A/V. “Our new partnership with Huddly allows us to bundle the automated Huddly IQ camera, which is Zoom Room-approved. Through these carefully selected Zoom Room Hardware Bundles, Almo is making it easy for integrators to get all of the necessary components in a single box, with a single SKU, from a single supplier. All of the hardware included in these bundles has been approved by Zoom for use on the platform, which takes out all the guesswork and ensures compatibility. And, the best part is that that our Zoom Room Bundles will be stocked and ready to ship.”

"We have been looking for an opportunity to partner with Almo Professional A/V so the creation of the Zoom Room bundles has been an ideal way to bring our Zoom Room-approved conference cameras to Almo integrators in a package that is both efficient and readily available for collaboration spaces," said Nicolas Domeyko, VP Americas at Huddly. "We couldn't have picked a more exciting time to join the E4 Experience and look forward to showcasing our AI-powered cameras in the Zoom Room demonstrations this fall."  

Zoom Room Bundles

The following Zoom Room Bundles are available now through Almo: 

Small Huddle Space (1-2 people)

• MXL AC-404-Z Low Profile Conference Microphone 
• Logitech BRIO 4K Ultra High-Definition Camera

Huddle Room (2-7 people) 

• Huddly IQ Camera Videoconferencing Camera
• MXL USB Conferencing Microphone Kit
• Lenovo ThinkCentre M920x Tiny PC
• Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.5-inch
• JBL PSB-1 2.0 Channel Active Soundbar

Zoom Room Bundles with Almo Managed Services for Digital Signage

When the Zoom Room Bundles are combined with Almo’s Managed Services for Digital Signage, integrators can also provide content for Zoom Room signage mode so when the screens are not in use they can serve as digital options or corporate communications boards, and at the same time, provide recurring revenue options for integrators. 

According to Jim Nista, senior director of content creation services for Almo Professional A/V, “We have found that many of Zoom’s digital signage users are running employee-facing content. Almo Digital Signage services include content templates, such as widgets with easy-to-deploy information, like news, weather, custom calendars, waiting lists and tickets. Almo also offers standard content templates for digital menus and lobby directories. These templates can be added to the Zoom Room bundle like a product, with the added benefit of allowing integrators to earn recurring revenue for the life of the installation.” 

The What: Vaddio is now shipping its new HuddleSHOT Conferencing Camera. This all-in-one conferencing camera with integrated audio and an ultra-wide field of view is Vaddio’s newest solution optimized for huddle spaces. 

The What Else: HuddleSHOT works with all major cloud-based conferencing applications including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business, Cisco WebEx, GoToMeeting, and others.

[Vaddio Now Shipping RoboSHOT 40 UHD]

The HuddleSHOT offers two integrated speakers with wide dynamic range for robust stereo sound, as well as two built-in microphones that pick up participant voices from up to 12 feet (4m) away. The fixed camera offers 2x digital zoom and 1080p60 resolution.

“HuddleSHOT is the ideal camera solution for video collaboration sessions because its 125-degree field of view gets everyone in the picture, even in the smallest areas,” said Jay Kilby, director of product management at Vaddio. “In addition, its clear audio quality enhances collaboration on both ends of the call.”

The Bottom Line: HuddleSHOT is designed for plug-and-play operation and features stereo speakers, built-in microphones, modern aesthetics, and remote management features. For AV and IT managers, Vaddio's browser-based user interface makes it easier to manage multiple HuddleSHOT cameras across different sites for enterprise deployments.

For Knotel, one of the world’s leading purveyors of custom-designed office spaces with nearly three million square feet owned to date, it’s important to deliver a product that meets 100 percent of each client’s needs, 100 percent of the time. Since today’s workers are as likely to communicate with the other side of the planet as the other side of the office, that drive for perfection led Knotel, through their systems integrator Thom Digital, to standardize the implementation of the Jabra PanaCast videoconferencing camera for huddle rooms in every office space they design, along with all of their own corporate offices.

“Jabra PanaCast is simply the best solution available to satisfy companies’ modern videoconferencing needs in small to medium sized rooms,” said Michael Thom, owner of Thom Digital. “We’ve integrated nearly 150 previous-generation and latest-generation Jabra PanaCast cameras in Knotel-owned offices in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, London, Paris, and Berlin, for everyone from major brands like Uber and Oracle to new startups like Monday.com, Vettery, and Blink Health along with Knotel’s internal use. With its ultra-wide-angle view, superior clarity, and true plug-and-play operation, we are confident that every client will recognize its ease of use and powerful performance.”

“PanaCast has been an amazing product for Knotel,” said Ben Koevary, network engineer at Knotel. “The wide-angle field of view combined with the intelligent zoom has allowed us to deploy in hundreds of conference rooms of varying sizes without thinking twice, and the video quality makes it feel like you’re right there in the room.”

The small-to medium-sized meeting rooms, commonly referred to as huddle rooms, are generally meant to seat six to eight people around one table, often with a digital display mounted on a wall. By simply adding a Jabra PanaCast camera, even the smallest rooms can become effective videoconferencing spaces. Jabra PanaCast uses three camera lenses and artificial intelligence software to produce a seamless 180-degree view, while a built-in microphone provides audio capture, and features such as Intelligent Zoom raise the stakes by automatically focusing and zooming in on whomever is talking.

[Leica Geosystems Gives Remote Collaborators a Seat at the Table With PanaCast 2 180-Degree Cameras]

“Huddle rooms are major communications centers for any business working with remote partners, and Knotel knows that providing a simple, effective, crystal-clear microphone and camera solution is crucial to attracting clients,” Thom added. “We didn’t want a camera that would make one person in a huddle room seem like they were in a stadium all alone, so the Intelligent Zoom feature was a major factor when we originally began working with PanaCast for other clients. Now that Jabra PanaCast includes all the powerful software features without the need for separate licensing, our job is even easier and our clients are even happier.”

Knotel liked the quality and simple operation of the previous generation Jabra PanaCast camera so much that they agreed it should be in every new office space’s huddle room, and since the introduction of the latest generation camera in early 2019, Thom Digital has already integrated the new model into 15 rooms at Knotel’s headquarters in New York and many of their client locations around the world.

“It’s essentially a no-touch-operation device,” Thom said. “The entire organization uses the Zoom platform for videoconferencing, and we help train people on that. For the camera itself, we don’t have to do any training at all. We’re always looking at other options, but I haven’t found any other product that does what PanaCast does.”

Thom Digital purchases its Jabra PanaCast cameras from Stampede.

The What: Yamaha is now shipping the CS-700 SIP Video Sound Collaboration System. Part of Yamaha’s Video Sound Bar family, the CS-700 SIP model is the industry’s first video collaboration solution to integrate PBX and UC applications, according to the company. 

The What Else: The Video Sound Bar family features an adaptive beamforming microphone array; four Yamaha speaker elements to provide audio intelligibility; and a wide-angle HD camera for the far-end participants to see everyone in clear detail. The CS-700 SIP model introduces VoIP capability to the family, with built-in connections for VoIP and USB for UC applications. Users not only achieve clearer conferencing audio and video from any unified communications platform, they can also bridge VoIP and USB calls together directly from the device. This permits organizations to support both types of communication from a single wall-mounted unit, eliminating the frustration of operating additional audio equipment for more efficient and clear meetings, saving valuable table real estate in huddle rooms and other small conferencing environments, and allowing IT to quickly deploy, configure, and manage less hardware across an organization with the integrated network management system. 

The Bottom Line: With the CS-700 SIP, customers can bridge telephone calls and web conferences, achieving high-quality audio from all communication channels, addressing video and collaboration requirements, and streamlining organizational UC strategies with one easy-to-deploy device.

The series includes two models that are now available at a new price point: the CS-700AV (MSRP $799) and the new CS-700SP ($899).

The What: Extron has begun shipping the ShareLink Pro 1000, a wireless and wired collaboration gateway that enables users to present content from computers, tablets, or smartphones onto a display.

The What Else: ShareLink Pro supports simultaneous display of up to four devices including an HDMI‑connected device, and updates the display layout as new content is shared or removed. The HDMI input supports wired connections from any connected source. To support a wide range of environments, ShareLink Pro has collaboration and moderator modes that facilitate both open and controlled environments. When used with Extron GVE – GlobalViewer Enterprise software, multiple units can be managed across an enterprise or campus.

"The growing popularity of collaborative environments has led to the need for greater flexibility in how users share content," said Casey Hall, vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for Extron. "ShareLink Pro 1000 was created so that users can collaborate using most any device, and simultaneously share wired and wireless content on the same screen at the same time, creating even more collaborative environments."

To improve enterprise wide-deployments, it includes a fully customizable welcome screen with multiple configuration options to assist users in quickly connecting their devices and sharing content. A suite of security protocols ensures safe and protected collaboration between user devices and the ShareLink Pro 1000. In addition, centralized management tools enable simultaneous configuration, firmware updates, management, monitoring, and control of multiple units from one central location. 

The Bottom Line: The ShareLink Pro 1000 facilitates full screen mirroring for all devices, including Mac and Windows computers and laptops, and Android and iOS tablets and smartphones, displaying the entire screen for more fluid collaboration sessions. ShareLink Pro's professional capabilities provide integration of AV and mobile devices into meeting, huddle, collaboration, and presentation spaces.

On February 19, 2019, GN Audio announced a conditional agreement to acquire Altia Systems. Altia Systems, based in Cupertino, California (USA), is a developer of video communications solutions utilizing digital multi-camera array technology.

All necessary conditions have now been met and GN Audio has completed the acquisition of Altia Systems.

This allows GN Audio to expand into plug-and-play audiovisual communications solutions, supporting companies’ collaboration and meeting efficiency. GN Audio already commands a strong position in the unified communications market with the Jabra Evolve line of headphones and leadership in speakerphones for small meeting rooms and personal use with the successful Jabra Speak line of products. Adding video capability to these positions gives GN Audio immediate access to the highly attractive market of turnkey audiovisual communications solutions for small collaboration rooms—so-called “huddle rooms.”

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement to acquire Altia Systems,” said René Svendsen-Tune, president and CEO of GN Audio. “The acquisition further strengthens our unique value proposition by delivering leading plug-and-play audiovisual communications. Combining GN Audio’s sound expertise, partner ecosystem, and global channel access with the video technology from Altia Systems, we will take the experience of conference calls to a completely new level.”

“Combining PanaCast’s immersive, intelligent video with GN Audio’s intelligent audio solutions will enable us to deliver a whole new class of collaboration products for our customers,” said Aurangzeb Khan, president and CEO of Altia Systems. “PanaCast’s solutions enable companies to improve meeting participants’ experience, automate workflows, and enhance business efficiency and real estate utilization with data lakes of valid information.”

AV over IP is the way of the future. It’s all you hear in the industry. So, to start a job at a company that was outfitting its enormous headquarters with fully end-to-end networked AV systems sounds like the ultimate thrill, right?

Perhaps it would be in 2019; but six years ago, for a pragmatic industry veteran like Pete Kolak, it was a prescription for managerial migraines.

“I was working at Adobe when this role popped up,” said Kolak, senior manager of conferencing services at Juniper Networks, an international networking company based in Sunnyvale, CA. “Everyone in the Bay Area knew that Juniper was doing this giant upgrade with all this networked AV, where everything you plugged into and every destination was encoded and decoded on the network. I almost didn’t apply because that sounded like a total nightmare to support.”

But he decided to tackle the task anyway. “I get onsite and I’m looking around and looking at everything, and basically every signal—input and output—is encoded, sent on the network, and sent back, and that can cause some latency,” he said. “There were a lot of challenges, and the tremendous amount of traffic on the network from the AV equipment actually helped Juniper improve their switches.”

Over his first three months on the job, he and his team worked tirelessly to stabilize the AV programming and settings on the AV gear, to get to a point where it was manageable enough to start on an overhaul plan.

A SOLID FOUNDATION

When he joined Juniper in June of 2013, Kolak had amassed more than 15 years of experience in managing communications technology, so he had a solid foundation of how to engineer reliable systems—and how to fix them when things went awry. He started at a company called Turn-Key Operations, managing its telecommunications, specifically its Madge Teleos switch-based system. From there, he joined Blue Shield of California as its conferencing services lead, where he handled the design of audio conferencing, videoconferencing, video production, and data collaboration for the entire enterprise.

It wasn’t until joining Adobe as its conferencing services engineer in 2010, however, that he became fully immersed in the world of IT. “Network was a huge jump,” he said. “More than half of my career I was working in non-IP-based environments. IP was a challenge because I knew telecom, and trying to troubleshoot a network with a network team, trying to use the same verbiage I used to use with the telecom people—it was different. It was a struggle and it took a while.”

Kolak eventually gained a mastery of it from hands-on learning. “I had to work really closely with the network team to understand how it worked,” he said. “It was just trial and error, and troubleshooting, and learning what they did to fix things over time, and learning what to ask for when you saw the same problems arise.”

A GOLD STANDARD

At both Adobe and Blue Shield, part of Kolak’s responsibilities included developing standards for the companies’ AV systems. Once he was able to get enough of a handle on the network at Juniper, he sat down with his engineering team and formulated a plan to simplify and standardize its communications system on a set of three basic room configurations: presentation only, audio conference rooms, and videoconference room options. Along with this, he established a hybrid AV distribution system, where audio and video were routed locally unless it made more sense to send them over the network. “We kind of turned it back to almost a standard-type room connection, where the video in the room is just in the room and not going on the network, because of latency issues inherent in IP transport,” he said.

He has since been working to incorporate this standard in Juniper’s roughly 500 rooms across some 40 global offices. About 25 percent of them are equipped for videoconferencing, and the rest are a combination of presentation and audio. All of the larger, video-conferencing-enabled rooms feature Crestron control and touchpanels, Samsung monitors—most in a dual-display configuration—Polycom videoconferencing equipment, Shure microphones, QSC amplifiers, and Crestron DM matrix switchers in rooms that need them.

The other room types follow the same basic configuration, just scaled back. “We started out by designing the biggest room, then stripping pieces out to make it a smaller room, so it’s basically the same flow and function,” he said. There are also some non-standard rooms, like event spaces and huddle areas, which are only equipped with a Polycom Trio phone for one-touch Skype dialing and a wall-mounted display.

Particularly important for Kolak was that these spaces remain flexible in terms of software ecosystems. “We use Polycom videoconferencing because we wanted to stay agnostic from any one technology that’s out there,” he said. “I don’t want to be a Zoom room or a Google Hangout room, because you never know—one day people could decide that they hate Skype and they want to go to [Microsoft] Teams, or they want to go to Zoom. I don’t want to be nailed down to just one technology, otherwise if anything changes, it could be an expensive change instead of just a backbone change.”

DISAPPEARING ACT

Kolak said that one of his initial goals when restructuring Juniper’s conferencing spaces was to make them automatic. “When I talk with people, nobody ever wants to control the cameras, pressing buttons, joining conference calls, things like that,” he said. “So, we invented an autonomous conference room: you walk in, the room turns on, you plug in your monitor, and it shows your content. If a call is scheduled, it automatically joins it; when you leave the room, everything turns off automatically.”

All of the three standard rooms operate this way, with occupancy sensors triggering the LCD screens to turn on when participants enter. “You know how it takes about five to 10 minutes to start a meeting a lot of the time?” Kolak said. “At our company, it’s about 10 seconds. The rooms auto-route the video content when you plug in, and in some cases, it will auto connect you into the meeting you have scheduled if you desire, or you can do a one-touch join into your meeting as well. When you leave the room, the system shuts off.”

Beyond saving time, he believes that minimizing interaction with technology is key for maximizing utilization. “Making the technology disappear is actually more comfortable for the customers,” he said. “We might think it’s really cool; I would love to show everybody under the hood how everything works. But most people, when you walk in our rooms, you just see furniture, microphones, and monitors on the wall—that’s the extent of how we showboat our technology.”

TEAMWORK

Departmental collaboration is important for Kolak’s work at Juniper. His team is part of the IT department, so he says he gets along really well with its other staff members. One division is the network team, to which conferencing services’ work is closely tied. “We are a network company, and we have to work closely with them to make sure things are profiled, and if a device falls offline, to find out why,” he said. There is a unified communications team, and Kolak works with them to oversee the operation of the company’s Polycom equipment, troubleshooting issues with call drops, static, and things on the line. “We also work very closely with the accounts teams, with the email teams, to get everyone to create accounts,” he said.

In addition, Kolak said he maintains a working relationship with the company’s vendor programmers to ensure their code is universal for all conferencing room types. “I want to make sure that our code isn’t overly complicated, but is able to have things switched on here and there to make it work with any room type,” he said. “Every couple of weeks, I’ll get together with our programmer remotely and just make sure we’re doing the right thing and keeping our code up to date.”

DAILY DETAIL

Even with a conferencing system as carefully engineered as Juniper’s, things invariably go wrong—and getting them back in working order occupies a lot of Kolak’s time on a daily basis. “You’re chasing network things, things falling offline,” he said. “We do a lot of ‘Why did this device fall offline?’ troubleshooting and trying to get to root causes. A lot of times it’s the device; a device will fail, or a device will just fall asleep.”

Staying on top of security is key for every internet-connected enterprise, and Juniper is no exception. Because most of the AV devices now use dedicated switchers, the risk of intrusion is minimized. Wherever possible, encryption is used. “Our Shure microphone signals are all encrypted, we also obviously have password protection on all of our devices around the company,” Kolak said. Juniper uses AVI-SPL’s Symphony to keep tabs on how everything is operating, and to ensure no unauthorized activity is taking place. “We monitor our equipment’s health to see if something’s offline, and everything has to be remotely accessible, so we can log on to see if somebody’s changed a password or sending it something.”

In addition to overseeing all of the devices and infrastructure, Kolak also does a lot of customer support work, providing employees with instruction on setting up calls, scheduling meetings, and making sure they know how to use rooms properly.

REFRESHING

With roughly 40 global offices in every region, from EMEA, to APAC, to the U.S., Juniper has a lot of rooms to outfit with technology—so making sure it’s all up to date can be challenging. According to Kolak, there wasn’t a strategy for refreshing it when he came onboard. So, he came up with one himself, based around a five-year schedule. “I went to the director who was here before me who was in charge of the engineering team, and said ‘Hey, I just did inventory of all of our equipment around the world. And if you were to replace it with the current standard at the time, you would need X million dollars. You divide that by five, and you just do that much every year, and every five years you cycle back.’”

He received approval for this plan three years ago, so the first cycle is not yet complete. “We still have some APAC sites to refresh, and a couple sites here in the U.S. We’re almost done, then we’ll be starting over.”

DOING IT RIGHT

Kolak’s number-one piece of advice for technology managers? Stay consistent. “That’s something I’m kind of crazy about,” he said. “I want to make sure that whatever we’re doing, we keep everything as consistent as possible.”

But keeping things simple isn’t so easy. Kolak said that one particular challenge he faces is pressure to pursue the latest technology, which isn’t always better. “That’s the hardest thing in my career and in my whole life: You would think that everyone would be onboard with being consistent, but even my engineers on my own team will see something bright and shiny and get interested in it,” he said. “And I’ll have to ask, ‘How does that tie into what we’re doing? What does that fix or replace?’ So just running to do the next greatest thing, it’s really hard to maintain standards.”

To help prevent such misguided diversions from the established order, Kolak urges technology managers to work closely with upper management and make sure you’ve communicated your vision and plans with them.

Finally, when developing standards, Kolak believes there should be clear objectives in mind. “What are you designing your standards for, and why are you even making them?” he said. “For example, we came up with a list of things we’re trying to accomplish with our standards—things like making sure that the meeting can start as quickly as possible.”

So what’s next? Kolak is open to moving more AV resources back to the network in the future—as long as it makes things simpler, and doesn’t deviate from his core objectives.

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Industry experts explore the unique challenges in integrating collaboration and huddle spaces, along with their tips and best practices. They also share their predicted collaboration trends for 2019. 

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Yamaha Unified Communications (Stands 11-F120 and 11-G120) will showcase its meeting space product portfolio at Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2019, February 5–8. Attendees can experience Yamaha UC's lineup of purpose-built UC solutions that address the full range of collaboration use cases.

"Clear, natural audio is fundamental to a satisfying and productive meeting, but as customers demand the flexibility to collaborate anywhere, integrators and technology managers are challenged with UC solutions that fit these environments," said Philip Stanley, director of EMEA, Yamaha UC. "At ISE 2019, we're showing how Yamaha UC solutions enhance the user experience. Visitors will see vignettes reflective of today's meeting spaces, from the home office, an open office, and huddle room, all the way up to a large conference or multipurpose room and boardroom."

Home Office or Open Workspace

More and more people are meeting remotely or working wherever is most convenient, redefining users' expectations and conferencing requirements. At ISE 2019, Yamaha UC will showcase the YVC-200 Portable USB + Bluetooth Speakerphone, designed to provide high-performance audio that goes everywhere with the user. The compact device leverages Yamaha's audio technology to boost productivity when meeting remotely or in an open workspace. It is integrated with Yamaha's sound processing technologies, including adaptive echo cancellation (AEC) and human voice activity detection, which focuses on speech rather than background noise. The unit features an intelligent microphone and delivers full-duplex conversation without sound dropouts, even when multiple people are speaking at once.

Huddle Room

At ISE 2019, Yamaha UC will showcase the Yamaha CS-700 Video Sound Collaboration System for huddle rooms. Designed for the highest quality user experience, it optimizes audio, video, and collaboration capabilities in a smart wall-mounted unit. It features an adaptive beamforming microphone array, four Yamaha speaker elements, and a wide-angle HD camera for the far-end participants to see everyone in clear detail. Users can connect to an organization's chosen UC platform using a single USB, eliminating the frustrations and inefficiencies of operating disparate video, audio, and collaboration components. In addition, the CS-700's integrated network management system allows IT staff to deploy and remotely manage each unit from one location, increasing service response and efficiency.

Large Conference Room or Multipurpose Room

When team members are located all over the world, high-quality audio is the first priority. Going beyond the traditional speakerphone, the Yamaha YVC-1000 conference phone enhances audio for medium to large conference spaces and multipurpose meeting rooms. It features a separate microphone and full-range speaker unit that can be placed close to the video display, so audio and video from the remote location blend more naturally for faster comprehension. It can support two external speakers and up to five daisy-chained microphones and is capable of being paired with other microphone systems via an input jack for increased scalability in larger meeting rooms. Its auto-tune setup also allows participants to get started quickly with audio optimized to the room conditions. Yamaha's AEC and other sound processing technologies facilitate stress-free conversation.

Boardroom

The use of UC applications is reaching into boardrooms, requiring equipment that can support these platforms while delivering reliable, high-quality audio that ensures effective communication. At ISE 2019, visitors can see Yamaha’s ready-to-install professional audio system that is designed to enable participants to use their preferred UC application and collaborate with clarity while streamlining systems and installation efficiencies. The system comprises an eight-channel Revolabs Executive Elite wireless microphone package, two VXL1-16P Power over Ethernet (PoE), Dante-enabled speaker arrays with wall volume controller, a digital signal processor, a five-port PoE switch, Dante AVIO USB adapter, and cabling. Connected to an organization's chosen UC platform through a single USB cable, it utilizes Yamaha's AEC algorithms and dynamic microphone mixing technology to deliver high-quality audio throughout the room.

The What: Yamaha Unified Communications has released a new firmware version for the CS-700 Video Sound Collaboration System that improves the camera performance and adds access to image setting controls.

The What Else: The version 1.1.1 update adds backlight compensation to provide more image brightness and reduce sharpness. It also unlocks control settings, allowing IT to adjust the image to fit the room's lighting environment. Increasing service response and efficiency, IT staff can update all units simultaneously and control image quality via the system's integrated network management system.

"We developed the CS-700 to simplify the meeting experience, and after listening to our customers, we further strengthened the performance and options of our HD camera to make it even easier to achieve high-quality video," said Mike Fitch, vice president, global sales and marketing, Yamaha UC. "This is the first of many updates we have planned as part of our commitment to ensuring the CS-700 delivers best-in-class collaboration capabilities."

The Bottom Line: The CS-700 from Yamaha UC is designed to provide huddle spaces with best-in-class audio, video, and screen-sharing capabilities in an all-in-one videoconferencing system. The latest update aims to enhance this experience and provide technology managers with increased control over the system.

Nureva has announced that its HDL300 audio conferencing system has been designated by Zoom Video Communications as a recommended audio solution for medium to large Zoom Rooms. The addition of the HDL300 system gives Zoom customers an advanced, cost-effective microphone-speaker with thousands of virtual microphones for full-room pickup. Auto calibration and plug-and-play connectivity make the system an easy add-on to other recommended components and technologies in the room.

The addition of the HDL300 system to Zoom’s recommended hardware list is part of Nureva’s ongoing initiative to deliver a premium collaboration experience to its customers through third-party integrations, plugins, certifications, APIs, and more. Visitors to ISE 2019 in Amsterdam this February can receive a live demo of the HDL300 audio conferencing system on Nureva’s stand 11-B180.

“The Nureva HDL300 system has a remarkable ability to pick up the voices of meeting participants wherever they are in the room,” said Chris DeNovellis, Zoom’s partnerships development manager. “Combined with ease of integration with other room components and technologies, we see it as an exciting addition to our lineup of recommended hardware for Zoom customers.”

“After one of our Zoom Rooms clients installed the HDL300 system enterprise wide, trouble tickets for poor audio pickup went down by 99 percent,” said Ryan Pinke, founder of Video Conference Gear, an authorized Nureva and Zoom Rooms reseller. “The HDL300 system is an excellent alternative to costly and complex audio systems, and clients are becoming a believer after the first call.”

“We are delighted that Zoom has added the HDL300 system as a recommended product for one of their Zoom Rooms,” said Nancy Knowlton, Nureva’s CEO. “We’re excited to see the response from Zoom customers to a new and innovative audio conferencing option for their spaces.”

According to research firm Frost & Sullivan, there are more than 32 million huddle rooms deployed globally. By 2022, the firm projects that 70 percent of all videoconferencing meetings will take place in a huddle room. With business professionals embracing the concept of the ad hoc meeting, tech managers must continue to explore how to roll out—and refresh—these facilities to obtain optimum adoption and return on investment.

One of the best ways toward achieving this is gaining insight into when and how spaces are being used, and by whom. Matt Boyer, director of technology at Vistacom, an AV design and integration firm headquartered in Allentown, PA, noted that room analytics and scheduling functionality not only helps users locate available meeting space, they also provide tech managers with valuable information that can influence future buying decisions. 

“[Users] can get access to those rooms on an ad hoc basis by having some kind of scheduling panel outside the room, where they can find an available room, see how long it’s going to be available, and then book it right on the spot,” he said. This functionality lets "technology managers know how often the rooms are booked, and which rooms are booked in a particular area.” He added that scheduling capabilities have extended to hot-desking: “[They help] people coming in from the field to find and book a desk when they come into the office.”

From Vistacom’s vantage point, some organizations are beginning to equip their huddle spaces—or at least a portion thereof—with advanced collaboration systems. “It’s not just a simple display in the room, but actual collaboration platforms [that allow] people to interact with people in the room and outside of the room,” he said. 

He relayed that his firm deploys a significant number of Prysm systems to provide more sophisticated collaboration capabilities to professionals in need of them. “These are certainly not in all of the huddle rooms, but specific [spaces] have those appliances in them. The large conference rooms are going away in lieu of these smaller conference rooms, so that technology is starting to filter into them.”

When outfitting these spaces, Boyer urges tech managers to prioritize audio systems that take remote meeting participants into account. “The number one thing that makes or breaks a meeting as far as it being successful is audio. You can have an elaborate conferencing and collaboration tool but if there is poor audio, the people on the far end can’t hear clearly,” he said. “[It’s important] to have a permanent, higher-quality audio device in there—whether it’s a USB speakerphone or something like a Polycom Trio, which is very effective in huddle rooms—to provide that enhanced audio capability.” He added that video is great for meetings, but without good audio, it’s difficult for team members to share ideas with one another.

Standardization should also be a top priority, in view of the fact that many organizations deploy hundreds, or even thousands, of these facilities. While certain huddle spaces may be slightly more sophisticated—such as those following Boyer’s Prysm collaboration system example—the more they remain reasonably identical, the easier they are to utilize and manage. “It’s one thing to have a custom boardroom that may take some training, but if you’re going to try and deploy them throughout your organization, a repeatable operation is important.” Otherwise, he said, companies risk low adoption levels.

One of the challenging aspects of refreshing these spaces is dealing with the fixed elements that are already in place, noted Tom Spearman, executive vice president at Diversified, a global technologies solutions provider headquartered in Kenilworth, NJ. 

“It’s very difficult to know if [certain components] are going to fit inside of the built environment because there are so many variables,” he said. The type of display, its compatibility with ancillary devices, furniture, power outlets, data drops—each has an impact on what new technology can be installed. “When you embark on a huddle room refresh project, the number-one consideration is: how can I create a solution that doesn’t require a lot of room remediation or furniture changes? Because if the conduit in the floor is already jam-packed with data cables, none of those can be used as your cable path between the flat screen and the table. The equipment piece is only part of the equation; it’s really about how to implement that equipment in an existing facility that makes these upgrade and refresh projects challenging.”

Obtaining the ability to alter the makeup of these spaces as an organization’s needs change can also present issues: what happens when a company wants to transform “static” spaces that feature little, if any, tech into more dynamic meeting spaces? Or, if it wishes to overhaul a former huddle room into a more formal meeting room? 

“If you look at the corporate world, a lot of the spaces I work in right now, they will have hundreds of rooms that are relatively undefined—they’re defined in some way at the beginning of a project, but a huddle room may convert to an office and then to a meeting room in a few years,” said Rodrigo Ordonez, principal at K2 Audio, an AV design and integration firm headquartered in Boulder, CO. “It’s very difficult to do that with traditional AV technologies unless every time that happens, you basically do a construction project or a full installation redesign project.” And yet, room flexibility adds increased value to a company’s real estate.

While many large enterprises follow refresh cycles, tech managers may also want to future-proof their huddle rooms as much as possible. This isn’t always feasible, but Spearman believes that with a solid collaboration platform, futureproofing becomes somewhat of a moot point. “[Most organizations have] already made the strategic decision about what collaboration platform they want to invest in, and then everything they’re doing in the huddle rooms is focused on integrating with that standard,” he said. What’s important, he said, is choosing supporting technology that works well with your platform of choice. “I think the manufacturers have done a good job of making their technology capable of supporting multiple platforms. There are exceptions, but for the most part, the AV manufacturers are trying to stake out a position that is somewhat platform agnostic.”

Use, Don't Lose

Standardized, user-friendly huddle spaces are key to promoting adoption. AV systems integrator Vistacom offers training services that help users learn the technology that is deployed in these spaces, and how they can incorporate it into their workflow. “If they’re a big whiteboard user, for example, how do they make use of whiteboards?” said Mark Boyer, director of technology at the firm. “Or maybe they love sticky notes. Some collaboration technologies have a sticky note function [where] you don’t have to take all your [paper] sticky notes off the wall when you’re done with the room—you can just close your application and take them with you.”

Carolyn Heinze is a freelance writer/editor.

DIVERSIFIED
www.diversifiedus.com

K2 AUDIO LLC
www.thisisk2.com

VISTACOM INC.
www.vistacominc.com

The What: ClearOne has begun shipping its new UNITE 50 conferencing camera. Plug-and-play ready with 120-degree field of view, digital zoom, and easy pairing with any microphone/speaker combination, the $549 priced UNITE 50 camera is designed for a high-quality and economical collaboration experience.

The What Else: The camera features 1080p30 video, autofocus, and 3x digital zoom, along with a full-function USB 3.0 interface for video and power. The camera can be controlled with ClearOne’s COLLABORATE application, an IR remote, or UVC protocol, providing the user with maximum flexibility of control. Its wide dynamic range provides support for optimal image capture—critical for all videoconferencing. The UNITE 50 can be mounted on any display by using the clip or a standard damping rotary-shaft support. Finally, the UNITE 50 is fully compatible with popular applications such as ClearOne’s COLLABORATE Spontania and COLLABORATE Space, as well as Skype for Business, Zoom, WEBEX, and GoTo Meeting, among other solutions.

“People from all walks of life are now completely video-centric in their personal and professional lives,” said ClearOne chairman and CEO Zee Hakimoglu. “That means they need to be able to videoconference with colleagues, and they want to be able to do this in an affordable way without sacrificing video and audio quality. The ClearOne UNITE 50 camera was developed specifically to address these needs.”

According to Hakimoglu, while it has been estimated that there are some 32 million huddle rooms in the world today, only 2 percent are currently video enabled. “This presents our integration partners with a tremendous opportunity to equip these rooms with the range of solutions we offer, as well as satisfying the BYOD users who are most likely to benefit from the UNITE 50 camera,” she said.

The Bottom Line: The UNITE 50 camera’s wide-angle field of view is designed for visual communication and collaboration in any small meeting environment, including huddle spaces. It’s ideal for PC-based video conferencing, web conferencing and unified communications, and other collaboration experiences.

The new ClearOne UNITE 50 camera will be showcased next month at ISE 2019 at Stand #D-130 in Hall 11 at the RAI Centre in Amsterdam. 

As you probably know by now, huddle rooms and small meeting spaces are in high demand. According to a Barco research survey of nearly 3,000 white-collar workers, 82 percent of respondents said that every office should have at least one huddle room. “Our research showed that giving employees options for easy and impromptu gatherings in small meeting areas or huddle rooms is vital for optimal productivity,” said Lieven Bertier, director of GTM strategy and services for Barco’s Meeting Experience business.

Now, the tricky part is making sure that small meetings are actually great meetings. Here’s how to make that happen—with the help of AV technology, of course.

DESIGN AND DEPLOY THE HUDDLE SPACE PROPERLY

Even the best-planned small meetings can go wrong if the huddle room is poorly designed and deployed. “For example, the whiteboard may be placed too close to the table where other employees are sitting during a meeting, or the table is positioned in front of the webcam, forcing employees to adjust their seats,” said Nic Milani, executive director of commercial product marketing at Crestron Electronics. “These small inconveniences can easily impact the flow and energy during a meeting.”

Typically, huddle rooms are equipped with dry-erase whiteboards and remote conferencing capabilities using either an installed conferencing system or BYOD collaboration software, he explained. Because many of these whiteboards are not equipped to share visual information with people in other locations, “the result has been the emergence of highly unproductive workflows with people taking pictures of the whiteboard with their phone and emailing them to remote participants,” said Adrian Cable, CTO and co-founder of Kaptivo. “Working this way disrupts the meeting’s flow, and results in disorganized, decentralized information storage.”

Conversely, too much technology can also detract from a huddle room’s usefulness for small meetings. “For areas like huddle rooms, you may only need a simple all-in-one device that allows employees to present, call, and collaborate, whereas larger boardrooms may require a more robust solution,” Cable said. “Understanding your employees and their needs while designing these areas is imperative to ensuring a successful meeting.”

“Room scheduling also alleviates the stress that comes with securing a space for your meeting both in advance and on-the-fly,” noted Milani. “By utilizing room scheduling solutions such as touchscreens and illuminated room availability indicators, employees can easily identify an available meeting space, book it, and begin their meeting knowing that they have secured the space for a specific amount of time.”

KEEP THE AV TECH SIMPLE

Milani’s emphasis on equipping huddle rooms with basic AV equipment was echoed by every person interviewed for this article.

“You need simple, easy-to-use technology because you can’t waste a lot of time getting the technology to work,” said Cable. It is also essential that everyone in the meeting can engage with all of the collaboration tools being used, including whiteboards whose content is digitally captured and shared. “Whiteboard collaboration systems digitize and connect the standard dry-erase whiteboard into videoconference room systems,” he explained. “Remote participants can see the board as clearly as if they were in the room.”

“Businesses need to choose technology that is intuitive, simple to use, and reliable,” Bertier agreed. At the same time, certain capabilities are a must in the smallest of huddle rooms. For instance, “It is essential to have AV technologies that make screen sharing quicker, easier, and more effective,” he said. In addition, “equipping small spaces with technology that allows for videoconferencing, plug-and-present capabilities, and remote desktop access connections, to name a few, are vital for achieving optimal performance from small meeting spaces.”

SIMPLE DOESN’T MEAN UNPROFESSIONAL

The fact that huddle rooms should be equipped with simple, easy-to-use technology does not mean that the resulting content should be somehow less polished or professional than the content generated by larger facilities. “For small meetings to go well, the technology has to provide an experience that makes video communication and content sharing not only seamless but second nature,” Helmbrecht said. “That way you can present your business in the best light and make the best impression with every conversation and every interaction.”

SUCCESS IS NOT A FLUKE

Successful small meetings are not fortuitous flukes. They are the deliberate result of careful planning, relevant AV equipment selection, and the right room layouts for huddle rooms used for small meetings. Ideally, all of these features should be invisible to huddle room occupants. All they should know is that when they hold small meetings in huddle rooms, things get done.

“Seventy-two percent of workers with huddle rooms say that those spaces encourage productivity, while three-quarters said they stimulate creativity,” said Bertier. “With the proper AV support, huddle rooms give employees a great option for holding successful small meetings.”

GREAT SMALL MEETINGS ARE PREPLANNED

Finally, just like really good actors can’t save a movie with a terrible script, huddle rooms with the right technology can’t save a meeting with no apparent direction or purpose.

“Effective meetings are the product of good leadership, and good leaders come to the meeting knowing exactly what they need to discuss and discuss only that,” said Michael Helmbrecht, chief operating officer at Lifesize. “Before you reserve a room and send out a meeting invite, consider the outcomes you’re expecting from the meeting.” He also recommended setting an agenda to be sent out with the meeting invite, to let participants know what to expect and prepare their own input beforehand. “It’s also important to consider the attendees,” Helmbrecht continued. “It might sound simple, but invite only the people who will add to the discussion and contribute to the meeting goals.”

In other words, great small meetings don’t just happen; they are created. The person in charge knows what they want to achieve and orders the meeting’s agenda, schedule, and flow to achieve it. The people taking part have a reason for being there and something to contribute; it’s not a waste of their time. And it certainly doesn’t hurt to have a firm end time set before the meeting starts.

OPTIONS FOR OUTFITTING

Barco

Huddle spaces are all about maximizing creativity and productivity when, where, and how employees want to collaborate. Barco’s ClickShare product range—which supports an array of devices including smartphones, laptops, and tablets—is designed to address the needs of a wide range of huddle settings, from coffee corners to small meeting rooms, and everything in between.

www.barco.com

Crestron

Crestron Flex unified communications and collaboration solutions are designed to support any web collaboration application or natively run the most popular third-party UC applications including Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business, and Zoom. Built on the Crestron XiO Cloud IoT-based platform, Flex can be used to deploy, manage, monitor, and evolve thousands of Crestron devices from a single dashboard. 

www.crestron.com

Lifesize

Lifesize Dash allows companies to equip their smallest meeting spaces with high-quality videoconferencing technology. To make this happen, Lifesize Dash uses WebRTC technology to enable video, audio, and web meetings on inexpensive Chromebox devices from Acer and Asus. The platform offers easy-to-use meeting controls, centralized management, and automatic updates for a trouble-free meeting experience. Lifesize Dash integrates with a variety of third-party USB cameras and audio devices including AVer, Logitech, Huddly, MXL, and others, so customers can create the best meeting room solution for their unique needs. 

www.lifesize.com

Kaptivo

The Kaptivo Enterprise enables whiteboard sharing from any huddle room. According to the company, the affordable price, easy installation, and usability with any internet-enabled device allows companies to install Kaptivo in every meeting space. In addition, Kaptivo Enterprise integrates with any videoconferencing system—and employees can now share their whiteboard with one click using their room controller.

kaptivo.com

SUCCESSFUL SMALL MEETING POINTS

• The best small meetings are preplanned with clear agendas, goals, and schedules; and attended by people who need to be there and no one else.
• Huddle rooms need to be designed to provide optimal comfort and functionality to users, aided by the right AV technology.
• AV technology in huddle rooms needs to be all-in-one, easy to use, and inclusive of both local and remote participants.
• Simplicity does not mean low end: AV content produced in huddle rooms must be as good as content produced in large meeting rooms.
• Successful small meetings are made based on the factors outlined above. They don’t just happen.

Embrace the huddle. No, not the football kind of huddle; the one you’ve been tasked to implement in a stamp-sized room to support the growing demand for quick, easy, and most importantly reliable collaboration experiences. With more office spaces opting for open floor plans, more employees telecommuting, and tech-savvy millennials joining the workforce, huddle rooms have become the de facto standard for promoting brainstorming, creativity, and collaboration—either face-to-face or remotely. Despite their diminutive size, however, these spaces can present hefty tech challenges that can be overlooked and difficult to tackle. That’s why they require thoughtful planning and strategizing.

THINK DIFFERENTLY

Many huddle rooms necessitate audio, video, and screen-sharing capabilities that were once reserved for boardrooms with C-level participants. However, these rooms aren’t small-scale boardrooms. They’re daily workhorses whose occupants must be able to start a meeting quickly and operate the technology to support them intuitively. When employees struggle to share their screen or have to reboot the audio source, it hampers productivity and innovation. Your job is to remove any barriers that support the natural flow of information and exchange of ideas.

GATHER DATA

A successful huddle room is one that’s used often, because it delivers what the users need to be productive. Before you sling any old system onto the table, talk to your users to find out what their meetings currently look like and what they’re missing. Zero in on what your users really need to collaborate, and then identify what technology and furniture will support those needs. For example, should the table be round to complement face-to-face collaboration, or does it need to terminate at a screen for videoconferencing? Will the room need a dedicated computer for screen sharing? Or is the organization a primarily BYOD culture, necessitating ample and convenient inputs for mobile devices or laptops?

IDENTIFY THE ROOM LOCATION

If you’re working from a blank slate, it’s much easier to build out a huddle room. But the more likely reality is that you’ll have to work within the constraints of a preexisting space, flipping a former office into a vibrant collaborative space for four to six participants and without a dedicated tech closet or rack room close by to house AV components. The good news is that there are professional rack solutions designed to house localized systems, including tables, credenzas, and options that take advantage of the unused space behind a flat screen.

FREE THE ROOM FROM CLUTTER

Huddle rooms should be clean and welcoming with the work surfaces reserved solely for participants. There shouldn’t be cords and technology dripping off the limited table space. New AV storage and furniture solutions can conveniently and discreetly house devices to remove clutter, which will maximize the available workspace and make users feel comfortable getting down to business.

DON’T OVERLOOK SYSTEMS BEST PRACTICES

Even if AV components have to live in the room, you still have to be careful about system design. Although it’s trickier to balance cable, thermal, and power management requirements with space constraints and the small number of power outlets available in the room, there are options that ease these pain points. Look for shelves or furniture specifically designed to mount small devices, which will ensure proper thermal management, protect component connections, and grant easy access to the system components. Likewise, don’t wage a war against the growing number of DC-powered devices and their wall warts you’ll likely encounter in these spaces. Rather than squeezing them all in and introducing possible points of failure (and user frustration), look for compact universal power solutions that can be wired to eliminate the burden and bulk of wall warts.

Huddle rooms may be small, but they still require the same approach as a spacious executive boardroom. And unlike a boardroom where the format, user, and technology needs are more defined, huddle rooms can be much more of a moving target. To design successful huddle rooms, the best strategy is a thoughtful strategy.

Megan Knedler is the director of marketing at Middle Atlantic Products. 

The What: Lifesize has launched Lifesize Dash, a software-based solution for real-time video collaboration designed for mini meeting spaces and organizations of any size.

The What Else: Lifesize Dash uses WebRTC technology to enable video, audio and web meetings on inexpensive Chromebox devices from Acer and Asus and offers easy-to-use meeting controls, centralized management, and automatic updates for an easier meeting experience. Lifesize Dash integrates with a variety of third-party USB cameras and audio devices including AVer, Logitech, Huddly, MXL, and others, so customers can create the best meeting room solution for their unique needs.

“Mini spaces and huddle rooms are quickly becoming the go-to location for meetings in today’s fast-paced, collaborative environment,” said Craig Malloy, CEO of Lifesize. “We designed Lifesize Dash as a way to help maximize productivity in these spaces while still offering the benefits of larger meeting room solutions. Now, companies have another option that is simple, cost-effective, and above all else, intuitive for their users.”

Lifesize recently completed an extensive beta test program for Lifesize Dash with overwhelmingly positive feedback, according to the company. The program involved more than 90 participants, including current customers and evaluators interested in a low-cost mini-room video solution, and influencers looking for innovative solutions to recommend to their audiences.

"It's really simple to setup and use,” said Marius van Wyk, director of operations and technical at SkyGroup Communications. “The quality is surprisingly good. Great software solution for small huddle spaces."

The Bottom Line: According to Frost & Sullivan, many of the 32 million small meeting spaces or “huddle rooms” in offices around the world go largely unused because they lack anything more than a phone for team members to communicate and collaborate together. Lifesize Dash aims to cost-effectively transform these underutilized rooms into collaboration hotspots, empowering more teams to be more productive more often.

Existing and new customers who subscribe to the Lifesize cloud-based service (Between October 30, 2018–January 31, 2019) will receive a free Lifesize Dash subscription. 

ZiipRoom has launched a Huddle Room Makeover contest with their partners AVer, VideoConferenceGear, and Yamaha.

The Huddle Room Makeover contest will provide five companies with everything required to transform their existing “huddle room in need” into a state-of-the-art collaboration hotspot.

Winners of the contest will receive:

• AVer UltraHD Camera
• Revolabs (Yamaha) USB Speakerphone
• Intel NUC with Windows 10 Pro software (from VideoConferenceGear.com)
• ZiipRoom MeetingExperience software

Beginning Oct. 4, 2018 running through Oct. 31, ZiipRoom will be accepting entries. Learn more on their blog.

Wait! This is not another article about screen sharing collaboration solutions.

Most of your customers need a collaboration solution, but some will specifically need something more nuanced that can enhance ideation. Step one: understand how teams ideate. Step two: armed with that knowledge, talk with your clients to find out how they work, and show them how you can provide a technology solution that can enhance their ideation process.

Learn more about collaboration from this free webinar: bit.ly/AVcollab

Ideation is creative process where teams get together to brainstorm, sketch, and develop concepts for projects. Depending on the stakeholders involved, some begin to map ideation sessions to a project management methodology such as Waterfall, Six Sigma, Scrum, Agile, or others. Everyone wants to be agile, but, in fact, the term has been widely misused and is specific to a methodology.

If you’ve ever watched the HBO series Silicon Valley, you might have noticed a large white board with a bunch of different colored sticky notes arranged in columns located in the rooms where the developers work. They are likely using the Agile methodology. When they are coming up with pie-in-the-sky ideas, they write an idea on a sticky note and place it on the board. Yada, yada, yada—by the time they’re in development, when someone on the team completes a task, they run up to the board and move the sticky note from one column to another and take a victory lap. There are many steps in between, but you get the idea.

You don’t need to add another certification to your already long list, but having an armchair knowledge will help you speak the language of your customers and provide a technology solution that enhances the process.

Additional Resource: Choosing a Project Management Methodology from CIO Magazine.

Evolved Collaboration Solutions

There’s not a technology category for ideation. There are infinite technology solutions sold specifically for project management, but what we’re looking at here is how AV solutions within the collaboration umbrella facilitate ideation and the project management process.

“Organizations are making major bets on design thinking, agile and lean methods to transform their businesses,” said Darren Zwack, VP marketing, Nureva. “Each of these areas has highly collaborative activities at their core that can benefit significantly from a digital makeover.” To be successful, the category needs to support the ability for teams to actively work together, contributing in real-time to a shared space, regardless of their location.

“Content, and engagement are no longer an afterthought,” said Adam Cuzzort, CTO, software, Prysm. There are two primary reasons for this change. “Originally, collaboration tools were siloed: digital whiteboards only worked for in-room collaboration, video teleconferencing (VTC) only worked for remote collaboration, etc.” A critical feature for ideating and project management is that the work can be saved and iterated upon. “These [older] tools were session-based so there was no way to memorialize the work that was done so that participants could pick up exactly where they last left off,” said Cuzzort. “This has changed, thanks to the cloud.”

Ideating engenders a freedom of thought and physical movement. “Mezzanine is intensely spatial—it's absolutely embodied, it is part of the architecture, which is why is possible for pointing to work,” said John Underkoffler, founder and CEO of Oblong Industries. “The screens and the pixels literally know where they are in the room, and they know where you are…at least the part of you that's holding the wand is in the room.”

Many collaboration solutions have evolved and incorporate much more than screen-sharing. The ideation process is not limited to the session or room. “Today we are seeing more tools that offer traditional collaboration benefits like video conferencing and presentation sharing while adding new interactive tools that integrate with messaging platforms, social media, email and mobile apps,” said Loren Shaw, VP marketing, InFocus.

Nuances to Help You Sell the Idea(tion)

You’re already adept at selling technology benefits to your customers, but how do you specifically sell the concept of ideation?

“My best advice would be to have a conversation about what your customer is trying to achieve in building a collaborative or huddle space from a user experience (UX) perspective,” said Mario DiAntonio, TAM and EBC team leader, Samsung Electronics America. The UX for an ideation or project management session is different than a straight-forward collaboration. “A lot of the time, we find that our customers have a huge list of wants, made up of just about every possible usage you can think of—narrow this down to the needs,” he added. “Nine times out of 10, this more purpose-built approach also yields consultants and integrators additional opportunities within the same account.”

As mentioned earlier, reading up on the terminology specific to ideation and project management might go a long way to connecting with your customer. “To effectively sell content-centric collaboration solutions, you need to show them that you know their unique challenges,” said Prysm’s Cuzzort. “Sellers must listen and really get to the heart of what makes that particular customer’s collaboration experiences challenging or ineffective. Shift the conversation from a focus on ROI seen from reducing travel or meeting efficiency to a customized discussion on their unique workflows and the ways in which your offering can align with their needs. For example, if the customer likes to operate in small groups for content creation and ideation, but larger rooms for presentation, they need to offer a suite of tools that can span both environments.”

Look to extract value from your client’s collaborative processes and find meaningful ways to enhance that value. “Clients are looking for ways to do things faster and better and there is a distinct advantage for organizations that have a strong understanding of the methodologies their clients are using,” said Nureva’s Zwack. “It allows them to have a more meaningful conversation about the specific value they can provide in improving the process and outcome of collaborative work.”

Ideating on the Products

Collaboration solutions that also facilitate the ideation process come in all shapes, sizes, and price-points. Knowing how an organization will utilize certain feature sets and how important ideation is to its overall goals will help you suggest a product.

Yamaha Unified Communications will showcase its broad offering of unified communication solutions at SpiceWorld 2018, Oct. 8-10 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas. The unified communications (UC) company will feature its new YVC-200 speakerphone for portable, on-the-go conferencing, the Yamaha YAI-1 Conference Ensemble for large conference rooms and boardrooms, and the CS-700 Video Sound Bar for huddle rooms.

"The scope of meeting environments has changed significantly. Now IT professionals are burdened with finding a UC portfolio with solutions that will accommodate huddle rooms and traveling executives as well as high-end boardrooms without sacrificing audio, IT capabilities, installation efficiencies, or ease of use," said Timothy Mackie, field systems engineer at Yamaha UC. "At SpiceWorld, we'll help IT professionals understand their meeting space requirements and demonstrate the right equipment for the job so they can be the unsung heroes of their companies."

Making its IT debut, the YVC-200 portable USB + Bluetooth speakerphone is designed to provide users with ample, clear sound no matter where they work. The lightweight device is available in white or black, fits in the palm of the user's hand, and is integrated with Yamaha's leading sound processing technologies, including adaptive echo cancellation and Human Voice Activity Detection that focuses the unit on speech, rather than background noise. The unit's intelligent microphones deliver full-duplex conversation without sound dropouts, even when multiple people are speaking at once, and its powerful speaker delivers audio that sounds as natural as in-person conversation. It's fully compatible with remote conferencing systems such as Microsoft Skype for Business, Cisco WebEx, Zoom, and more. To start a remote meeting, users simply connect the YVC-200 to their audio, video, or web conferencing client. Equipped with USB, Bluetooth, and fast pairing to NFC-enabled devices, the YVC-200 can connect to a PC, smartphone, or tablet.

Enabling maximum installation and configuration efficiencies for large meeting spaces and IT personnel, the Yamaha YAI-1 Conference Ensemble is a preconfigured USB audio system that achieves optimum audio in and out for any chosen UC platform. The ready-to-install system comprises an eight-channel Executive Elite wireless microphone package, two VXL1-16 PoE speaker arrays, a preconfigured digital signal processor, a five-port PoE switch, a Dante AVIO USB adapter, and cabling. Once set up, the Yamaha YAI-1 Conference Ensemble is ready to connect through a single USB cable. Ensuring that every participant can hear and be heard clearly, the bundle includes two 16-element PoE-powered line array speakers that deliver high-quality audio throughout the room and a wireless microphone system that enables flexible, superior audio capture and stress-free conversation. The system is available in two microphone options: an eight-gooseneck microphone package for boardrooms, or seven table-top microphones and one wearable microphone for presentation flexibility in conference rooms.

Also being displayed at the show, the Yamaha CS-700 Video Sound Collaboration System for huddle rooms optimizes audio, video, and collaboration capabilities to ensure the highest-quality user experience in a wall-mounted unit. The all-in-one, space-saving system is easy to install and deploy. It features an adaptive beamforming microphone array for perfectly captured conversation; four Yamaha speaker elements to provide the highest degree of audio intelligibility; and a wide-angle HD camera for the far-end participants to see everyone in clear detail. Users can quickly connect to an organization's chosen UC platform — such as Microsoft Skype for Business, GoToConference, Zoom, and many others — using a single USB connection, eliminating the frustrations and inefficiencies of operating disparate video, audio, and collaboration components. In addition, the CS-700's integrated network management system allows IT staff to deploy and remotely manage each unit from one location, increasing service response and efficiency.

Collaboration continues to be a hot topic in the AV industry. Here are nine collaboration products to make your next installation a hit.

Want to learn more about collaboration?

View the 2018 Integration Guide to Collaboration.

View the Fall 2018 Collaboration Update Webinar.

Get your free copy of The Integration Guide to Collaboration!

https://nbmedia.wufoo.com/forms/z18j68od12w2oih/

Meeting Expectations

We see it all the time, across all verticals: as the general public becomes more and more exposed to—and therefore comfortable with—all kinds of technology, their expectations rise as well. So, it is in the workplace where businesses expect the technology in the conference room to be as intuitive and useful as the Alexa they use at home.

Product Showcase

We explore the hottest collaboration products from companies like Yamaha UC, NEC Display, Kramer, Audix, and more.

At Issue

SCN asks industry thought leaders their opinions on consumer technology moving into the collaboration space.

Last fall, collaboration technology developer Plantronics released a report that examined how noise affects productivity in the workplace. The study noted that workplaces are getting noisier, with more employees inhabiting fewer square feet of office space. Over half of the survey’s respondents said they were disturbed by noise multiple times daily; more than a third said that customers calling in complain about the noise they hear in the background during calls. Seventy-seven percent of those surveyed said that they would prefer to work in a “more traditional workspace with high walled cubicles or offices.” In other words, open-concept workspaces may look sexy, but people don’t like them that much.

That’s not to say that open office spaces—and the glass fish-tank conference rooms that go with—are going away. “With the price of real estate, I don’t think [organizations] have a choice; they need to fit more employees into smaller spaces,” said Joey D’Angelo, consultant and founder of Joseph D’Angelo and Associates (DNA). “‘Densification’ is the term for it in the architectural and facilities groups among the companies that we work with.”

The question is: how can acoustical consultants and AV design and integration firms succeed at selling the importance of acoustics to clients that place more emphasis on aesthetics and less on making sure people can hear each other properly?

“Whenever I get a client that’s not so concerned with acoustics, [it may mean] that they just may not understand how it could benefit them, or what could happen when it’s not working,” said Robert Alvarado, principal and office director of the San Francisco location of Shen Milsom & Wilke LLC (SM&W).

Sometimes this requires leaning on past projects that the client may not be happy with because they didn’t follow acoustical recommendations. He cites one of his own clients as an example: “We did their first building and they took a lot of the recommendations, but many of those recommendations were never implemented correctly. The next go-round, it was interesting to see that they were really focused on acoustics, almost to the point of over-analyzing it and putting in as much as they could because of what happened in the past.”

Dick Tollberg, senior design engineer at AVI-SPL, says that real-world examples are among the most effective ways to illustrate the impact acoustics can have on a space. “I think that a lot of laymen do not understand just how much sound reaches them from the walls, the ceilings, the floors, the tables, compared to the direct sound that comes from the speaker,” he said. When AV firms can get into projects during the initial design phases, “taking the client into a room that is correctly done acoustically—both from the absorption that’s required, as well as ensuring that the ambient noise level is acceptable—and showing them the difference between that and the typical conference room makes great strides in helping them understand how much of a better experience they could have with a conference room that was acoustically well-designed.”

D’Angelo acknowledges that AV firms can’t force clients to execute their recommendations, but he does believe that the AV community can arrive at solutions that will at least improve the acoustical behavior of a space. For example, he cites angling walls six degrees from being parallel, or treating one wall with fabric-wrap panels, or installing acoustic ceiling tiles as several of the options available. He also notes that glass doors should be outfitted with gaskets to prevent sound from spilling out of the space, and that walls should run deck-to-deck. “On the other side of the coin, the audio processors are so powerful these days that we can deal with some pretty [poorly behaved] environments electronically as well, to a certain extent,” he said.

One of the biggest challenges AV firms continue to face is when they’re brought on board: Tollberg relays that more often than not, room designs are established before acoustics and AV are even considered. “They’ve been looking at the room [design] for weeks or months, they like all the glass, they like all of the other attributes, and we come in and say, ‘you know, there are some problems acoustically that are going to affect the quality of your audio,’ and they don’t understand,” he said. While he, too, concedes that audio processing can compensate for this, he also notes that there are limitations to what it can achieve. “If the room acoustics have been dealt with before the AV technology goes in, the AV technology works much better, is easier to set up, and the experience that the listener outside of the room gets from the system is much more pleasant.”

That said, according to Alvarado, some organizations are starting to pay more attention to acoustics. He believes this is linked to companies’ efforts to maintain—and boost—employee retention through providing healthy environments in which to work. “If you can differentiate yourself from another company [by creating] better conditions, you have better, happier, more long-term employees.”

Thinking Outside the Fish Tank

While almost every organization has remote workers in some shape or form, very often this part of the workforce is forgotten in conference room design. Dick Tollberg, senior design engineer at AVI-SPL, notes that it’s important to design acoustics that take remote meeting participants into account.

“Many times, people do not understand the difference between being in a room versus being in a remote location apart from the conference, and trying to hear what’s going on clearly in the conference itself,” he said.

When you’re in a meeting on site, you benefit from not only being close to the speaker––you can also take advantage of visual aids, such as gestures. “When you’re remote and you’re just listening and you don’t have the visual feedback, if the room is marginal acoustically, it becomes very, very difficult to understand what is being said. In order to understand you have to really concentrate, and as people have to concentrate like that, they don’t necessarily assimilate the same amount of information—they have a harder time retaining it, versus someone who can easily hear what is going on. A lot of people don’t [consider] that when they’re thinking about the design of these rooms.”

Since its founding in 1925, Shure has been a staple in professional audio. The company is known for producing high-quality performance microphones and a variety of solutions that deliver a great audio experience—and the company ensures that quality is also applied to its business applications. To show off the latest products it has created for business meeting spaces, Shure set about creating a state-of-the-art demo facility that reflects the modern workplace.

“We wanted to establish a facility where anybody would be envious of the technology represented in our boardrooms and conference rooms,” said Rick Renner, director of professional audio, Shure.

The Shure Experience Center in the Chicago City Center is the result of that goal, a destination where visitors can experience Shure products and other collaboration tools within working rooms designed for the corporate enterprise.

So that Shure could demonstrate those solutions, AVI-SPL—number one onSCN's 2017 Top 50 integrators—was entrusted with integrating them on time and on budget, while making sure the result met all the needs of the project’s key stakeholders.

Exploring Solutions

The Shure Experience Center has two sides: one for its own personnel, including sales and marketing staff, and one for the guest experience. Those customers include architects, consultants, AV vendors, and the end users looking to evaluate Shure’s products in a working environment.

Visitors explore solutions within four areas—huddle room, conference room, boardroom, and training space—all of them based on Shure’s global standards. Staff and guests can hear the quality of Shure products and experience the collaborative solutions of trusted vendors like Cisco, Biamp, and Christie within meeting rooms that are highly automated and driven by control systems that make it easy to run those spaces for various uses.

Front and center are Shure’s audio products, including its Microflex microphones and IntelliMix P300 processor. The P300 has all the functionality for digital signal processing—including audio processing and echo cancelling for all room mics—in one compact unit that fits behind a display or below a table.

Cisco solutions are the basis for Shure’s unified communications platform. Throughout the center, participants can video conference and share content with remote and in-room participants. For BYOD collaboration sessions, they use the Christie Brio presentation system, which supports wireless sharing of content from laptops, tablets, and iPhones to the displays.

In the training room, where staff can learn about new products, Biamp Tesira handles the networked distribution of audio and video sources. Cisco video conferencing works in conjunction with camera tracking that responds to the audio of the Shure microphones to focus on speaking audience members.

Many of the solutions in these demo areas can also be found in the Hub, a versatile open space where staff and guests come together for informal meetings and functions. There, presenters can connect laptops to displays to present material, have open collaboration sessions, and host impromptu demos.

To complete these ambitious spaces in time for the center’s opening in early 2018, the AVI-SPL team was committed to open communication and long evenings and weekends. “They gave us daily and weekly updates, and they were often proactive in heading off issues that could arise,” said Dave Feldman, Shure AV engineering and IT executive. “They would do whatever it took to get the job done during that day.”

Rave Reviews

In the few months it’s been open, the Shure Experience Center has welcomed a variety of customers to see, hear, and test products in areas that reflect the spaces where they want to integrate audio and other collaborative solutions. Shure facilitates this discovery through demos for end users at the enterprise level as well as for those who would integrate or recommend products and systems. “We’ve had rave reviews from people that have come through,” said Renner.

Throughout these spaces, guests experience the differences among the Shure microphones, so they can see what makes sense in their environment. The Microflex Wireless, Microflex MXA910 ceiling arrays and MXA310 table arrays demonstrate their ability to pick up every speaker at a conference table and provide 360-degree coverage of the participants.

“They can come in with an idea of what they’re looking for, and we can show them how it’s going to perform within their space,” said Kevin Smith, Shure director of integrated systems.

As for the staff, they quickly took to their new home since the spaces are standardized on solutions used throughout Shure offices. “They were very comfortable and productive from day one,” added Feldman.

During the center’s opening ceremony, which was held in the Hub, the digital signage, presentation system, and overhead voice reinforcement blended seamlessly together. For the first three weeks of the Shure Experience Center’s opening, an onsite AVI-SPL tech assisted with training, helped kick-off meetings, and was available to troubleshoot any issues.

Through AVI-SPL, the property management firm, contractor, AV consultant, and its own team, Shure dedicated itself to ensuring that this new experience center would be a success. “The main thing that impressed me about working with AVI-SPL was their openness to ideas and understanding what our employees were comfortable with,” concluded Feldman. “Working with AVI-SPL was a true collaborative effort.”

Fontel has become Easymeeting’s first distributor. Easymeeting, a cloud-based video conferencing service, is a vendor agnostic solution designed to create a flexible workplace for remote users.

“We look forward to our partnership with Fontel," said Sally Blank, senior channel sales manager, Easymeeting. "They bring a tremendous amount of value with their knowledge and networking in the market.”

“Fontel is excited to bring Easymeeting’s cloud-based video conferencing service to our product portfolio,” added Kurt Mitchell, president, Fontel. “Easymeeting is easy-to-use and easy-to-deploy, and will be a great solution for our resellers to offer their customers.”

The What: After its debut at InfoComm 2018, Vaddio has now launched the new PrimeSHOT 20 HDMI Camera, a professional PTZ camera that provides high-definition performance.

The What Else: With 1080p/60 image quality, PrimeSHOT 20 HDMI is designed for replacing existing standard definition PTZ cameras or as an initial system upgrade. The PrimeSHOT 20 HDMI Camera is well-suited for large conference rooms, lecture halls, and houses of worship, and its low-light performance accommodates dimly-lit locations. It features 20x optical zoom, 55 degree horizontal field of view, simultaneous HDMI 1.3, S-Video and IP streaming outputs. It also has an intuitive web-based user interface for remote configuration, management, and control.

“Users can feel confident about using PrimeSHOT across large deployments,” said Jay Kilby, director of product management, Vaddio. “Standard IP management and streaming make them easy to control remotely. And PrimeSHOT provides HD performance at the price of a standard definition camera.”

The Bottom Line: PrimeSHOT is available as a stand-alone camera or as a bundle with HDMI extenders. This cost-effective extension option enables 1080p/60 HDMI signals up to 164 ft (50 m) using one CAT5 (or better) cable.

The corporate market continues to account for the largest segment of pro AV revenue. According to AVIXA's Industry Outlook Trends and Analysis (IOTA), pro AV solutions for corporate office environments are expected to generate nearly $15 billion in revenue in the Americas in 2018. Growth is expected to be somewhat slower than the overall industry, at 1.5 percent annually from 2017 through 2022. AVIXA's new 2018 Market Opportunity Analysis Report (MOAR) covering the corporate market examines the opportunities and challenges for providers of pro AV solutions and technologies.

MOAR: Corporate begins with an exploration of the corporate office worker to understand their workplace needs, behaviors, drivers of satisfaction and usage of technology. Next, the report looks at clients of AV solutions or the influencers and decision-makers involved in pro AV systems integration projects within corporate offices. Lastly, the report presents the viewpoint of the pro AV systems integration providers on their successes and trials working on the AV systems in the corporate landscape.

The 2018 MOAR: Corporate offers rich insight into the corporate market. Highlights include:

• Increasing productivity is the main driver to corporate AV spending. This takes increasingly different forms today, as many office workers are being reached on mobile platforms such as tablets, laptops, and smartphones, rather than via traditional desktops or in conventional conference rooms. Often these mobile devices are brought in by the employees themselves, creating security and content sharing challenges. Workforces are also often distributed, requiring collaboration technologies for empowering teams.
• Despite mobility, organizations are pulling the focus back to the office environment. While companies still seek to provide workers the flexibility to determine when and where they can do their best work, a growing faction of corporate America is attempting to create more innovation by bringing employees back to home base. AV technology implementation is the way for companies striving to make the office a modern workspace, in part by improving user experiences.
• Corporate sizing of project plans affirms the size and scope of the pro-AV opportunity. Given the broad and diverse challenges faced by the current business environment, decision-makers remain focused on upgrading or installing audiovisual technologies and solutions to support office workers. This is reflected in increased planned capital expenditure among corporate technology managers to the tune of approximately $181 billion in the U.S. for 2018. This translates to nearly $12 billion in AV systems investments this year.
• Consistent with an office focus, plans emphasize collaboration space.Project plans focus mostly on upgrading AV products and services that are utilized in conference rooms, both large and small as well as incorporating AV technologies like audio equipment and capture and production equipment. Integration of existing key solutions will be a part of these plans, with significant increases for security and surveillance systems and wireless presentation technology.

"What used to be a series of disconnected flagship conference rooms have become communication and collaboration points, tied together with networks," said Sean Wargo, senior director of market intelligence, AVIXA. "What were cookie-cutter office buildings have become statements of corporate identity, brand, and culture. Where individuals used to be housed in a rabbit warren of individual offices, open concepts with privacy rooms and huddle spaces have emerged to facilitate inter-team coordination. All the while, some companies are instead down-sizing their headquarters or local offices to encourage and support telecommuting and remote work."

MOAR: Corporate is the second in a series of 2018 vertical market studies, with forthcoming reports on sports venues, hospitality, education, and transportation. The retail report was released in May. The corporate report is available for purchase at www.avixa.org/MOARCorporate. AVIXA members are eligible for discounts.

Extron has introduced its Extron Collaboration Systems Design Guide. This guide illustrates how Extron technology can be used to create modern workspaces and meeting rooms that facilitate collaboration.

"With the rise in collaborative environments, AV integrators are facing new challenges and opportunities integrating properly designed and equipped collaborative systems," said Casey Hall, vice president of sales and marketing for Extron. "Our new Collaboration Systems Design Guide is a comprehensive resource that shows how technology can harness the power of collaboration for successful, effective collaborative meeting spaces."

Inside the Collaboration Systems Design Guide, integrators will find information about room scheduling and AV resource management tools, wired, and wireless AV platforms, and how Extron partners with with leading communications technology providers for system flexibility.

Extron Design Guides are free and available upon request or via PDF download on the Extron website. For more information about the Collaboration Systems Design Guide, or to request a copy, visit https://www.extron.com/technology/landing/collaboration.

Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) and AVIXA have released their new standard Recommended Practice for Lighting Performance for Small to Medium Sized Videoconferencing Rooms (ANSI/IES/AVIXA RP-38-17).

Created by lighting experts from IES and videoconferencing experts from AVIXA, the standard is ANSI (American National Standards Institute) approved, demonstrating that the development procedures meet ANSI's essential requirements for openness, balance, consensus, and due process.

"Videoconferencing lighting has a great impact on the user experience," said Ann Brigida, AVIXA's senior director of standards. "AVIXA and IES share the goal of creating an environment that will enhance this form of communication. We are looking forward to working with IES again on guidance that will benefit both AV and lighting system outcomes."

This standard provides lighting parameters and performance criteria for small-to-medium-sized single-axis videoconferencing spaces defined as one set of video displays and cameras. Although the standard is written to consider at least three but no more than 25 primary seating locations, the principles can be applied to other applications as outlined.

The standard provides guidance to professionals involved in the design, construction, assessment, and support of videoconferencing environments. In addition to presenting performance criteria for the design and measurement/evaluation of room lighting, the standard provides guidance for other room design considerations, such as finishes (e.g., walls and shades, floor, ceiling, windows) and furniture.

RP-38-17 provides measurable lighting performance criteria so the system will:

• Offer minimum lighting performance requirements for optimum participant viewing of displays, presenter, and task area
• Optimize lighting for cameras, thereby improving the images transmitted to remote sites
• Enhance videoconference communication, comfort, and productivity.

Lighting and room design in new and existing spaces that use videoconferencing systems should be built, evaluated, and upgraded according to this performance standard.

"IES was pleased to partner with AVIXA to create ANSI/IES/AVIXA RP-38-17. Their contributions enhance the value of the standard by providing both expertise from their standards writing committee members and also by offering the perspective of end users. IES appreciates their contributions to make this standard a very useful document for designing lighting for small-to-medium-sized videoconferencing rooms," concluded Pat McGillicuddy, manager of IES standards development.

The Recommended Practice for Lighting Performance for Small to Medium Sized Videoconferencing Rooms standard, ANSI/IES/AVIXA RP-38-17, is available in pdf format from AVIXA at avixa.org/lightingVCstandard. AVIXA members can purchase the standard for $28; nonmembers can purchase the standard for $40.

To succeed in today’s fast-paced environments, organizations must harness the synergy of people working together across a global workforce—regardless of the physical location of those workers. To do that, AV professionals and end users must select the best new-generation audio conferencing technology solutions that bring superb quality in more adaptable—and affordable—configurations.

This new ebook offers case studies and insights into these engaging technologies, including:

• How University of Missouri’s new collaborative space improved engagement for off-campus students
• AV monitoring that gets real in realtime
• How HDL300 audio conferencing solves a geotechnical–and architectural–challenge
• Advantages of IP remote codec technology, which combines the best quality audio fidelity with the ability to serve participants who are mobile—in the room or across the globe.

Click here to read the full ebook.

The nature of retail requires companies that can adapt to customer needs. In turn, that requires employees who can communicate quickly with one another so they can respond to those needs. For 7-Eleven Store Support Center in Irving, TX, the goal included vastly improved collaboration tools that would empower staff to work efficiently.

“One thing we wanted to do is provide AV technology where people walked in and they said ‘Wow. They’re providing us the right tools to do our jobs,’” said JT Elliott, manager of AV services for 7-Eleven.

With 66,000 convenience stores worldwide, a Store Support Center, and over 30 regional offices in the U.S., the company has a lot on its plate when it comes to developing new market strategies and supporting its franchisees. To support its collaboration efforts, 7-Eleven brought in AVI-SPL—rated number one on SCN’s annual systems integrators list—to design and integrate 100 conference rooms into its new building.

“People spend a lot of time putting their presentations together,” said Elliott. “They should not have to spend a lot of time getting AV to work. They need conference spaces that are agile; they need to be able to schedule fast. They need to be able to react quickly, come together and collaborate.”

AVI-SPL’s involvement began about a year before construction was complete, and included a collaborative design process that involved various teams from 7-Eleven, representing architecture, real estate, AV, and IT.

“Being brought in early allowed us to build those relationships and trust with everybody,” said Austin Figueroa, VP of sales, AVI-SPL.

Figueroa and the team took ideas from different business units and tried to consolidate them into as few and simple systems as possible while abiding by 7-Eleven preferences. “Any input I gave them, they took that to heart and really worked with me and my team to set up the office like we needed it to function,” said Harvey Dewitt, 7-Eleven market manager.

The joint effort led to rooms where the collaboration process would be easy to engage, whether one is working with peers in the same room or reaching them at remote locations across North America. With around 100 total rooms, AVI-SPL designers standardized the install on three different types: Polycom, Skype for Business/Crestron RL2, and Crestron-controlled huddle rooms. Most employees are already used to the native look and feel on the touch panel because they use Skype on their laptops—it’s intuitive for them to join the call, and they know how to share content. “Whether you’re in a Polycom room or a Skype room, you just press to join the meeting,” says Elliott. “It’s quick and simple and easy.”

The company’s 6,000-square foot auditorium is a three-way divisible room that’s used every day for projects like live sound mixing, video and web conferencing. Every two weeks it’s the hub of all-hands events that are broadcast to 7-Eleven satellite sites. Ceiling- and wall-mounted Vaddio cameras tie back into the Polycom video system and the Skype for Business infrastructure. About 30 ClearOne wireless mics in a variety of styles—handheld, gooseneck, ceiling—provide wide audio coverage, as do dozens of Polycom microphones.

Because 7-Eleven uses NEC in its stores, they supported its integration throughout the campus, including the auditorium. With controls like RS-232, CEC, and LAN, AV staff can control and monitor those displays from the Crestron Fusion platform. Crestron connectivity is also a feature of the Epson projectors, whose high-lumen output is of enormous benefit in the large meeting rooms and auditorium.

Through a combination of bridges and cloud licenses, Polycom drives the video conferencing used in the 7-Eleven Store Support Center and throughout 30-plus corporate sites. Its digital signal processors handle the audio from ceiling mics in large integrated audio rooms as well as the auditorium.

Three Planar video walls include a bezel-free LED wall in the auditorium, and one in the lobby that promotes 7-Eleven and is sometimes used to welcome vendors and guests with personalized messages. “It shows them that we really value them,” says Elliott of the lobby video wall.

Likewise, the partnership between AVI-SPL and 7-Eleven thrives because of the mutual respect between its teams, who came together to work as one unit. “What impressed me most working with AVI-SPL was probably the initial conversation we had with the sales team,” said Elliott. “They saw our vision and weren’t afraid to tell us what was not going to work, what they liked about it. We felt like we were jumping right into a collaboration on the project.”

“AVI-SPL has been more than just an integrator,” concluded Elliott. “They’ve become a partner of ours. They really value what we want to do as a business. We couldn’t imagine going with another integrator on this. They went above and beyond.”

Not long before InfoComm 2018, office furnishings provider Herman Miller headquartered in Zeeland, MI, announced its partnership with Whitlock. Marketed as “Living Office Settings,” the initiative bundles together office furnishings, technology, and services, giving customers one point of contact to completely outfit their workplaces, be they global enterprises or small to medium-sized operations. It’s been a little over a year since Whitlock rolled out its Collaboration-as-a-Service offering, and executive vice president Julian Phillips explained that this venture is one of several that his company has launched in an effort to address the needs of today’s workforce.

Does this fall into the category of the holistic approach to AV? Phillips believes it does. “When it comes to having the conversation with the customer, we don’t get into conversations about bits and bytes and specs and all the rest of it. We focus on: what are you trying to do in the space? What is the experience you want? What’s your strategy for attracting and retaining talent?” he illustrated. “The cool thing is, we can now do this as Workplace-as-a-Service. Not only can we say: ‘Here is the perfectly designed huddle room, the perfectly designed open collaboration space, or whatever it may be, but you can pay per employee per month if that’s actually how you want to do it.” The beauty of this model, he said, is that lifecycles are built in: “When they want to refresh the space, we’ll come in and refresh the whole thing—brand new furniture, brand new tech—and they just keep on paying the monthly fee.”

Phillips explained that Whitlock’s efforts are rooted in the need to address a different type of customer. Less and less is the firm having sales conversations with real estate representatives, facilities managers, and even IT procurement personnel; he said that these days, discussions involve CIOs, CEOs, and sales and marketing directors. “They’re not interested in technology,” he said. “What they care about is: what can you do for me? How can you help me accelerate my business? How can I grow? How can I engage my employees better? How can I actually be more productive? How can I attract talent? These are the kinds of conversations that we’re having now.” And while technology plays a significant role in answering these questions, clients also want it to be relatively invisible. “They want to have spaces [in which] their people can work productively, and they want the technology to melt away.”

AVI-SPL, number one on SCN’s list of Top 50 Systems Integrators, recently launched Rapid Rooms, which bundles AV and UC technology designed for meeting rooms. It’s the first AV-as-a-Service (AVaaS) offering in the company’s lineup, and includes hardware, software, and managed services for a fixed monthly fee. The package also includes planned refresh cycles for lifecycle management.

Dale Bottcher, executive vice president of sales and marketing at AVI-SPL, noted that the days of sales engineers focusing client discussions on specific technical components are over. “We’re really focused on the end user experience and the business outcomes or objectives that a company has, and then fitting the right technology to that,” he said. He noted that the company’s approach to projects has undergone a 180-degree shift: “[In the past,] we would always lead with technology first. Today, we’re leading with business discussions first.”

Bottcher acknowledged that this can be difficult for AV industry veterans accustomed to selling specific pieces of gear. He said that a focus on how AV can positively influence a client’s business outcomes requires AV firms to dig deep to learn what their clients are all about. “Not only do you have to have a good grasp on the technology like you’ve always had, but you’ve got to understand your customer, their business objectives or challenges, and the objectives they have for their technology solutions—what they’re hoping to solve, or how they’re [trying to] improve experience. Being better educated on your customer’s business is an absolute requirement now,” he said.

Historically, commercial AV has been about customization; designers and integrators would emphasize that no two projects were alike, and that theirs was definitely not a cookie-cutter approach. But while every project is different and customized solutions are still required, clients are also demanding standardized deployments that focus on consistency across their organizations. “Everyone is moving in the direction of the global deployment of standard-space conference rooms,” said Tom Spearman, executive vice president at Diversified. He noted that manufacturers are responding to this by developing their own room kit solutions, “and then what we do in the integration business is develop room standards that we promote to our customers in the form of kitted rooms. I think the real challenge is…strengthening our customer relationship by creating value in a market that is trending toward standards-based rooms. Either manufacturers can provide those rooms or integrators can provide those rooms. In order to continue to lead in the industry, we need to be at the forefront of that conversation with our customers.”

So, for that to happen, AV integration companies must adopt their own standardized approaches to projects—and remain faithful to them, argues David Judy, senior director of strategic programs at Diversified. “Right now, we all know what the AVIXA standards are, but the number of companies that really follow them day in and day out—whether it’s commissioning procedures, or design best practices—is still low. Adjacent industries see that.” When IT providers, architects, and even construction companies witness AV firms approaching projects haphazardly, the industry’s reputation suffers, and AV integrators are not treated with the same amount of respect as, say, IT integrators. “I think that the larger companies in the AV industry—and even some of the smaller companies that have adopted [things like] AVIXA’s standards, or AQAV’s AV9000—are starting to get noticed, and [because of this], are brought to the table a lot earlier.”