With more than 30 locations around Central Florida, Addition Financial Credit Union has been focused on enhancing both collaboration and communication in the hybrid workplace. Specifically, it was looking for a seamless videoconferencing experience in its headquarters’ main conference room, one that hosts two high-level meetings on a monthly basis.
The credit union recently went through a technology-enhanced makeover, creating a conferencing environment that enables employees to meet more efficiently and share information clearly, while supporting hybrid communication with clients and internal teams, according to Andrew Mulazzi, Lumens Southeast zone manager.
So, why the change? As with corporate settings across all verticals, the meeting space continues to evolve, becoming more hybrid with more remote participants. That is especially true for Addition Financial Credit Union, with many locations spread throughout the area.
Initially, the main conference room was oriented 90 degrees, with the typical large rectangular table and display on one end. "That arrangement was not conducive to include remote and in-room participants seeing each other easily," explained Chet Neal, CTS, president of Altamonte Springs-based RelianceAV, which partnered on the integration. "A U-shape table arrangement was chosen to address that challenge and to make content presented more easily viewed. It also provides better camera angles that offer a better experience for remote attendees."
Prior to the technical installation, Neal said there was an existing screen, projector, and lift used for these conferences. RelianceAV renovated the room, building a wall to support a 135-inch EZ LED Visual dvLED video display with 1.2mm pixel pitch. The enhancements only took RelianceAV one week to fully install, commission, and train with the client.
"The room also had a bad flutter echo from the windows and a large drywall ceiling section," Neal added. "[Primacoustic] acoustic panels were added to the walls and acoustic ceiling tiles were used to effectively address this."
RelianceAV turned to a wide range of Pro AV solutions to pull the room together. Lumens CamConnect Pro and Lumens auto-tracking cameras were at the heart of the installation. Mulazzi explained CamConnect enables intelligent, microphone-driven speaker tracking, automatically switching and framing the active speaker without the need for manual operation.
The Lumens solutions work in tandem with Yamaha's RM-CG ceiling array microphone, while incorporating Barco ClickShare for wireless content sharing, allowing team members to instantly present from any device. Additionally, a Dante two-channel power amplifier from Muxlab, switches provided by NETGEAR, and touchpanels from Aurora Multimedia enhance the new technology.
The end result is what Neal called the ultimate BYOD room. Microsoft Teams is the most used collaboration tool, but Addition Financial wanted participants to be able to host and run meetings from their laptops. "The Lumens Connect and Aurora DSP allows for USB video and audio to be distributed to a wired laptop connection through Aurora VPX AV over IP solution, or wirelessly with the Barco ClickShare," he explained.
The conference room has been well received, and the credit union is looking to update four smaller conference rooms to all include videoconferencing capabilities. "Working with RelianceAV was a great experience," Mulazzi added. "Chet and his team worked with our sales and engineering teams to design the workflow and implement best practices for the Lumens solutions deployed. RelianceAV’s integration expertise ensured that all technologies—from audio to camera tracking—worked together flawlessly."
