AVT Question: Please share your insight into trends that will play a role in hybrid workplace culture, space planning, and technologies in 2024.
Thought Leader: Sam Kennedy, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Crestron
One of the more significant trends we’re seeing in the hybrid workplace is the deployment of systems that put automation and control into the user’s hands. When someone walks into a room to lead a hybrid meeting or start a presentation, they want things to happen automatically.
When someone walks into a room to lead a hybrid meeting or start a presentation, they want things to happen automatically." —Sam Kennedy, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Crestron
When that individual walks into the room, an occupancy sensor detects that presence. The lights may dim. The shades may go down. The input on the monitor may change. When someone walks into a certain area of the room—in front of a whiteboard, for example—one camera picks up that person automatically, and perhaps a second camera keys on the whiteboard itself. All of these functions can occur for any type of meeting that’s been scheduled, and different functions can occur for each. There may be one lighting and shading setting for a sales presentation that is quite unlike the setting for a big brainstorming session. Lighting and shading can even be programmed to account for changes in how sunlight impacts a room at various times of day, or even under different weather conditions.
Both hardware and platform manufacturers are aware of this trend, and they’re working together to create solutions. In the past, one might have needed two panels on the table—one controlling the meeting software and another controlling the room’s environment. Integrating those two control elements into a single screen makes the user experience that much easier. A room might even include one brand that’s created the control system, one that’s created the conferencing platform, and a third that’s responsible for some of the hardware, such as displays. When all of these elements are working together in concert, everybody wins, and manufacturers A, B, and C are all represented in a system that provides the best possible automated meeting experience.
