You’ve prepared a seamless multimedia presentation for Monday’s meeting, and it’s going to knock everyone’s socks off. No one is leaving that meeting with socks on. Heck, they’ll probably lose their shoes, too. You have a perfect plan: first the PowerPoint bit; then a short and informative film highlighting the salient features of your airtight argument; after which you’ll offer a brief yet thorough demonstration of your great idea using a new company laptop; and hey, let’s get Bob in here via Lync, he called in sick today but he should really be here for this.
What could go wrong? Oh, right: everything. Your beautiful PowerPoint presentation doesn’t seem to want to travel the short distance between your computer and the big screen. The DVD player is missing a cable. That new laptop is actually so new that it hasn’t been loaded with the programs you need. Oh, and Bob is there, you can see his face, and he is in fact sniffling and, boy, he really is sick, so sick that he seems to have lost his voice but no, you just don’t have audio.
No one’s socks are getting knocked off. Everyone is leaving this meeting with socks on. And here comes the IT tech to clean up the mess. Eventually. Soon. Maybe. You called him twenty minutes ago. Where is he? You’ll have to stall. Say something funny. Keep them engaged. Uh oh, you’re losing them. It’s a nightmare.
There is nothing worse than leading a meeting that falls apart due to technical problems. Okay, there’s one thing that’s worse: being stuck in a meeting room as your boss or co-worker flails and stutters through a series of equipment failures.
Of course, the painful scene sketched above is a worst case scenario, but even the most tech savvy among us are prone to flounder a bit when faced with the daunting prospect of giving a presentation while managing A/V components. And there just never seems to be enough tech support staff to respond to such calamities as rapidly as anyone would like.
None of this is anyone’s fault, really. You can’t blame the IT department for being swamped. And you shouldn’t blame the person up there wrestling with recalcitrant technology, either, because sometimes things just go wrong. Sometimes EVERYTHING just goes wrong. It happens. But it doesn’t have to. The key is eliminating the confusion that ensues when multiple devices come into play. You shouldn’t have to choreograph a dance involving multiple remotes, cables and screens.
The alternative to this tangled mess: automated meeting rooms. Imagine showing up to a meeting to find the equipment already humming and warm, ready to go. And instead of a different remote for every component, you’ve got a single universal remote. And instead of dancing from machine to machine, how about one easy-to-use touch panel?
No more sweating bullets while you wait for IT. No more checking your watch and fighting sleep through an awkward, malfunction-prone meeting. Meetings can be what they were meant to be: informative and organized, helpful and maybe even a little bit appreciated.
Contact us for more information about automating your meeting rooms.
