Conference Room Display Solutions to Bring Your Meetings to the Next Level

People who work together confer all the time. They have one-on-one conversations, they gather in small-group huddles and team or board meetings, they participate in complex, collaborative meetings and large-group assemblies.

Meetings can be impromptu or planned months in advance. Attendees may be colocated, or, these days, they are more likely to be spread far and wide.

But in the modern workplace meetings all have one thing in common: the need for a digital conference room. Why? Because 58% of employees say meetings would go better if everyone could actively participate. That requires digital signage and other meeting room interactive display options.

How a Conference Room Display Solution Works

As we like to say here at Robin, “Logistics shouldn’t get in the way of productivity.” But they sure can if you don’t have a well-thought-out and efficient system for room scheduling as well as conference room equipment that makes the most of room usage. Today’s meetings require more than a table and chairs and a stack of fresh notepads.

If video conferencing wasn’t part of your regular business communication routine in the past, it is now, thanks to COVID-19. Video meetings anywhere, anytime, are how we work. Even two people in a huddle room working on a project or working out a problem are likely to need some type of video wall connectivity.

A Digital Meeting Room Display Solution Facilitates Collaboration

• Meetings can go faster, because they get started on time. No waiting for everyone to find the room, hunting around for the right cables, etc. because you are scheduled into the right room with the equipment you need right at hand.  
• Instead of traditional, snoozy chalk-talks you can host multi-media presentations that are engaging and invite interaction.
• Everyone has the best possible experience because they can see and hear well and actively contribute.  

The Best Conference Rooms Solution is All About You

A digital meeting room signage solution must be tailored to your needs — the size and scope of your business, the kind of work people need to accomplish when they get together, and your corporate culture.

The meeting room display solution that works best will give you a comprehensive approach to meeting management.

Ideally, it should provide:

• Seamless digital booking, meeting room signage, and wayfinding to direct on-site participants quickly and easily to their destination. Look for integration with popular tools such as Office365 meeting room calendars.
• Fully-integrated audio visual communication and collaboration tools within the meeting space – projector, screen, whiteboard, etc. -- so everyone can get down to work right away, whether they are face-to-face or facing one another remotely. ‍
• Digital displays and signage inside and outside conference rooms to inform meeting-goers about functional details such as room availability and keep the meeting itself running smoothly.

A Conference Room Display Solution Promotes Business Success

Technology promotes time well spent. And that enhances business success in multiple ways:

• Greater efficiency and productivity
• Supports teams, however and wherever they work, so they can literally work together in real time from anywhere
• Keeps people face to face even when they are not – the ability to see expressions and body language vastly improves communication, strengthens personal relationships, and reinforces team spirit
• People can get more done and feel great about it – that boosts motivation, morale, and engagement

Benefits of Conference Room Display Solutions

If you aren’t moving forward, you’re moving backward. Legacy meeting space and tools become more out of date every day, harder and costlier to maintain and upgrade — assuming you still can.

Investing in a modern, comprehensive and intuitive conference room display solution freshens the workplace and makes meetings convenient and productive…. Especially if it’s cloud-based and wireless. Meeting room display solutions enhance the conference experience. They:

• Coordinate and streamline the entire meeting process, end to end.  
• Eliminate cumbersome barriers to collaboration such as sketchy connectivity or the simple fact of geographic separation, replacing them with digital whiteboard, video conferencing, and other digital displays. That allows everyone to feel like part of the program, whether they’re working in-office or from elsewhere that day.
• Enable meetings to flow smoothly, eliminating frustrations that cause delays, stress, and distract from the purpose of meeting in the first place. Meeting participants can keep their attention and brain-power wrapped around the challenge at hand.
• Make a great impression. Even in the most informal corporate cultures employees want to be seen as highly capable and professional. Conference room display solutions show both employees and visitors that you value their time by providing a quality, supportive work environment.
• Demonstrate your company is future-focused, clearly understanding how software benefits overall meeting management and improves meeting results.  

How Can Online Conferencing Benefit Your Organization?

The chances of everyone being in the same place at the same time these days is almost nil. Even as we work to return wisely and safely to the office, people will continue to work remotely or in some hybrid fashion. Video conferencing and other connected tools make the meeting experience more immersive and the sessions more engaging, encouraging participation by making it easy.

Most importantly, online conferencing supports a flexible work environment, in which colocation, remote, and hybrid workers, visitors, customers, and colleagues outside the organization can get together whenever they need to and make decisions efficiently and effectively.

Why Invest In Digital Meeting Room Display Solutions?

Yes, it costs money to install the latest technology for your conference rooms, but the meeting room benefits can bring you a smart return on that investment. You are investing in your people as well as your company’s future by ensuring the best possible workplace environment for all employees. That boosts productivity and, even better, promotes creativity. Plus, flexibility improves job happiness, and that reduces costly turnover.  

Bottom line? Poor-performing meetings cost businesses money in lost time and productivity — $37 million each year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor. On the other hand, more productive meetings make your company more competitive, in the marketplace and as a workplace.

What to Look For In Conference Room Display Solutions

Yesterday’s conference room luxuries are today’s essentials. Not every meeting room needs the same equipment. However, there are some basics that support any type of gathering:

• Telephone. Sometimes, a group call is all you need.
• Strong, reliable wireless internet connection, both speed and bandwidth.‍
• Video conference services.
• Quality microphones and speakers. Sound quality is even more important than video quality when it comes to retaining audience interest.
• Quality display screens that are the right size and in the right place for optimal viewing. This depends on viewing distance, angle, and room size as well as what kinds of content will be displayed. Happily, online calculators can you get it right.
• Interactive whiteboard.
• Wireless presentation systems. Onsite or remote, people will bring their own mobile devices to meetings, but there will be no worries about connectivity.
• Meeting room scheduling systems that streamline and improve the entire experience. May we suggest Robin? 

Outfitting your conference room with the latest equipment won’t help if people don’t know how to access and use it. Choose user-friendly, intuitive products and train people on how to access, log in and use these tools. If you need to post instructions in the room, a digital display will be more versatile and look more professional than a note taped to the wall.

Must-Have Features for your Meeting Room Space

Features vary from one product to another. Look for options that can customize and enhance your meeting spaces and types of get-togethers.

• Do you need a camera for video conferencing? Certainly, at least in larger rooms or for types of gatherings where laptop webcams won’t suffice.
• Do you need touchscreen interactivity for collaboration? Probably.
• Do you need a 4G TV screen or table-top display? Maybe not.

Think about:

• Content requirements. Text is different from graphics, and large images are different from fine detail.
• The number of people and/or room size. Remember that COVID-19 restrictions will spread out in-office participants.
• Ease of set-up and use. If it’s confusing or time-consuming, people won’t use it.
• Security. You don’t want to inadvertently share more than the work at hand.
• Scalability. You’ll get the best ROI from systems that can grow and change with your company and conferencing needs.

Avoid These Common Mistakes

• Piecemeal “solutions.” Equipment and/or apps that don’t work well together simply trade one set of glitches for another instead of improving co-working space experience.
• DIY and guessing. Consulting an AV pro can help you identify the best overall solution for your meeting rooms and also choose the best equipment to achieve your goals. Even easier, you can check out our recommendations here.
• Limiting yourself by “saving” money. Cheap equipment that is less capable, under-powered, or not scalable will cost more in the long run.
• Finicky equipment. Downtime is anathema, and while cloud-based solutions are generally trouble-free, nothing is perfect. IT support services should be available whenever conference rooms may be in use.

Software and Tools For Conference Room Displays

Software and tools that create digital conference rooms are meant to facilitate great meetings by eliminating time-wasting, frustrating confusion and hassles for users. Therefore, the best conference room digital signage integrates seamlessly with other office management and team collaboration tools.

The best tools for conference room displays are:

• Versatile
• Easy to use
• Reliable

As noted they should integrate smoothly with meeting room scheduling software and compatible calendar apps, messaging apps, and other common teamwork tools. Be sure to choose products that are hardware-agnostic, so all meeting participants and users can connect without problems regardless of the device they are using.

Let’s Talk About Meeting Room Booking System Software

Fabulous conference spaces and rooms are great, but what if people can’t find them? Or the one with the space or technology you need isn’t available? Or, worse, space is available but you have no way of knowing that? Conference room booking software to the rescue! This technology completes your display solution, integrating everything from scheduling meetings and inviting participants to wayfinding and displaying pertinent information outside each room.

Meetings get started on time, and everyone is present. Even last-minute meetings are easy to organize and get underway, whether participants are colocated in person or remote.

The Most Popular Equipment for Conference Rooms

• Zoom and Google Meet, for video conferencing.
• Dynamic cameras such as Meeting Owl that swivels to face individuals as they speak.
• Solstice and Airmedia, for wireless presentation systems.
• Google Jamboard, Samsung Flip, Microsoft Surface Hub, and Cisco Webex Board are all popular interactive whiteboards, but your team may prefer Nureva Wall that transform any wall into this type of tool.
• HuddleCam HD adds versatility because it can turn any room with a wireless connection into an impromptu meeting space

“Impactful digital transformation isn’t really about IT,” reported Microsoft in their e-book Digital Culture: Your Competitive Advantage. “It’s about people.”

Nowhere is that more obvious than in conference rooms, the backbone of business innovation, effective communication, and collaboration in the world of hybrid work. The right meeting room display solutions will bring calm and confidence to your teams. They'll know where to go and how to get there, and they can be sure they’ll have what they need when they arrive so they can strategize and collaborate effectively.