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Technology
Smart Conference Rooms
Company roundtables can become global brainstorming sessions thanks to advances in digital technology.
Last year Barton Malow, a fast-growing architecture, construction, and engineering firm, decided to do something smart. Since the 79-year-old company was expanding operations from its headquarters in Southfield, Mich., to other states in the southeast such as Maryland and Virginia it needed a cost-efficient way to keep in touch with its far-flung work force. That's when its chief investment officer Phil Go had an epiphany and decided the company should invest in technology to transform the firm's existing conference room into what's known as a "smart conference room," which would operate as a high-tech mission-control room for the entire company
"The goal was to bring geographically dispersed people together" and have all employees collaborate and brainstorm on projects whenever needed, recalls Go. To accomplish this Barton Malow invested in a multimedia video conferencing system that connects video cameras, video projectors, television sets, and is interfaced to multiple microphones, and speakers, in conference rooms in each of its three major installations. While the tab was $180,000, the investment was worth it. In a few months the company reduced its travel expenses by $100,000. Just as important, the staff saves valuable time. "Our people don't have to invest a day to have a one-hour meeting," says Go, "and they're more productive because they are not as time constrained."
Barton Malow's tale is not so unusual. Traditional conference rooms that were once the sole domain of company boards and senior managers are being transformed into high-tech work spaces empowering knowledge workers across America. Companies of all sizes—from startups to mammoth multinationals—"are shifting investments from individual base locations to group-based spaces," says Michael Bell, vice president and research director of Gartner Inc.'s IT management sector. Citing a 1999 Cornell University study published in Facilities and Design Management magazine, he concludes that 75% of the Global 2000 companies are adopting alternative workplace settings to facilitate collaboration and sharply reduce operating costs.
The trend is not only being driven by economics; it is also the result of demographic shifts in the work place. As Bell explains, today "almost 50% of workers are not working at their desks. They are home, on the road, or in conference rooms," the result of cutbacks in relocations, downsizing, cutbacks in travel, and a desire by companies to adopt a more collaborative, group-based decision-making approach to business.
Sun Microsystems can attest to that. To boost the productivity of its mobile 14,000-person workforce, it developed the iWork program in the mid-1990s. The program maximizes worker satisfaction and productivity by letting people work where they are comfortable, or where they need to be to do their jobs. Deployed worldwide across Sun's 93 international locations, it also saves money by allocating one office space per 1.5 workers—Sun estimates annual cost savings of $150 million.
"Anyone can work harder," says Sun CEO Scott McNeely. "iWork is here to help us work smarter.'" The offices and group workspaces at Sun have a lot of technology supporting the program, including phones and computers that can instantly have a worker's profile assigned to them. They are also equipped with and smart conference facilities—including iWork Cafes—that enable collaborative work efforts with people on-site, and off.
Raising Your Room's IQ
So what makes conference rooms smart? Most high-tech interior designers have various views about this, but most agree that these work places must be equipped with conferencing systems that make borderless communications possible—via audio, web, or video. That means they are adorned with projectors or large gas-plasma screens, high-fidelity sound systems, microphones, and video cameras. The more sophisticated conference rooms, are outfitted with technology that enables users to share PC-based or video presentations, as well as data and software applications.
"Smart" can also apply to the equipment's ability to take care of itself, including video cameras that can pan, tilt, and zoom in on conference participants as they are speaking. That eliminates the need for a camera operator, while other equipment measures its own performance and tells administrators when to do maintenance.
At Barton Malow, CIO Go knew that the company's collaborative needs required more than traditional video conferencing, so he opted for the Polycom Office iPower™ multimedia system in its three offices. It uses PC technology and advanced communications to deliver video, audio, and web conferencing to users at two or more sites. Most important, the iPower delivers data, including presentations and shared applications. "The real value of the technology is in the data collaboration," says Go, whose users share and work on corporate blueprints, spreadsheets, and presentations across their video conferencing system, "not just in talking heads."
Coming of Age
"The good news is that today's video conferencing is better, cheaper, and easier than you can possibly imagine," says Marlene Williamson, Polycom's vice president of corporate marketing and communications. "The average video conferencing system bought in 1995 cost $50,000, but today the average has plummetted to about $10,000," she says, adding, "systems costing $3,000 are not uncommon."
The entry-level Polycom iPower Executive conference system includes two desktop LCDs, a camera, a microphone, and a built-in PC. It is ideal for small conference rooms. At the top of the line is the conference room-filling Executive Collection, which supports one or two 50- or 60-inch gas-plasma screens in floor-standing or wall-mounted configurations
Futuristic Viewing
The Executive Collection can be based on the Polycom iPower 9800 multimedia conferencing platform or the ViewStation VS4000TM video conference controllers that enable data sharing, camera control, and display. Both are available as separate components. The VS4000 merges conferences from multiple sites on up to four video displays in a conference room, making it ideal when a large number of sites participate in a conference. It can use the plasma displays of the Executive Collection, or any video systems that supports large formats, such as projectors or large video monitors. The iPower 9800 controls presentations, shares data, and accesses the web. Its PowerCam Plus camera uses sound-sensing Limelight™ technology to pan, tilt, zoom in, and focus on, whoever is speaking in the room. The VS4000 can also be equipped with individual components, such add-ons as the PowerCam cameras.
No Sounding Off
Audio conferencing can make a conference room smart enough for collaboration, and Polycom's SoundStation VTX1000™ seems smarter yet because you never have to shout into it, or huddle close to hear what's being said. Its speaker delivers crisp sound, and its microphone can hear you from two to 20 feet away. All Polycom telephones have conferencing capability, including the SoundPoint® Pro 220, which includes a forward-facing microphone and built-in multi-line conferencing.
WebOffice™ is Polycom's web-based collaboration tool that allows multipoint online conferencing, file sharing, instant messaging, and can integrate a web conference with Polycom video conferencing.
No matter what your collaboration requirements are, no matter what your budget is, there is a technology that will make your conference room smart enough, and fit within your budget.
From the simplest gizmos that provide teleconferencing to the most sophisticated, multimedia video conferencing system money can buy, there's certainly a product for you.
And no matter what you spend, you should recoup your investment in the technology quickly. As Barton Marow's Phil Go will tell you, in today's cost-and-travel-constrained environment, "even the most expensive system you buy will pay off in a year—or less."
—John Dickinson
The Networked Multimedia Experience
A smart conference room works in many ways to get the job done. It requires a
simultaneous mix of media: video, audio, and data from multiple sources, all combined seamlessly with local control and remote accessing capabilities for effective communication, rapid decision-making, and informative presentations.
Sony is an established leader in video technology. But for Sony, fulfilling the potential of smart conference rooms means moving beyond individual, stand-alone products to a total networked solution combining multiple, scaleable elements designed to work together.
At the heart of Sony's solution is the SRP-X700P, a multimedia controller that can mix signals from PCs, CD and DVD players, audio and video tape, and wired and wireless microphones—then output them to multiple video display devices and sophisticated sound systems. Multimedia presentations can be projected on Sony's SuperSmart™ LCD video projectors or displayed on Plasma flat-screen monitors. The SRP-X700P even includes control over room lighting, curtains, as well as all of the A/V system components.
Sony VPL-PX15, VPL-FX51, and VPL-FE110 SuperSmart projectors not only provide high-resolution images, they also contain a Microsoft® Windows® CE computer that can access, store, share and display presentation files. These projectors can be accessed via a web browser from a remote computer, which means a presentation can be run by someone who is not in the room—or even in the country—without special equipment.
All SuperSmart models include web browser software and a built-in Ethernet port. In addition to enabling the transfer of information, the Ethernet port allows interfacing with Sony's PJNet!™ projector networking software, which allows remote administrators to monitor up to 256 Sony SuperSmart projectors. The software also enables projectors to send automatic email notices to the administrators when servicing is required. For portable presentations, Sony's SuperLite® VPL-CX6 projector accepts Memory Stick™ media, designed to record, transfer and share various types of digital content, such as still and moving images, music, voice, and data via a wide range of compatible products.
Sony videoconferencing systems enable one smart conference room to communicate with another—or with branch offices, representatives in the field, and vendor or client locations across the country or across the globe. They can also integrate PC-based presentations and share data throughout the conference using Memory Stick technology, direct computer connections, or through the IP network.
Sony's PCS-1 system allows the camera to be detached and mounted on an optional stand. The PCS-1 can support a second color camera, accommodates up to two PC connections for data sharing and collaboration, and provides a special port for digital whiteboards. In addition, Sony's PCS-DS150 document reader allows meeting participants to incorporate three dimensional objects and documents into the presentation. And finally, the addition of Sony's Multi-point Control Unit Software allows up to ten sites to be linked together in a single, smart conference—one that can bring every decision-maker into face-to-face communication.
For those who have missed the meeting, Sony's range of video recording devices can be used to capture the essence of the meeting and allow participants to view it at a later date via the recorder/player itself, or through Sony's innovative NSP-100 IP appliance. The NSP-100, coupled with almost any kind of display device, is capable of delivering up to 18 hours of video via local or centrally-controlled operation.
For more information on Sony's smart conference room solutions, call 1-800-472-SONY (7669) xFortune, or visit us at www.sony.com/corporate.
© 2003 Sony Electronics Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. Features and specifications subject to change without notice. Screen images simulated. Sony, Memory Stick, PJNet!, SuperLite and SuperSmart, are trademarks of Sony. Microsoft and Windows are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
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