My ISE 22 take-away…
…is Microsoft now the oxygen lending life to AV - and reliance? ‘Teams Rooms’: now the generic term for hybrid spaces. But how to turn technologies into user experiences?
The proAV industry at ISE 22 was predicated on Microsoft Teams. It seemed virtually every booth in the proAV sector was somehow given context by Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTRs) and the rushing river of installations everyone wants to paddle midstream within. (And organisations needing to provide for employees, returning to the changeling workplace.)
Yet if the difference between AV and IT is that AV delivers the user experiences that the IT functionalities from the Microsoft Teams-related ecosystem promises, are we really delivering on that enough? Technology is but unrealised potential until we deliver it in the form of complete experiences to users’ senses in the free space of the hybrid workspace.
‘So what do we need to buy/sell?’ is a default starting point. But it’s like the mythical tourist lost deep in the countryside asking directions from a local to the nearest village, who replies: ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t start from here!’.
Technology is the enabler, not ‘the thing’. The thought pieces Microsoft publishes, including visualisations such as below, speak to the need to think about the design of the space itself - for which they rely on partners.
Poor room design can destroy the effectiveness of the best and fanciest technology. Organisations tend to operate in silos, meaning it’s a tough gig for tech management to get their facilities management to work cohesively with them. The visible tip of the iceberg here is when the lighting kills the display, impacts user comfort and/or creates poor remote user experiences via the VC camera.
For the moment it seems a step too far for Microsoft to expand their certification to aspects of, or the whole thing of, room design. So organisations have to plough a lonely furrough for the time being. The tough part will be the realisation next year of the mis-spent budget this year as this aspect plays catch-up with the bright shiny kit being fixed into rooms as I write.
Measure twice, cut once, the carpenter tells her apprentice. Asking users and careful forethought can save money as well as achieving optimum results. Sometimes a flipchart and pen is a better solution to that fancy shiny interactive panel on the wall!
The Visual Displays team are specialists and experts in AV and environmental standards, room design, lighting design and displays. We are here to help you create better hybrid workspaces. Please message me if you’d like a quick exploratory call.
Posted: 31st May 2022