Create better MTRs with Standards
What standards are available to create better Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTRs): their design and user experiences? What’s available to help tech managers get post-pandemic spaces right first time? Fortunately, plenty!
An outturn of the necessary rush to get hybrid spaces converted and installed during the pandemic meant that the difference between the AV and UC/IT professions became marginal. This was accelerated by the underlying macroeconomic fact of proAV’s commodisation. Good news: AV being fitted into a higher percentage of spaces. Bad news: the budget per room is slashed.
The AV vs IT dialectic is history, something viewed in the rearview mirror. But when room budgets are so low, how can AV professionals distinguish themselves from IT? AV professionals’ USP had always been to take the potential of IT and AV hardware and to transform this into a 3D and sensory experience within each room. If we perceive we’re robbed of budget, it’s hard not to get sucked into the ‘bang and hang’ vortex.
But there are three causes for optimism.
Firstly, AVIXA’s AV standards program provides ample scope for proAV to distinguish itself, no matter what the budget. AV Standards 2.0 for MTRs is about using them critically and creatively. This is a main plank of my consulting practice.
Secondly, UX design. The upcoming AVIXA ‘User Experience Design for AV’ will be a game-changer. I’m in this task group and we’re versionising the principles of User Centric Design for proAV practitioners. However, this will necessarily require us to emerge from our bunkers and silos! We are going to need to actually talk to the users (not just the stakeholders). Watch this space…
Thirdly, the WELL V2 standard. It pulls together the building and environmental standards - many of which mesh with AV standards - into a single and holistically-driven campfire around which traditionally opposing factions (architects, facilities/building management, IT, AV etc) can work together. It’s a win-win for owners: a template to get things right first time, at the right price, to achieve higher occupancy and utilisation rates - at higher rents and ROI.
I’m coming to the end of my term leading AVIXA’s Standards Steering Committee, meaning 2023 will allow me more time to develop further ways of using them in practice.
If you like a copy of the White Paper on which many of my posts are based, and which takes a much deeper dive into aspects of MTR design, please click here.
Posted: 11th January 2023