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Five Steps to Planning for a Video Wall

AV Everywhere

You want to create the perfect video wall, and this webinar explains how to do it. Bo Beard, sales engineer for LG Electronics, explains the factors that end users and integrators need to consider when planning a video wall project. Joining him is Chris Caputo, senior project engineer for AVI-SPL, who offers his expertise in control-room settings.

Bo will also address technology considerations that include:

  • webOS Smart Signage Platform
  • Curveable LAPE LED
  • Ultra-narrow bezel video wall display

You’ll also learn how determine display layout, find and prep the right environment, and choose the products that suit your content.

Get the Recording for “Five Decisions to Make when Planning for a Video Wall” >

To view our Partner blog, click here

TechBoost Events Reveal Future of Work in Canada

AV Events

Throughout 2019, AVI-SPL Canada is hosting its TechBoost series of networking events that give you access to digital workplace experts and technology providers that improve team productivity and reduce your real estate costs.

At venues across Canada, you’ll learn about the meeting solutions, video collaboration, and enterprise video capabilities that attract and retain talent.

You’ll understand how to apply technology strategies and solutions that increase business agility and results. You’ll also learn how AVI-SPL managed services ensure they measure up to your objectives. We’ve got our complete slate of events scheduled and ready for your registration.

TechBoost Cities in 2019

Join AVI-SPL and select partners as we spend an afternoon exploring the technology and unified communication trends that are facilitating groundbreaking changes to the workplace. Lunch will be served at each event.

Click the links above to register for the TechBoost event you’d like to attend.

Tout au long de 2019, AVI-SPL Canada est l’hôte d’une série d’événements de réseautage sous le nom de Pause-Techno, qui vous donnent accès à des experts en environnement de travail numérique et à des fournisseurs de technologie qui améliorent la productivité des équipes et réduisent les coûts immobiliers.

Partout au Canada, vous découvrirez les solutions de réunion, la collaboration vidéo et les systèmes de diffusion vidéo d’entreprise qui attirent et retiennent les talents.

Vous comprendrez comment appliquer des stratégies et des solutions technologiques qui augmentent l’agilité et les résultats de l’entreprise. Vous apprendrez également comment les services gérés d’AVI-SPL s’assurent qu’ils répondent à vos objectifs. Nous avons notre liste complète d’événements prévus et prêts pour votre inscription.

Pause Techno- Villes en 2019

Rejoignez AVI-SPL, et sélectionnez des partenaires, pendant que nous passons un après-midi à explorer les tendances technologiques et de communication unifiée qui facilitent les changements révolutionnaires dans le monde du travail. Le déjeuner sera servi à chaque événement.

Cliquez sur les liens ci-dessus pour vous inscrire à l’événement TechBoost auquel vous souhaitez participer.

To view our Partner blog, click here

Four Reasons Your Workplace Needs Huddle Rooms

AV Everywhere

With huddle rooms in the workplace, you can promote productivity and teamwork in your organization.  A new AVI-SPL paper looks at issues to consider so that you have huddle rooms that people want to use.

As you work with a partner like AVI-SPL to design, create and deploy your huddle rooms, you can start to gain the support of your stakeholders by making the case that having these flexible collaboration spaces will increase productivity by making it easier to people to work together on demand. Let’s briefly consider what the huddle room is, and then we’ll continue with why it’s important to organizations that want to be part of the future of work.

What Is a Huddle Room?

Think of the huddle room (or huddle space), as an area where people gather to do more than meet; they want to get work done. A huddle room has collaboration technology that allows a group of about 2-5 to gather around a small workstation and work together on content that can share from their personal devices. Technology systems usually include:

These assets make the huddle room much more than a small meeting space. It’s an area equipped for collaborative activities where people can work productively with one another.

Why Your Workplace Needs Huddle Rooms

  1. Collaborate right now.  Maybe your team is about to make a presentation or deliver a training session. You might have just left a meeting and a few members from that group need to work out their deliverables. Or you have colleagues at a remote location who need to share ideas. The huddle room is an ideal spot for team members to get together before an event, review and edit content, and share get the input of team members who’ve connected by video.
  2. People need a space for brainstorming. Doesn’t it seem like the meeting after the meeting is where the real productivity happens? Smaller working groups can use huddle rooms to assess their tasks, consider different plans of attack, and start to offer ideas to the group for further refinement. Connect by video to customers, clients, and colleagues, and your huddle room is a hub of productivity.
  3. Collaborative sessions are more frequent than meetings. Meetings are about sharing updates and assigning tasks. But as mentioned above, the huddle room is where the real work gets done. You’ll have more huddle rooms than conference rooms or training areas, and that’s OK because they take up less space than either.
  4. It’s better together. Your coworkers can complete their assignments faster when the work in teams. Tasks in a project may be dependent on one another, so collaborating face to face can help sort out what others need and expect.

Now that you know why the huddle room is a valuable asset, take a look at our guide to creating huddle rooms that people will use and deliver the benefits you expect.  You’ll learn:

  • How much huddle rooms cost
  • Figuring out how many huddle rooms you need
  • Examples of companies that are using huddle rooms

Get your copy of “How to Create Inspiring, Collaborative Huddle Rooms” >

To view our Partner blog, click here

Poly’s “Power of Many” Message for Businesses

Alexa for Business

Poly made noise in the AV and workplace collaboration industry this week as it became the new face of the combination of Plantronics and Polycom.

The company is supporting its first marketing campaign, “The Power of Many,” with some high-profile announcements that focus on product integration with technology from Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. Poly made these announcements while at Enterprise Connect in Orlando.

In the days that followed the rebranding as Poly, the company announced:

The Power of Many

Common to these products is their emphasis on bringing people together, which is the message of Poly’s “Power of Many” campaign. The “power of many” also describes the functions that are brought together in a solution. Systems that combine useful functions are what you might envision when you hear the term “unified communications” — the ability to review one’s calendar, join a meeting, and make video calls from one device.

Along with this versatility, the goal is simplicity, which is key to the user experience of solutions that combine multiple functions. You could say that’s the main appeal of a solution that includes Alexa, making it possible to manage meetings and room devices through voice.

Poly’s solution announcements this week indicate their focus on a positive user experience. Common to each of them:  These solutions integrate with systems that people are comfortable with and want to keep using in a way that isn’t needlessly complex. One phrase on the Poly website touts the ability to “concentrate on ideas in the air, not devices in the room.” When people use workplace collaboration solutions, they shouldn’t notice the technology to an extent that is disruptive. Rather, they should be able to give their attention to the collaboration that the technology is making possible.

As new solutions enable us to do more from more places, companies are wise to incorporate those solutions in the workplace to attract talented people who want to be able to collaborate in a variety of ways and do it on demand.

The solutions that are easiest to use will be the most attractive, as long as they have the capabilities that people expect. Those capabilities are with us in a variety of solution packages. The power of Poly’s message is in its focus on how its solutions make it easier for people to produce the products, ideas, services and innovations that keeps their businesses growing.

To view our Partner blog, click here

TechSpark Showcases the Future of Workplace Collaboration

AV Events

Throughout 2019, AVI-SPL has been hosting its TechSpark series of evening networking events, which give you access to digital workplace experts and technology providers that improve team productivity and reduce your real estate costs.

We’ve already held successful events in Atlanta, Cleveland and Philadelphia. And we’re excited to bring our insight to more cities in September and October, including Dallas, Houston, Toronto, and Los Angeles.

At venues like the Minute Maid Park, the Hockey Hall of Fame, and the Porsche Experience Center you’ll learn how the new, agile, digital workplace includes the meeting solutions, video collaboration, and enterprise video capabilities that attract and retain talent.

You’ll understand how to apply technology strategies and solutions that increase business agility and results. You’ll also learn how AVI-SPL services ensure they measure up to your objectives. We’ve got three more events ready for your registration.

TechSpark Cities in 2019

TechSpark Agenda

Each event takes place from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., local time.

  • 5 p.m. – Registration
  • 5:15 p.m. – Welcome by AVI-SPL office representative
  • 5:30 p.m. – Keynote speaker
  • 6 p.m. – Sponsor presentations
  • 6:20 p.m. – Networking
  • 7 p.m. – Q&A: Collaboration and Technology in Your Organization
  • 7:15 p.m. – Prize drawing

Register for the TechSpark event you’d like to attend >

To view our Partner blog, click here

Five Ways to Appreciate Your Employees

AV Everywhere

Today, the calendar on the wall — or your desk, or your smartphone — is asking companies throughout the United States to celebrate Employee Appreciation Day.  Companies are their employees, so a business’s success depends on the success of its workers. To attract and keep the employees that make their businesses succeed, an organization’s leaders should remind them that they are valued. Here are a few ways you can show your appreciation for your colleagues.

1. Provide time off and transportation for volunteer work

Support your employees and their dedication to improving their local communities by organizing or taking part in events that help people in need or causes they believe in. From its Tampa headquarters, AVI-SPL takes an active role in Feeding Children Everywhere, which works to ensure that kids don’t go hungry. We also contribute through groups like Metropolitan Ministries, Paint Your Heart Out Tampa, toy drives, and bike-building events. Go to Charity Navigator to find evaluations of charities and choose the ones that you think are worthy of your effort and will do the most good.

2. Share snacks or have a food truck day

Morning bagels or donuts can help your employees get over the midweek hump and keep them buzzing on Fridays, when energy and enthusiasm flags with the weekend in sight. Once a month, AVI-SPL hosts a free dessert day from our Tampa office. And we often have a different food truck visit our business campus during the Friday lunch hour. Sometimes a department will bring in snacks and share them in the break room. A holiday like Valentine’s Day can provide all the excuse you need for a pizza party that encourages people to get away from their desks and connect with each other.

3. Offer day care services or flexible hours

Show the parents in your office that you value their contribution by giving them the time to care for their children and make it easier to attend to their day care or school schedule. It can be difficult — especially for new parents and those with long commutes — to be away from their children and deal with drop-off and pick-up times, so giving them the opportunity to work from home at least part time (such as the morning or late afternoon hours) can really help those who are always rushing through traffic to make it to work or their kids’ school.

4. Reward employees for outstanding teamwork

Invite employees to nominate each other in recognition of their outstanding teamwork and accomplishments. Winners may be recognized with gift cards, company-wide announcements, and other perks, like a monthly parking spot of their choice. You’ll reward coworkers for their great contributions and inspire others to up their game. Tie accolades to activities designed to increase fitness, like walking competitions, and you’ll have set the stage for a lifelong commitment to one’s health.

5. Provide a modern digital workplace

Empowering employees means committing to a culture that values flexibility in the way they work and generate the ideas that spark a company’s success. Modern digital workplaces with collaboration spaces and their technology systems allow people to share content in real time from their personal devices during same-room gatherings, as well as during video conferences that bring in teams from remote locations (such as another office or one’s home).

By implementing a variety of spaces with collaboration technology that is easy to use and meets the variety of ways people prefer to do their work, you’ll be showing you value your employees by supporting their ability to work efficiently in teams of various sizes, and to do it from a variety of locations. And you’ll be effectively meeting your desired business outcomes.

Transforming the workplace can seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. Visit AVI-SPL’s landing page “Digital Workplace Strategies to Attract and Retain Top Talent” for a look at the top considerations when choosing collaboration technology for your workplace, the variety of work spaces that support different styles of teamwork, and the technology within those spaces.

To view our Partner blog, click here