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How AI and AVI-SPL Are Improving the Workplace

AI

As I read the new AVI-SPL tech brief, “How AI Will Make Collaboration Experts of Us All,” l saw parallels between the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace and what AVI-SPL delivers to its clients through services that range from consultation to design to integration and support. 

That paper combines research with the insights of AVI-SPL’s Customer Advisory Board (or CAB). This CAB of large enterprises (including Fortune 500 companies), looks at the ways AI is being applied in the workplace to improve the processes associated with meetings and collaboration. The tech brief gives a good overview of issues like:

  • In-meeting productivity
  • Security risks
  • Virtual digital assistance
  • Project management
  • Resource allocation

Using AI to Improve Operations

The issue of meeting support has its own list of opportunities for AI systems to improve efficiency and accuracy while maintaining quality. Opportunities include: 

  • Schedule meetings
  • Room set-up
  • Take notes; suggest resources that help with meeting objectives
  • Report on the project progress
  • Track projects and assign deadlines and tasks to help with their completion
  • In-meeting technical support (instead of calling a help desk). The system can rout the issue to a technician if necessary.

Beyond collaboration, AI systems take information and learn from it to make decisions that align with a desired outcome or set of outcomes across departments and uses cases:  For example: 

  • Human resources
    • Recruiting, onboarding and training
    • Answer employee questions
  • Customer service
    • Analyzing customer sentiment and making recommendations 
  • Marketing and sales
    • Improving customer resource management, like finding specific types of customers
  • Education
    • Help teachers adjust their approach to the learning styles of individual students
  • Healthcare
    • Recommend treatment options

AI may also recommend cross-departmental collaboration opportunities, fix equipment failures, predict when downtime is likely to occur and take steps to mitigate its impact.

AVI-SPL Simplifies the Workplace

Similarly, AVI-SPL improves the workplace by freeing up its people to do more of what they’re good at so they and their organizations can grow and succeed. People across different departments don’t have to be experts in meeting-room technology to collaborate with one another. IT doesn’t have to devote its resources to being AV help desk assistants. And companies don’t have to go it alone in keeping up with the latest technology solutions.

As I’ve learned over the course of nine years with the company, our client projects are guided by a long-term view, one that seeks to understand how new solutions will affect an organization’s network and infrastructure, how the company sees itself changing, and how its market may change. In the discovery process with the client, AVI-SPL listens to their needs and begins a conversation about how to think strategically about implementing AV, video collaboration and UCC solutions. Along the way, account managers, technicians and engineers share the knowledge that answers many client questions, including:

The Customer Advisory Board developed from AVI-SPL’s need to understand the issues facing today’s companies so that it can continue to be a partner that delivers high value. The role of AI in the workplace is one of those challenges. By understanding the role artificial intelligence plays and will play in a customer’s environment, AVI-SPL continues to develop technical skills and thought leadership in this area. Wherever AI may be relevant to a company’s growth, that knowledge gives AVI-SPL the ability to present a high-level strategy that leads to digital workplace transformation.

Read “Why AI Will Make Collaboration Experts of Us All” >

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

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

Discover the Future of Work With AVI-SPL at ISE 2019

AV Events

The world’s largest exhibition for AV and systems integration begins in less than 24 hours, and AVI-SPL is already there, getting ready to share its latest solutions and services that help companies enter the future of work.

At ISE 2019, guests to AVI-SPL booth 11-C155 will understand what we mean by digital workplace transformation and why it’s so valuable to organizations of all types. In short segments, our staff and special guests will use a five-panel MultiTaction display to explain:

You’ll find the times for these presentations at AVI-SPL’s ISE event website. At our website, you’ll also find a form for requesting a meeting with AVI-SPL representatives to answer your questions.

To view our Partner blog, click here

Driving Change in the Workplace

AV Everywhere

You’re committed to improving the way people work at their jobs. How do you get those you’re trying to help — and those whose support you need — to share your enthusiasm for a vision of working smarter?

The term “digital workplace transformation” lends some industry weight to this vision.  But it doesn’t capture the complexities and obstacles different organizations may encounter as they try to improve their internal processes and their ability to interact with customers. It also doesn’t make a case for the benefits, which include helping companies connect with customers (through tools like video collaboration and interactive displays) and making it easier for individuals and teams to work together.

Let’s add some context to our consideration by addressing AVI-SPL’s perspective on — and contributions to — workplace transformation.

AVI-SPL designs, integrates, and supports the type of meeting spaces where it’s easy for participants to start video collaboration meetings, connect personal devices to room systems, and present materials to in-room and remote participants. Among AVI-SPL’s case studies, you’ll find many examples of corporations, museums, and schools using interactive displays to engage their guests so they can find information and get a favorable view of the organization.

As you commit to workplace transformation, consider the value your business provides and how that value could change or be delivered more effectively. AVI-SPL helps companies improve their ability to collaborate in teams because it gives them the technology tools that today’s workers expect to have, and it makes them easy to use. One reason for that ease is automation, where rooms are designed for a minimum number of user interactions to engage any of the major functions. And scalable cloud-based services automate the scheduling, launching, and management of meetings so that they start on time and with no inconvenience to the participants.

Gaining consensus for workplace transformation

Digital workplace transformation requires people and an organizational structure that are open to change and are willing to put in the work to achieve it. To gain consensus for workplace transformation, learn how people want to work, their current struggles, and what kind of functions they expect of their technology systems. By collaborating with consultants and internal focus groups, you’ll identify areas for improvement. The solutions providing that improvement may include a catalog of meeting spaces with systems for video collaboration, simple control of room devices, interactive touch panels, and wireless presentation systems.

Always remember that the end goal is a better way of working together. Don’t undergo a process of change for its own sake, just to say that you’ve done it. The technology systems should fit the workplace culture (be it the current culture or the culture the company wants to emulate).  Because change will affect the entire company, give a voice to different stakeholders, including representatives from HR, marketing, finance, operations, and the like.

Once you’ve determined that change is necessary to improve the way people work, follow these steps laid out by JLL:

  • Those in leadership positions must endorse the commitment to change. If the executives don’t believe in the plan, why should the rest of the company?
  • Understand why employees might be resistant to change. If they are resisting because they think they don’t have the ability to change, or because they won’t have sufficient support, work through these obstacles through workshops and training sessions.
  • The resistance can be cultural (“this is how we’ve always done things”) and personal (“we don’t have the skills “). When you understand different cultures and how they can affect your strategy, you can address employee resistance through training and new processes.
  • Your company’s circumstances should dictate how you implement change. Some companies can change quickly, while others would be better off with an incremental process.
  • Manage your strategy. Be flexible and willing to change the strategy as you learn more about the way your company operates.

The entire business doesn’t have to be ready for change. To make changes on a small scale, focus on a couple of internal groups or departments that would benefit from better collaboration with one another. As they are successful, they can be part of the advocate groups who share the news of their success to the rest of the company.

In the comments, tell me about your challenges with improving the workplace through meeting spaces and collaboration systems. You can also fill out this form and share your questions with AVI-SPL’s collaboration experts.

To view our Partner blog, click here