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Register for Our Final VIBE Event on the Future of Education and Learning

AV in Education

Today is the third of our three VIBE events on “The Future of Education: Empowering the Next Generation of Leaders.” During today’s event, you’ll learn about the ways video collaboration, advanced room control, and intelligent buildings improve the learning experience while reducing the health risks for students, faculty, and staff.

You’ll also discover the strategies, tactics, solutions, and resources you can use to streamline your learners’ transition from graduation to the workplace, including:

  • 5G, 8K, and IoT
  • Augmented and virtual reality
  • Active learning 
  • Virtual field trips
  • CARES Act funding

To facilitate this discussion, we’ve gathered prominent thought leaders for a panel on innovation and insights into the ways technology will empower the future of education. Our panelists include:

  • Marci Powell, noted expert in distance learning and chair emerita of the United States Distance Learning Association
  • Jay Bosch, AVI-SPL director of business development for state/local government and education
  • John Stenzel, Legrand national accounts director
  • George Borden, NEC solutions sales architect

Stenzel and Julian will share some specific technology solutions from Legrand and NEC that you can use right now to create a better learning experience.

Register for the next VIBE event, “The Future of Education: How Technology Will Empower the Next Generation of Leaders” >

To view our Partner blog, click here

AVI-SPL Enhances its Award-Winning Managed Services Practice in Collaboration with Microsoft

AVI-SPL Symphony

As companies adopt cloud services, they need to manage their meeting rooms so they can provide a seamless user experience and reach their business goals. AVI-SPL is committed to providing that support as the leader in comprehensive managed meeting-room solutions.  We’ve just strengthened our value to organizations by collaborating with Microsoft as a co-delivery partner for the Microsoft Teams Rooms Premium program being formally released for general availability at Inspire 2020. 

Through this delivery partnership, AVI-SPL will provide technology-agnostic remote support with real-time remediation (eliminating the need to create separate workflows for Microsoft Teams Rooms and traditional meeting rooms). AVI-SPL will also deliver dedicated on-site personnel, on-site services with service-level agreements, comprehensive monitoring solutions powered by AVI-SPL Symphony, and virtual event services.  

Consistent with the enthusiastic response Microsoft received to its private preview of Microsoft Teams Rooms Premium, AVI-SPL has received strong customer response to its shared intention of managed meeting room collaboration with Microsoft.  Customers are viewing this approach as a “best of both worlds” solution, enabling continued, comprehensive meeting-room support for the Teams experience, scaled globally by AVI-SPL and enhanced with the subject matter expertise and endorsement of Microsoft.  Unified Communications and Collaboration programs provided by AVI-SPL include:

  • Needs analysis and business process consulting to establish technology and design standards for Teams and to develop sustainable support models integrated into native IT workflows and platforms
  • Procurement and deployment services for premise-based and cloud infrastructure, cloud video interoperability solutions, and meeting room technologies
  • Customer success programs powered by business intelligence, technology lifecycle management – including remote and on-site maintenance plans, proactive managed meeting room solutions with real-time remediation, and conference and event management

Driven by a relentless focus on delivering a world-class customer experience, leading transformational continuous service improvement, and contributing meaningful thought leadership and innovation, AVI-SPL’s managed services practice has been driving value for organizations of all types around the world.  These services are anchored by AVI-SPL Symphony, a user experience management application that serves as the broadest single-pane view into technology estates, enables integrated end-to-end workflow automation, and generates actionable business intelligence.  Coordinated from AVI-SPL’s Global Service Operation Centers in the United States and in Europe, and delivered to organizations all over the world, the company’s managed services practice has been recognized in multiple Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards.  

With AVI-SPL and Microsoft working on your behalf, we can drive adoption of Microsoft Teams across your enterprise and provide the support that ensures it provides the value you expect. Businesses interested in pursuing a solution co-delivered by AVI-SPL and Microsoft are encouraged to engage their sales contact, or submit an inquiry to contact@avispl.com.

To view our Partner blog, click here

Recap of AVI-SPL’s VIBE Event: The Future of Education

AV in Education

During the first of three VIBE events in July on the future of education, four experts in education technology got together to discuss the challenges and opportunities schools are facing in light of COVID-19.  Their talk touched on technology solutions that educators rely on to connect with and engage remote students, and that also address their health.

The panel included:

  • Marci Powell, chair emerita of the United States Distance Learning Association
  • Jay Bosch, AVI-SPL director of business development for state/local government and education
  • Cindy De Ianni, West U.S. regional GEM, sales, Poly
  • Adam Sowers, manager, consultant relations, Western region, NEC

They also looked at on-campus solutions that can connect a classroom-based educator with those in the same room as well as distance-learning students. Other topics included:

  • CARES Act funding
  • Steps schools can take to prepare for distance learning this coming semester
  • The role and capabilities of digital signage to deliver mass notification
  • Supporting immersive experiences like labs in a remote environment
  • Solutions from Poly and NEC for online and in-person learning and messaging

One of the key takeaways for me was the need for K-20 education to step up and meet the demands of next-generation learners so they can seamlessly transition into the workplace. Powell discussed the kind of technology and tactics that schools can use as part of this effort, including augmented and virtual reality, 5G networks, 8K resolution, and gamification.

You still have a couple of chances to be a part of this informative series, as AVI-SPL is hosting one on Tuesday, July 21, and on Thursday, July 23.

Register for the next VIBE event, “The Future of Education: How Technology Will Empower the Next Generation of Leaders” >

To view our Partner blog, click here

What Qualities Should You Look for in a Managed Services Provider?

AVI-SPL

DSC 0373 smallUser experience is the key to a successful meeting space investment.  It is only through managing  the user experience that today’s meeting rooms, both physical and virtual, will realize a return on their initial investment and ongoing operating expense.

If your collaboration service – regardless of which flavor you choose – is available always and everywhere, providing a consistent operating interface and a rich communication medium, it will be embraced by end users and highly utilized. Conversely, an unreliable, difficult, and limited meeting service will be bypassed in favor of other means of communication, often sacrificing productivity for convenience.

Delivering all the operational requirements of a meeting service is a challenge.  These include typical technology management processes such as:

  • Proactive Monitoring
  • Lifecycle Management
  • Incident and Change Management
  • Asset Management
  • Security and Patch Management
  • Service Level reporting

 

Adding to the challenge, both physical and virtual meeting spaces require ongoing user adoption services and event support, sometimes known as concierge services.  When evaluating the full set of requirements for a successful user experience within meeting spaces, organizations often look to service providers for a managed meeting service.

Many service providers can supply components of a managed meeting service, often with a focus on technology management.  Typical managed services are designed to address basic monitoring and incident management, indicating their legacy of technology infrastructure support.  A qualified meeting service provider should be able to demonstrate experience and success in three key areas:

 

Service Delivery Capability and Scope

When evaluating a service provider for meeting spaces, some significant questions need to be asked, including:

  • How many managed service centers does the provider have, and where? Do they match my organization’s locations and hours?
  • What is the range of certifications held by the managed service staff? Does the provider have any kind of continuing education plans or incentives?
  • What are the limits to the managed service? How many additional charges could apply per year?
  • Can it assist end users with meeting events? Do they add value with a variety of service capabilities?

Look for a service provider with multiple service centers, able to provide services around the world, at any time of day.  Their engineers should hold a diverse set of manufacturer certifications, to avoid technology lock-in.  Meeting support is time-critical, so service providers must be able to provide a direct line of support to end users as well as to IT departments.

 

Ability to Improve the User Experience

Your service provider should be able to provide advice and actions to monitor and improve the meeting experience. 

  • Their plan to measure the meeting experience of end users
  • Their experience in improving a meeting service
  • The metrics for success. Review examples of regular reporting done for other customers and test their knowledge of how they added value to the service improvement process.

 

Successfully Raising Meeting Technology Adoption and Utilization

If a service provider focuses exclusively on service availability and response/repair time metrics, they are missing a key value driver for organizations today – the adoption and utilization of meeting technology.  Service providers must be able to demonstrate their ability to help users adapt new meeting technologies, through training as well as ongoing support.

Tracking the utilization of meeting technology is only a beginning. A service provider should be able to demonstrate their track record for providing onboarding services for their customer’s new employees.  Monitoring usage and reaching out to users who are not utilizing the technology can help identify dissatisfied users or licenses that can be reclaimed for deployment elsewhere.

 

A service provider should also be able to show flexibility and creativity in this area.  Recently, AVI-SPL assisted a variety of clients in quickly moving to entirely work-from-home solutions.  For one such client, we were able to rapidly shift end users to a new meeting platform that supports their work-from-home efforts, conducting over 4,500 end user support sessions in the first four weeks of pandemic response, including concierge support for dozens of VIP calls during that timeframe.  By deploying end user support documentation links and conducting new user outreach sessions, AVI-SPL enabled the customer to increase their virtual meeting space utilization while reducing the number of support requests over the subsequent weeks – two key measures of a successful user experience management program.

 

Want to experience a better user experience through managed services?  Contact us today.

 

 

mike bakanas

Today’s post comes from Mike Bakanas, service account manager for the northeastern region.  With a strong track record of experience providing technical services to a variety of organizations, Mike designs service solutions that unlock business value.

 

 

 

 

To view our Partner blog, click here

Updating Your Digital Workplace for the New Normal

AV Everywhere

During this time of remote work, many companies have continued their business operations by  giving their employees the technology tools that keep them collaborating. 

As we gradually get back to business as usual, what we call “as usual” may have changed as well. The last few months have shut down businesses or hindered their efforts to keep up their operations. Even if your organization was one of those that was already on board with collaboration technology, you’ve seen firsthand just how much people rely on each other when they can’t be in the same office, where they’re just a few feet away from asking a question, giving an answer, or providing an update. 

Our post-COVID-19 era, if we may optimistically call it that, is one that will find thousands of organizations wanting to improve their collaboration environment for those working on-site and off. The following factors will impact and shape the new normal in the workplace: 

Well-being: The offices you return to won’t be like the offices you left before the shutdown. Here are some ways you’ll maintain social connections while also providing for your employees’ well-being through recommended best practices and guidelines they must follow:

  • Support monitored social distancing throughout the workplace, including collaboration spaces. A conference room that was designed to hold 10 people might now only have chairs for five participants at a time. 
  • Share safety protocols like frequent hand washing, social distancing, contact tracing, and the frequent cleaning of common devices and furniture. 
  • Create new spaces and redevelop existing ones to include touchless control and BYOD (bring your own device) capabilities.

Video collaboration: For people to work from home and on site, they need reliable, simple-to-use collaboration technology that integrates with their company’s network and applications. Having that high-quality, user-friendly technology also improves the experience for those connecting with them from various locations. Here are some areas to consider as you address a digital workplace equipped with video collaboration:

  • Look at the ways your staff has used collaboration spaces and how those use cases are expected to change. Prepare for more activity-based workspaces while keeping in mind they might not follow the design you had in mind before COVID-19. Even with enhanced cleaning measures in place, people may not want to use the touch-enabled devices that book rooms, start meetings, or engage video.
  • Provide a consistent user experience for those working from home. Standardize on a UCC solution that is easy to use and has the features that will accommodate your different user types.
  • Consider non-traditional spaces like manufacturing floors as candidates for video collaboration.

Security: The expansion of the work environment to off-site locations, including the home, means that cybersecurity must also expand to include remote workers on a much larger scale than you may have previously anticipated. However, on-site work continues to be a mainstay of company operations. As your business transitions back to the offices, you’ll need to help your talent interact with on-site technology in a way that keeps information secure.

Consider these areas as your IT team focuses on your company’s information security:

  • As you add UCC solutions for in-room and remote collaboration, review the cybersecurity features of those providers. Understand the built-in permissions and privacy protocols of their solutions so you know what steps to take to keep your information secure.
  • Prepare for a resurgence of BYOD. Expect your staff to prefer using their own devices to interact with and control collaboration room technology.
  • As you give access to company services to remote workers, consider how that access affects the security of those on-premise or cloud-based services.
  • Address the home LAN with cybersecurity measures that protect company information, including documents and chat files.

Automation: In the workplace, many employees are booking common rooms and using a variety of control and collaboration devices that are also being used by their colleagues.

By automating in-office functions like scheduling and room control, you can improve the collaboration experience while also minimizing health risks by reducing the number of touch points. Some ideas for incorporating automation technology in your workplace include:

  • Deploy virtual digital assistants like Alexa for Business to create a touch-free experience in collaboration spaces. Through voice activation, people can start their meetings and the devices that allow them to connect with remote colleagues, share documents from their personal devices, and wirelessly connect their devices to room displays.
  • Offer personalized wayfinding employees and visitors through a combination of mobile apps and digital signage. This minimizes foot traffic by efficiently guiding people to their destinations.
  • Automate workspace assignments so that employees know when and where they are scheduled to be on site. These assignments can be based on each person’s need to use on-site resources as well as their work preferences.
  • Use remote concierge services to schedule, launch meetings, and monitor meetings. User management applications like AVI-SPL Symphony can do this, as well as remotely monitor and manage rooms, devices, the network, and the conference infrastructure.

Intelligent buildings: Intelligent building technology anticipates and responds to the way people work, and it streamlines their interactions with spaces and the kind of technology they need to use. These systems give insight into how spaces are being used so that a company can use the analytics to decide if it needs to reconfigure spaces and/or build new ones.

  • Design responsive environments driven by AI and ambient computing. These rooms anticipate what devices and applications will be needed based on who schedules them, who is using the room, and the meeting purpose. Facial recognition tells system how you like the temperature and lighting in a room, and the preferred way of starting a meeting.
  • The Internet of Things (IoT) and occupancy sensors, thermal cameras, and Wi-Fi tracking show the density of people gathered in various areas throughout the workplace. They provide alerts when they anticipate collaboration sessions will go over the approved number of participants. That information can be used to provide intelligent space scheduling that shows available rooms for supporting the required number of in-person participants while also maintaining social distancing.
  • Integrated workplace management systems do the heavy lifting by monitoring spaces, down to the device level. This ensures that only rooms with functioning technology are available to schedule, and it lets the support team know when an issue needs a resolution. These systems help staff resolve these issues before an end user experiences any difficulty during a meeting. 

AVI-SPL is helping organizations like yours determine what your “new normal” work experience will look like as you  collaborate across offices and remote locations. If you have any questions about the issues shared in this post, or would like to discuss your organization’s collaboration strategy, contact us.

To view our Partner blog, click here

How IT/AV Teams Can Answer Common Remote User Questions

AV Everywhere

Despite all the rapid changes our clients have made to the way they collaborate, and an over 50% increase in daily calls, AVI-SPL support teams have never wavered.  Standing strong (in their remote workstations) to assist end users as well as their usual AV-support department contacts, our support teams are ensuring everyone is capable of collaborating from wherever they are quarantining. 

I checked in with Michael Coleman, AVI-SPL national help desk manager, to see how his team is handling the challenges of being fully remote while teaching users to also be remote. Many of those users may not have routinely engaged video or collaboration technology. Michael gave me the rundown on how questions from users have changed and the best strategies for companies to ensure all their users are collaborating to their full potential. Common questions include:

  • “Which platform is best for video conferencing? I have Skype, and Cisco, and Teams on my computer – which do I use?”
  • “Which platform is best for webinars?”
  • “How do I get my audio to work?”
  • “How do I handle recordings?”
  • And Michael’s favorite – “How do I do that potato thing?”

It’s clear that end users are trying hard to collaborate, but there are some basic questions and guidelines for your IT and AV departments to address to ensure your users are well educated on video collaboration and your chosen flavor of product. This drives user satisfaction and ensures security of communications and corporate files. Let’s take a look again at those FAQ’s and provide some answers.

“What platform is best for video conferencing? I have Skype, and Cisco, and Teams on my computer – which do I use?

UCC/AV management teams can help users by providing a user guide or other clear messaging, such as:

  • Teams is our preferred collaboration platform. We use this application for chat, file sharing, and availability.
  • Pexip is our preferred video meeting application.

The major collaboration providers have made a suite of resources available for end-user training and adoption.  Place these in an easily accessible location so users can begin with self-help and education.  We have created a listing of these resources on our AVI-SPL website. It’s also a good idea to identify platforms that your users may be asked to join in meetings with other companies – and provide basic help documentation – so they can better understand the differences and your corporate preferences.

User experience has a huge impact on the adoption, satisfaction, and usage of collaboration and video conferencing applications.  On the management side, ensuring meetings can be scheduled with one click in Outlook (or your preferred email application) serves to greatly reduce confusion and improves the user experience.

 

“Which platform is best for webinars”

Your preferred collaboration platform may be your preferred solution for webinars, but if you have an alternate solution, be sure to have additional instructions available for this platform, including when it should be used. As dozens of in-person events have moved to digital formats, it’s important to ensure you have a webinar platform that allows in only who have permission, and that its information can’t be grabbed by those not invited. As for which is best — that’s a question with a number of relative answers. A variety of platforms offer different benefits, drawbacks, and cost structures.

 

“How do I get my audio to work?”

The most common problem we’ve seen recently is users who know how to get started but quickly run into frustrating issues that may cause them to revert back to a phone or other less feature-rich methods that reduce the ability to collaborate, not just work. While some users may not understand the need to dial in with their phone when their computer is connected to a meeting, many users are running into poor audio quality due to equipment that was not designed for daily use.

Ensure your end users are equipped with proper technology to achieve a quality collaboration experience. With the variety of distractions that can exist in the home office when spouses, children, and pets are together all day, the basic webcam and microphone included in a computer, or the headphones included with their cell phone, may not cut it for a full work day on a regular basis. AVI-SPL has a variety of work-from-home bundles that can solve this challenge.

 

“How do I handle recordings?”

The answer to this question depends on the underlying recording solution selected by your organization. Many times, a recording may seem to “disappear” after it is completed, making it a challenge for the recording employee to find the file. Or the file may be too large to share easily. Add instructions to your corporate UCC/AV user guide on how to use recording, when to use recording, and how to access files.

 

“How do I do that potato thing?” / “How do I use a virtual background”

Luckily, these questions are very easily addressed. Zoom offers a tutorial. And AVI-SPL published a video walkthrough for Microsoft Teams. Branded corporate images are a great idea for custom backgrounds. Consider building yours today!

If you have any questions about ways to improve support for your users, contact us now or call your local AVI-SPL office. 

To view our Partner blog, click here