To provide equal opportunities for everyone to participate, contribute, and benefit from meetings, whether one is in a perfectly equipped room or from the hotel co-working huddle room or even the home workstation. It is a mission to which MAXHUB is devoting energy and resources, and for which it is initiating many new partnerships. The latest, but not least, is with Re Mago, makers of the powerful active meeting management software
Meeting Equity is one of the basic concepts of today’s working world: pandemic has been a driving factor in the adoption of ways of working that were already available and mature, but whose only partial use had not yet highlighted the changes that their massive adoption would bring. Indeed, the systematic adoption of remote, and then hybrid, work, up to the concept of asynchronous work, led to a variety of profound changes in the way and approach of workers, forced companies to consider new dynamics and to have to respond appropriately to keep up with not only the demands of workers, but of the market itself.
The English language, more than others, can perfectly explain the idea of “Meeting Equity,” juxtaposing it with that of Meeting Equality, benefiting from two different terms. Countless images circulate to explain this concept but, translated into words, it means that offering everyone the same conditions does not mean putting everyone in the same condition. If we were equipped with the same cameras and displays whether we have to attend a meeting from a meeting room or from our remote location, perhaps at home (and not everyone has the luxury of a home studio), we would understand the meaning of Meeting Equity on the fly.
Putting Meeting Equity into practice means, first of all, thoroughly analyzing the habits of workers: how many people on staff and for how many days they work remotely, the frequency of meetings, the type of meetings they take part in – numerous or of a few people, to share projects and work together or to make decisions – and their duration, what tools they use, to share documents, images, or to discuss, etc. And, as a second instance, understand well the goals of the company.
Today, more and more people are working one or more days a week remotely, and this increases not only the opportunities to organize hybrid meetings, but also the variables: it is not in fact the same thing to be the only one to participate remotely in a meeting where everyone else is in attendance, perhaps in an excellently equipped room, or to have two, three people in the room and many participants remotely. These variables may in fact lead to different requirements-larger or smaller rooms, the presence of one or more displays in the room, etc. – and thus require different equipment, even for those who regularly work remotely.
The challenge for planners, both from an architectural, design, technical and network perspective, is therefore to redesign work spaces and furnishings following the real needs of today, but with an eye to tomorrow. Helping workers also rewrite the habits and rituals of work, making easy and user friendly the gestures required by the new modalities: booking rooms independently and without overlapping, starting room equipment with a click, facilitating interaction and perception of nonverbal language even for those who are remotely located, making them feel comfortable and able to contribute without obstacles and delays.
The main obstacles to Meeting Equity
As much as the main problem is in the recognition by companies and workers of the importance of Meeting Equity, of course there is a difference if one considers the problem from the perspective of the in-person or remote participant.
The main obstacles for “virtual” participants are:
– poor quality or absent listening-we all know that you can follow a meeting by seeing badly but you are forced to leave when you can see but cannot hear well;
– poor quality video-even in the perception of nonverbal language;
– difficulty in sharing content and presentations.
For in-person and meeting room participants, the difficulties are more related to the environment rather than the communication vehicle itself:
– distractions-from people passing by outside the room, to traffic noise, etc;
– the difficulty in sharing content and presentations;
– poor quality video.
Speaking of obstacles, poor quality video is the second most difficult element in hybrid meetings, tied with difficulties in starting up collaboration equipment and platforms.
Also not to be forgotten is the efficiency of networks and their security: both to transport and manage content without latencies, difficulties and delays, but also to best guard data. Indeed, workers need to be assured that they can keep their data intact and safe whether they are in the company or at home, or visiting clients, at a trade show, or in co-working places.
The language of Meeting Equity
Alongside the concept of Meeting Equity we also find other key words in today’s work, which are moreover functional to this very idea of equality of opportunity and conditions: Intelligent Video and Equal Pixel Real Estate.
“Intelligent Video” refers to technological endowments that enable video to be used to its best advantage, or to obtain useful data and information; typically underlying Intelligent Video are Artificial Intelligence services. The first example are AI functions capable of directing the camera toward who is speaking, thus avoiding bewilderment of remote participants when they do not see who is leading the meeting, or filming from unnecessary or improper angles. Going up a level, Intelligent Video is also very useful for facility managers to better manage rooms, their equipment and related services: knowing how many and which rooms are occupied on a monthly basis, for what kind of meetings and for how long can be of great use, for example, to manage heating/cooling and energy consumption, but also the load on computer networks and their security.
The Equal Pixel Real Estate assumption, on the other hand, refers to the portion of the video surface allocated to each participant during the hybrid meeting. This means benefiting from an equal presence and incisiveness in the meeting and directly proportional to this video presence but also, for those in the room, having a correct perception of how many and which people are participating remotely.
MAXHUB for Meeting Equity
The ability to collaborate in meetings and share projects and ideas under the same conditions and in the same way regardless of whether one is in the room or remotely, is the basis of the concept of Meeting Equity.
he topic was explored in depth during a panel discussion held on January 31 at MAXHUB’s booth at ISE 2023; on this occasion, the company, a market leader in the field of technology solutions for Unified Collaboration, also announced its new partnership with Re Mago (formerly Valarea), the company that developed the powerful software to manage active meetings. Re Mago is also actively collaborating with Lenovo, manufacturer of the ThinkSmart™ Core meeting room device, in order to offer simple and manageable meeting room management systems at the click of a button.
The panel discussion was attended by Mauro Spagnoli, National Sales Manager Italy, Cristiano Fumagalli, CTO&Global Alliance BDM Re Mago, Mark Krynock, Smart Collaboration Senior Manager of Strategic Alliances at Lenovo. Tim Porter, Solution Consultant UK was in charge of moderating the panel discussion.
Meeting Equity is the goal of the alliance between MAXHUB and Re Mago: Users, frustrated by having to wait even several minutes to start a meeting, will no longer be forced to install apps on their devices, use insecure connections, or use outdated services. In addition, organizations will be able to optimize their investments through better management of facilities and personnel, without wasting time and energy.
The collaboration of MAXHUB and Re Mago is also intended to get the best out of MAXHUB’s solutions: users will find the software already integrated into all-in-one displays so they can start and manage meetings easily and in seconds.
The user experience will then be spontaneous and engaging, and meetings will be fruitful and rewarding, for all participants regardless of whether they are in the meeting room or participating remotely. In this way, all participants will be able to take part in meetings with equal opportunities to share ideas, insights, documents and projects.
Mauro Spagnoli, National Sales Manager Italy said, “MAXHUB’s ecosystem of solutions consisting of monitors, cameras, speakerphones and soundbars can be used, from today also thanks to our valuable allies, with a single touch, in compliance with the philosophy of “Meeting Equity,” and taking into account GDPR regulations and Cloud and data security. The Meeting Equity concept is guiding all of MAXHUB’s research and development activities and partnership programs to provide end users with simple, engaging and effective solutions, and IT Managers with secure facilities that can be best integrated into the business workflow.”
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