I remember when multipurpose room meant choosing between overhead projector or Zumba class. Today our corporate clients are more sophisticated as key executives have effectively brought their devices, smart phones and tablets, into the boardroom. This consumerism in the boardroom has in effect caused the corporate environment to "up their game" with interactive collaboration.

Decision makers have begun to guide Corporate Communications to "Corporate Collaboration".

If synthesis can be called intelligence applied, the decision makers in charge of guiding corporate communications have begun to realize that the multipurpose boardroom is no longer a passive listener environment. The multipurpose boardroom today has become more interactive with the sole purpose of technology being to stimulate and enhance collaboration in this important workplace environment. For this reason Sunset Studios provides guidance not just with the boardroom spaces but also any number of smaller group team-areas we call Huddle spaces.

A multipurpose boardroom today is just that "multipurpose" but typically is a space where executives or partners will gather to discuss and develop agenda for the company. As the workplace today has shifted to accommodate telecommuting off-site participants, so has the boardroom which calls for at minimum an effective speaker phone solution. Most larger rooms use an installed teleconference system that enable end-point to be heard through speakers installed providing better acoustic response than a speaker phone.

But as the work flow in these rooms has become more about collaboration, the element of interactive participation has begun to play more important roles. The move from video conference to video telepresence has called for better resolution video from endpoints onto better designed space metrics. The relationship of the screen to the participants is not just for the video image of the person speaking but also for effective sharing of the screen.

if Collaboration is not simply watching slides then, what abilities are called for?

1. Providing viewers the desktop cursor to others to highlight, change and otherwise interact with the presentation.
2. Shifting to another end point's desktop for viewing in the overall meeting
3.  Ability to shift between audio conference to video screen sharing at any time.

Here is an example of a collaboration space optimised for cooperation

http://www.sunsetstudios.com/images/galleries/case-study/1/DSC_0225%20RESIZED.jpg

Sunset Studios thirty years of practicing "the only constant is change" in the visual presentation market; has uniquely prepared our team for the challenges of providing a collaboration synthesis to our client's boardroom experience. Our focus on enabling a positive user experience comes from making the systems operation simple.

This becomes an essential point allowing our clients, executives and partners in the corporate spheres, to concentrate on their work at hand, not how to use the systems we have designed and installed.   
 

Originally established in 1994, VCON was the first company to introduce video conferencing over IP.  After it was acquired by The Emblaze Group in 2005, the company continued to introduce innovative videoconferencing products to the market, including the multipoint conferencing unit (MCU) with integrated session recording and streaming. VCON Video Conferencing Ltd., now a privately owned company, offers standards-based systems and infrastructure, which are operated easily and intuitively over a variety of networks.

VCON brings software-based full HD (1080p) video conferencing technology with H.264 High Profile encoding that reduces bandwidth utilization up to 50 percent. Unique features to VCON software-based video endpoint solutions include:

• Embedded multipoint video conferencing
• Embedded SIP/H.323 bridging interoperability with all leading standards-based hardware and software video conferencing endpoints
• Built-in recording and streaming
• Built-in remote content and data sharing
• Built-in interactive multicast

ClearOne to Acquire VCON Video Conferencing Ltd.

4k, having entered grandly at this year’s CES, is the next step toward meeting our eyes’ capacity for vision. While our current High Definition sits at 2k (so named for resolutions with a width of roughly 2000 pixels), a quadrupling of the image size results in a 4k, Ultra High-Definition screen. It’s not yet poised to sweep into every home in the nation, but for the exclusive audience, 4k is ready. Many of the latest films are being shot in 4k, and even as far back as last year, were being mastered in it. TV channels in 4k are springing up. The wait for 4k content will not be a long one.

The primary hurdle for 4k in the near future is distribution. While Japan and much of Europe enjoy extensive fiber-optic networks, the US’ network is still relatively dated. The data rates required for 4k video, in teleconferencing for example, is often beyond what businesses will have access to. Thus, while 4k screens would be ideal canvasses for digital signage and locally-stored media, the full fidelity of such screens would be lost on the teleconference. Happily, though, one of the most touted features of many new 4k screens is advanced up-ressing capabilities, which ensure that 2k (standard HD) content looks every bit as good on a 4k screen as it does on a 2k screen.

As always, the constant march of technology assures that there’s never a bad time to be on the cutting edge.

In this technology integrated world of ours, the only constant is change. Yet simple applications that solve basic problems are ideal. Such is the cycle of Video Conference technology where applications that are easily accessible and less complicated than what was used even a year ago seem to abound. Skype is a popular video-conferencing application enabling users to meet with their families and allowing businesses to devise collaboration work-flow for free. While the advanced HD and group share version is no longer “free” anyone can also open up their Google and easily communicate over voice or video at no charge. HD webcams are so inexpensive today for amazing image quality; they are connected to your computer (more and more a part built into laptops) and used to communicate with distant end point. This generation of “Let your fingers do the walking” is a completely new paradigm from this ancient jingle of long ago. Simply sitting at a computer desk and logging into the account and instead of driving or flying to remote destinations results in less time wasted and enhanced productivity in collaborating with colleagues.

Actually more and more it is the ergonomics of using the technology that has become the point of issue; carpel tunnel, strained necks not to mention compressed schedules causing more stress are additional concerns around the use of technology.  A thoughtfully developed system we’ve adopted as a way of bringing the corporate business world to the modern age is the “Collaboration Station^SM.” Put simply, it is a meeting hutch combined with integrated technology that seats up to five individuals and has up to two mounted display screens and a camera. To use, it’s as easy as signing into your Gmail or Yahoo account and “connecting” with one of your contacts. The “Collaboration Station” ^SM is a combination of furniture, technology and television-mounted displays enabling collaboration and interaction with distant locations or end points. You can effortlessly share information, dialogues, stories, photos, presentations, products, and ideas – collaboration and brainstorming is just that easy!

At Sunset Studios, our priority is to provide our clients with technology solutions. We provide technical solutions to meet our clients’ needs, so the conversation of your business is about enhanced productivity and work-flow. Our jobs are custom-tailored to our clients’ needs and budgets. From two or three offices to multinational organizations, we are just an email, phone call (or video conference) away… “Let your fingers do the walking”!

In yet another sign that the fundamentals are never a constant, at an event this week in San Francisco, CEO Michael Dell announced (in the context of a server software partnership with Microsoft) that Dell is moving away from its focus on consumer personal computing, and concentrating instead on supplying high-end servers, appliances, and rack-mount virtualization packages for the enterprise data center.  Declaring, “It’s not really a PC company; it’s an end-to-end IT company,” CEO Dell has signaled a seismic shift from the consumer market to a focus on corporate interests, as companies look toward upgrading systems, embracing the cloud and maximizing the potential of user data.

Who knew?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/27/us-dell-idUSTRE81Q27A20120227