The time people spend attending ineffective meetings has been the bane of managerial existence for years. So far, nobody has come up with a foolproof solution for holding the perfect meeting where everyone stays engaged, on-topic and every agenda item gets addressed. Unfortunately, this translates into not only wasted time, but money down the drain. In fact, according to a 2019 Doodle report, more than $399 billion is wasted each year in the U.S. due to poorly organized meetings.
As the global video conferencing market expands, companies and employees will demand smarter and more sophisticated visuals. Large, high quality screens such as micro LED displays have emerged as a top choice in the global workforce. Technological advancements such as these allow for hardware and software vendors to partner up and provide users with “room” versions of their mobile and desktop apps, better known as room apps. This way, users can easily run video conferences through a room app and cut out the stress and time it takes to set up a meeting room system.
Another technology that will play a significant role in the future of video conferencing is Artificial Intelligence (AI), which will join your meeting room as a facilitator. Tech leaders are creating machine learning programs that can transcribe audio, count attendees and provide insights into attendee engagement, helping you focus on the most impactful pieces of the meeting.
AI will also cut out a lot of the noise in meetings. Machine learning algorithms will be able to discern which speaker should be active, and ensure that their voice is fully heard by finding and minimizing background disruptions in calls. This means that car horns or distant chatter will no longer disrupt your meetings – and this is only the tip of the iceberg. In the future, AI will be a fundamental piece of the meeting room experience.
However, keep in mind that you can cut out stress in your meeting room today by establishing a clear agenda. Outlining an agenda is your first step towards holding better meetings. Have you considered, however, that when it comes to video-enabled meetings and conferences, ensuring you have good acoustics is another top way to boost meeting effectiveness? That is because bad sound quality due to poor reception is one of the top irritators in the workforce. In fact, respondents to that same 2019 report overwhelmingly indicated that a video meeting with bad acoustics is almost as irritating as a disorganized meeting.
Chalk it up to this: people have higher expectations for multimedia, video, and communication technology these days thanks to great leaps in visual and sound quality in their home systems. Naturally, they do not have the patience to wait for buffering visuals or listening to muffled sound and extraneous noises like the buzz of office printers, ringing phones, or other people’s notifications sounding off. Without sound absorption, there is no control of the sound. Without proper sound management, any video conferencing event can quickly become frustrating, to say the least.