Meetings are a waste of time

Most of us spend a lot of time in business meetings – and I’m sure we all daydream once in a while, or miss part of the meeting as we check our e-mail or consult news sites. Harmless as this might sound, there’s clearly something going on.

So many costly meetings…

When Googling the topic, I came across this interesting infographic which shows that there are about 3 billion meetings per year in the US alone. Yet, 71% of the meeting participants feel that these meetings are not productive. So, we knowledge workers are spending the bulk of our time in meetings that we consider unproductive.

Imagine what this loss of productivity costs an organization. At a conservatively estimated hourly rate of $50 (USD) per meeting participant, the average 5-person meeting could cost up to $250 per meeting. Or, as Group Vision estimates: each year, the Fortune 500 companies lose $75 billion on unproductive meetings. Anything but harmless, if you ask me…

From presentation to true collaboration

Over the last two decades, technology has changed the way people collaborate – from telephone and fax, to e-mail, online chat and social media. With the help of internet connectivity, microblogging, conferencing tools, groupware platforms, and more, people are working together like they never have before. But many people feel it’s time for yet another revolution in the meeting space – to help us move from monologue to dialogue, from presentation to true collaboration.

We are convinced that technology can help turn collaboration into a competitive advantage for your business. And that’s what we want to explore in our SWITCH blog, as we share collaboration facts, figures, trends and updates, with a sprinkling of product news from Barco’s AV world.

Wireless presentation system for standard meeting rooms

ClickShare makes connecting to the meeting room’s video system a matter of clicking a button. This one click wonder not only helps the presenter get the presentation on-screen in a second, but it also allows the other people in the meeting to participate more actively. This is done using the unique ClickShare Button, or by installing a simple app to share content from an Android or iOS smartphone or tablet. The result is enhanced meeting efficiency and better decision-making.

Instantly on screen, using any device

A ClickShare CSM-1 set consists of two USB-powered devices (the ‘ClickShare Buttons’) and a Base Unit. The Base Unit has a fixed connection to the meeting room’s visualization system, and takes care of all the needed processing. Users who want to get their presentation on the large meeting room screen, simply connect a Button to their PC or MAC. They start the application, click the ClickShare Button and immediately their desktop is wirelessly transferred to the large visualization system. Alternatively, when using a smartphone or tablet (either iOS or Android-powered), a simple app allows you to share content as well.

A new meeting dynamic

ClickShare changes the way you meet. Instead of focusing on one presenter, ClickShare encourages all attendees to participate. By showing visual content on the large meeting room screen, it becomes easier for everybody to prove their point. The system’s stability and ease-of-use, also drastically limits the number of needed interventions by the IT department.

The Power of Wireless Collaboration Presentation System

Get everyone involved in the meeting

ClickShare is Barco’s wireless presentation system and collaboration system, that allows any meeting participant to share content on the central meeting room screen.

An unmatched user experience

At the click of a button, the content of your laptop, tablet or smartphone is displayed on the large screen. The result is that all participants are involved more intensely in the decision-making process. Coupling extreme simplicity with an unmatched user experience, everybody who has used ClickShare is immediately hooked.

Two flavors of ClickShare

In order to perfectly answer your needs, ClickShare comes in two flavors: the CSM Base Unit (for standard meeting rooms) and the full-featured CSC Base Unit (optimized for high-profile meeting rooms, boardrooms and conference rooms). In this way, you choose exactly the system you need. The table underneath shows the main features of the two base units.

Download the ClickShare Presenter app and receive a great gift

We’ve teamed up with our ClickShare distributors COMM-TEC and TD Maverick – also exhibiting at ISE – for a ClickShare demonstration. Learn how easy it is using your tablet or smart phone to click and share content on the big screen through the now more powerful ClickShare Presenter app. We encourage you to download the new ClickShare Presenter app and see for yourself!

A gift for your ClickShare Presenter app download 
AV experts COMM-TEC and TD Maverick have been distributing Barco’s ClickShare solutions on the European market for some time now and will be happy to demonstrate the presentation system at their ISE booths (COMM-TEC: hall 2, booth A42; TD Maverick: hall 5, booth F82;). To highlight how ClickShare is fully compatible with smartphone and tablets too, Barco, TD Maverick and COMM-TEC want all of you to download the ClickShare Presenter app.

If you do and show us your new ClickShare Presenter app on your smartphone/tablet on any of our booths, you will receive a great Click & Share gift box. And that’s not all. Some of the gift boxes contain a golden coin, which you can immediately exchange for an exquisite Belgian delicacy. Now isn’t that a fantastic reason to go ClickShare?

Download our new Click Share Presenter app and show it to our sales reps at the Barco, COMM-TEC or TD Maverick booths!

The ultimate hotel experience … with Barco Clickshare

What do you expect of a good hotel, during your holidays? A clean room, a good bed and a great breakfast, of course. For those who want that little bit extra: Barco can help!

The world’s largest hotel chains have called in our help to create amazing projection mappings, to equip their theaters with the best digital cinema projectors or to install ultra-bright projectors in the event rooms …

From Abu-Dhabi to Qatar and Ibiza 
A party, an opening or a conference: a spectacular video mapping will amaze the audience at any occasion or celebration. When the global Starwood Hotels group – with big-name brands like The Sheraton, Aloft, W hotels and Le Méridien – organized its annual meeting in 2013, it asked Belgian companies Beam-Inc and Jorizon to design an impressive video mapping to project onto the hotel façade. Four HDX-W18 projectors brought the images to life. In Doha, Qatar, six of the same projectors helped create a spectacular nine-minute 3D video mapping show on the opening of the Souq Waqif five-star hotels. Maybe even more unique: in Ibiza, our HDF-W26 projectors created an unbelievable projection mapping onto the swimming pool of the Ushuaia Ibiza Beach Hotel.

The Hilton chain 
In northern Europe, we found Barco projectors at two hotels of the prestigious Hilton chain. For example, the 530m³ conference hall at the Hilton Reykjavik Nordica, Hilton’s first and only hotel in Iceland, features a three-chip RLM-W8 projector. At the ‘DoubleTree’ Hilton hotel in Poland, a Barco F32 WUXGA projector ensures crisp, high-contrast projection in the 300-person ballroom. In addition, Barco also supplied a DP4K-23B digital cinema projector for use in the hotel’s theater. And did you read our most recent hotel-related issue of the Barco newsroom? One of our top-range DP4K-32Bx projectors has just found itself a very stylish home in London, at the 188-seat cinema theater of the spanking-new Ham Yard boutique hotel.

Barco for business 
More than providing solutions related to entertainment, our ClickShare meeting roomsolution is gaining inroads in the hospitality sector. The Marriott Hotel in München and East Hotel Hamburg in Germany, for example, have recently converted their existing meeting rooms into truly collaborative working spaces, featuring ClickShare in a starring role. Watch the interview with the Marriott München Management and keep an eye on our reference story section, as we’ll be publishing the East Hotel Hamburg story soon!

ClickShare boosts collaboration in the classroom at the Charter School of San Diego

Unlocking human potential
For more than 20 years, The Charter School of San Diego has been working to change the way students learn, employing innovative techniques and resources to meet the individualized learning needs of at-risk children.
“Our students come from all walks of life, with many several grade levels behind in basic math and language skills. It is critical that we find new ways to engage them with different tools than they were exposed to at their traditional schools,” said Tiffany Yandell, Operations Coordinator for CSSD. One solution that has made a difference is Barco ClickShare, a wireless presentation and collaboration system. “ClickShare is helping bring classroom instruction to life with real-time visuals that reinforce concepts and encourage students to participate in lessons.”

A powerful technology integration tool
ClickShare fits with the school’s model to infuse the curriculum with appropriate technology-based activities and assignments that facilitate learning. With 22 workstations, including dozens of computers, iPads, and other devices, CSSD needed a way to bring all of the technologies together in a cohesive, collaborative way to facilitate instruction and communication.

Offering a unique knowledge-sharing experience, ClickShare allows users to present their content from a laptop, tablet or smartphone on the main classroom or meeting room display with one click. Up to four users simultaneously can project a document(s), an internet browser, or a video to enrich the discussion. At CSSD, instructors are using ClickShare to integrate a PowerPoint with notes, annotate a picture, and pull in a web browser, all at once, to reinforce concepts.

Everyone loves ClickShare
ClickShare makes learning ‘live’ and more interactive, so teachers can immediately address questions or students can help each other. It also allows students to easily share ideas and collaborate in new ways, expressing themselves like never before. “ClickShare has really helped create a more inclusive educational experience, and for these kids, that is what it’s all about.”

“ClickShare is the perfect solution for dynamic collaboration in many environments, with education being a shining example,” comments Patrick Lee, Vice President Entertainment and Corporate for Barco North America. “The engagement and empowerment the Charter School of San Diego is experiencing with ClickShare is great to see, and echoes the sentiment expressed by many other institutions making it part of their instructional technology plans.”

Can technology save the meeting

ast time, we touched upon the productivity issues in today’s meeting culture and the pressure from management to treat collaboration as a competitive asset.

In Barco’s ‘Meeting Room of the Future’ survey, held last summer, 8 out of 10 business leaders indicated that technology could help provide a solution to the quest for greater productivity, and (wireless) presentation tools were considered the No. 1 priority when updating meeting rooms. You can consult the full results of the survey on SlideShare and YouTube.Link below -

Survey on SlideShare

Improving decision-making

Investments in visualization and presentation technology are usually made with one goal in mind: improved decision-making. In fact, 70% of the people we surveyed cite improved decision-making as the top benefit of data visualization tools.

But there are many aspects to be kept in mind when choosing the right technology for your organization, including: technology requirements, implementation needs, managing user expectations, and proving return on investment. Such a decision is never taken lightly – not even by those of us who go for consumer-like presentation and collaboration gadgets or other budget-friendly, functionality-light tools.

6 challenging dimensions

In my opinion, there are six key elements to consider when you are weighing your options for having technology take you to the next level of collaboration:

ease of use
open standards
technology
enterprise integration
security
and, of course, the user of the solution.
Six dimensions – and each of them creates unique challenges.