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Creating a High-Tech Meeting/Conference Room?
papaia asks: "As the network geek in my company, I have been tasked with defining a high-end, fully connected and extremely easy to use conference room, for our CEO, who is your classic non-computer-using person. The requirements are to accommodate 'local' (to the conference room) meetings, as well as interactive sessions with people in other locations, allowing him to discuss/debate various product solutions, on files being opened and available to him to pinpoint issues, without the knowledge of the underlying software used to create them (e.g. CAD drawings where he could make annotations, etc). Do any of you have recommendations for building the 'meeting room of the 21st century'?"
"The solutions I have been looking into, so far, range from various types of whiteboards (Panasonic's interactive whiteboard, or SMART board one), to interactive displays, and software such as Netmeeting, or Cisco's meeting place.
I obviously need to combine any or all of the above with some capability of video (of course), thus I am looking into various webcams, and conferencing capabilities in some equipment - the latter is yet another challenge (VoIP or not?!?). I have also looked at meeting room suggestions, and I cannot really make up my mind."
I obviously need to combine any or all of the above with some capability of video (of course), thus I am looking into various webcams, and conferencing capabilities in some equipment - the latter is yet another challenge (VoIP or not?!?). I have also looked at meeting room suggestions, and I cannot really make up my mind."
Talk to the guy who did this for the Jedi Council. That guy did one hell of a job
You want a pitch black room with a couple of white spotlights and a bunch of tall black boxes with oversized orange numbers on them placed in a circle around the room. The boxes should project people's images on them when activated from secret remote sites around the world. The room itself should be located deep in an underground bunker.
All we want to do is eat your brains.
Write up a paper with 3-4 options and schedule time to explain it to him. He'll have so many comments that he'll understand why you need more time to investigate.
Continue investigating until a real emergency comes up and distracts you. He'll understand.
Continue getting distracted and occationally researching more options until he either calls the whole thing off, finds a similar new stupid task for you, or decides he really does need a conference room and settles on the quickest easiest solution from the very first paper you wrote over 6 months ago.
Good Luck! -Ray
Amen brother..we spent a fortune on our executive boardroom...and we don't even have video conferencing. We have motorized projector that drops out of the ceiling, motorized blinds, wireless touch panel to control everything. It is as simple as that equipment can be, but the execs manage to @#%#$^ it up on a weekly basis and I end up having to get them hooked up for each and every meeting. They also like to go into the AV closet of the room and randomly press buttons thinking that will somehow fix everything.
I'll need the name of your company so I can short the stock.
Say hello to my little sig.
What the guy needs to do for his "High-Tech Meeting/Conference Room" is create it virtually. What we need is a bank of computers in every location where people necessary for the conferences may reside, together with some form of sensory deprivation tanks coupled with devices to clamp onto the tongue and MRI scanners. Then the computers simply generate images into the minds of conference participants and allow them to interact with the virtual world via the MRI-read brain signals.
Not only does this fit the bill and is increadibly high tech, but it also allows for much more spectacular PowerPoint presentations. Imagine 3D imagery, wipes that literally cause the ground to shake, and screens bigger than the eye (were it an eye, rather than electrodes on the tongue) could ever see.
It also has other positive side effects. If the CEO has bad BO, for example, this will never be suffered by anyone in the meetings. Participants will be able to pick avatars that constitute idealised versions of themselves - salesmen wearing the perfect suits coupled with the most trustworthy faces, project leaders with an air of friendly authority that would motivate almost anyone, and computer programmers dressed as "Gandalf" from Lord of the Rings.
Someone HAS to do this.
Now.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
My company blew the budget and installed one of these puppies http://www.thepooch.com/projector.html
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