Gone are the days where a flipchart and expensive flights were the only solution to getting everybody round a boardroom table to meet. With the technology today interactive whiteboards or interactive screens combined with video conferencing facilities provides an innovative solution to what used to be an on-going expensive mode of communication.

A lot of people know about video conferencing, the idea of video conferencing is that you can see someone at the other end and visualise all the body language and information they’re trying to impart to you but that’s as far as it goes. If you now think of yourself as being in a meeting and you’ve got flip charts all round the room but you’ve also got offices in London and New York, you need to get those people involved. They could fly across but this can be expensive and time consuming, or you could have an audio or video conference, however with traditional flip charts you cannot receive a recipients input, they can’t really share the information. With 21st century audio visual (AV) technology you can introduce interactive whiteboards or screens that you’d have around your meeting room, and those people in London or New York can access the interactive screens and involve themselves in the meeting virtually. They can feel and see exactly what’s going on and they’re just as involved as the people who are physically sat round the table.

With a professional audio visual company these systems can be installed so that they speak to each other in the fashion explained above, these systems provide a return on investment by way of not having the requirement of flying people across the globe to attend the meetings.

Now that technology has come down in price, and has grown in its capability, it’s more accessible to most organisations. A blue chip corporation with a huge boardroom is going to have a different value to a small organisation. Audio visual systems can still help out everybody, as long as people understand the whole concept of what audio visual is about, which is to impart communication. A portable solution might be more suitable as opposed to a fixed solution. With technology like portable projectors, or a portable interactive whiteboards that you can take around with you, because the technology has become more accessible even the one-man band, who has to communicate to anybody, can do it properly and professionally.

A control system can help you manage this technology. In your home, you may have several pieces of media technology each with their own remote control, leaving you trying to turn the television volume down with the remote control for the CD player, In the early days, control systems were high end and state of the art, but like most technology, as it’s evolved and become more sophisticated. If you’re in a board room you may have a projector and a display, you could also have air conditioning and blinds all with different remotes, control systems take all that away, and you have one system which does it all for you. You can control everything in one room at the touch of a button.

Author Bio: Edward Kendricks is writing on behalf of CTS Networks, a leading UK supplier of boardroom audio visual equipment.

Category: Computers and Technology
Keywords: office, office equipment, audio visual, audio, speakers, video conference, webcam, monitor, screen