Businesses and schools the world over are grappling with how to get their people back to offices and classrooms safely. Plans are emerging and uncertainty persists, but one thing’s for sure — any space where people used to physically gather will now need to add high-quality audio/video collaboration capabilities to keep pace.
This next round of social distancing will be completely different than what we’ve all been working through since early March. Our current setups feature all of us in front of our devices (one person to one device). That all changes with new hybrid work plans in conference rooms and classrooms where it will be many people to a single device. If they haven’t figured it out already, school and business IT directors are waking up to the fact that you can’t easily gather in front of a laptop. It doesn’t work and demands professional installation to make it all sing together. There is a fast-approaching tidal wave of opportunity heading our way. Not next month. Right now.
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Here’s a quick example: Let’s say your kid’s classroom held 20 students and they’ll now alternate 10 students in the classroom and 10 students learning remotely each day. The teacher needs to teach one lesson (and stay sane).
How do we solve for this new half and half in-person/remote learning model? Classrooms already equipped with interactive whiteboards like those offered by SMART and Epson are well positioned to share on meeting platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet. Schools with no classroom technology at all are scrambling right now to figure out how to adapt quickly.
What about businesses? Every conference room now needs custom-installed HD cameras, microphones, and access to easy conferencing software. It boggles the mind to think about the amount of professional AV services needed in the coming months.
You might be asking yourself, how do I get started? Good question. If you haven’t already picked a video conferencing hardware partner, there are a ton of options available. You can’t go wrong with outfits like ClearOne, NearUs, Logitech, Cisco, Poly, or Crestron. Make sure you pick a hardware vendor that supports all the major conferencing platforms. No one wants to buy a solution that gets bricked in a year because of obsolescence.
This business surge will wash over us during the next 90 days and puts millions of dollars in play. Everyone’s racing to “Zoomify.” What part do you want to play in that?
Stay frosty, and see you in the field.
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