Meeting room technology is intended to enhance and simplify office meetings, but frequently causes the opposite effect for business users and can impact the overall quality of meetings.
Barco, a global technology company that designs networked visualization products, conducted a study into how problems with meeting room technology can impact stress. The study highlighted that the vast majority, close to nine in 10 respondents experience technology-related stress about meetings.
Outlined below are some common problems with meeting room technology and how it can impact the business user.
Technology failures create meeting room frustrations for business users
Technology failure and incompatible technology are common problems that businesses face when it comes to meeting room technology, with around three in 10 people regularly worrying about technology failure and 28% of respondents are concerned about incompatible technology. There are multiple reasons as to why meeting room technology fails – it relies upon other software, hardware and networking components, so pinpointing the exact point of failure can be tricky for a business user.
Faced with a technology issue during a meeting, the study found that 66% of people would try to fix the issue themselves, around half would call IT support, or ask a colleague for help, and 15% would postpone the meeting altogether. The impact for business users is time wasting and inefficiencies, almost 24% of users have missed deadlines, 12% have lost business as a result of technology issues and one in 10 have missed out on personal opportunities.
Technology impacts the quality of meetings
Another extremely common problem that people face with meeting room technology is content sharing, with 58% of people reporting that they regularly experience difficulties and 21% of people claiming that screen sharing in meetings is one of their biggest worries of technology failure. The quality of presentations was rated as better overall when the set-up has run smoothly. In sessions when technical problems occurred participants were 29% more stressed and 10% more nervous during the presentation.
An effective presentation should be about the participants, the content of the presentation and the message they are trying to communicate, not the meeting room technology.
Addressing technology challenges to make meetings easier
The majority of people (over 80%) believe technology should make meetings easier and more productive. Technology that works with the touch of a button is seen by over half of the respondents as something that would help with stress-free meetings. More simple technology capabilities help make meetings more straightforward.
The Barco Clickshare wireless presentation system is proving to be the easiest way for our customers to simplify meeting room technology. It plugs into user-friendliness, and with a single click you can simply share what’s on your laptop, tablet or mobile devices bringing ideas, people and content together with no fuss and no cables.
