Infocon EVENTS
“Vendors are not just giving you a display and a video conferencing codec anymore; they are providing
a collaboration solution” Brad Grimes, Avixa’s Senior Director of Communications
when we say collaboration, it’s
really just communication.
at is important, I’m not
trying to discount it, but it
will only get you so far. How
do you get people to actively
engage or give them the tools to
participate even when they are
on mute?”
Kung said that the
motivation behind introducing
features like reactions,
annotations and gestures into
its Rumpus platform that is
overlaid on Blue Jeans and
Webex calls, was born out
of an attempt to boost the
engagement from everyone on
the call rather than a couple of
protagonists.
“A lot of the time people get
on an audio conference call and
they just look at a document
that was emailed out the night
before or look at a shared
document. Well now you can
do that within rumpus and
get all the benets of multiple
streams of content that can be
shared, of real-time annotation
and of emotional reaction from
everyone.
With interactions we can
take meetings that were just
presentations and turn them
into collaborations where your
content becomes the centre of
that collaboration. at helps
the remote workers get a seat
and a voice at the table on an
equal playing eld.”
Although video conferencing
may be seen, largely, as the next
best thing to a physical meeting,
camera quality and eld of view
go a long way to a successful
session according to Logitech
Head of analyst relations and
sales enablement Simon Dudley.
Speaking to CommsBusiness
at InfoComm19, he said that,
to paraphrase Ronan Keating,
sometimes we say more when we
say nothing at all.
“With our cameras now, you
can have six people in a really
small room, wedge them in and
they’ll never be out of shot. And
think does it matter?
Well actually if I’m on a
video call, those people at the far
end of the video call may not be
really interested in what I have to
say. But, importantly, I want to
see how they are reacting to what
I’m saying because they’re saying
lots with your body language.
at may be ‘would he just
shut up and answer my question
or move on or do something else’
but I want to know that because
otherwise I’m not getting the
power of video, I might as well
go back to an audio call.”
Kung added: “One of the
things we lost when we went to
virtual meetings was non-verbal
communications.
If you think about it anytime
we are communicating the voice
part is actually one of the smallest
pieces of what drives eective
collaboration. Simple things like
seeing a cursor is like a gesture,
placing an emoji is like seeing
a facial reaction and by giving
people that back we are hoping
we can give back the high level
social and human connections
and ultimately that’s what drives
high performing teams.”
Figures from Avixa indicate
that these approaches are striking
a chord with the industry.
According to the trade body,
the AV industry is growing twice
as fast as Global GDP, equating
to around ve to six per cent,
a gure that, depending what
sector you look into, can increase
up to nine per cent.
However, Grimes did admit
that margins have shrunk in the
last decade, prompting the new
method of selling that we see
today.
“Even 10 years ago margins
were great, great double-digit
margins on these solutions
but because a lot of the boxes,
displays and wires, have become
so commoditised there has to be
another way to build value.
Now, companies are
talking about solutions and
guring out how we put this
together. Vendors are not
just giving you a display and
a video conferencing codec
anymore; they are providing a
collaboration solution.”
As for InfoComm, Grimes
says that the priority for Avixa
is to continue to show o the
latest AV innovations and invite
more industry sector leaders to
see the value and eciencies
that these solutions can provide.
“For many years this
has been very much an AV
Channel show. You have the
manufacturers of displays and
speakers, you have the dealers
who would sell them, you have
the consultants who inspect
them, the installers who would
install them. at was the large
part of this show.
But there is only so far you
can take that. For the last 10
years, we have been actively
trying to get the end customers
of those solutions here and
trying to increase awareness in
dierent markets that this exists
and that there is strategic value
to some of this technology.
We believe that is the biggest
opportunity for us to grow the
industry overall. Leaders in new
markets need to understand that
there is business value to this
kind of stu.
AV can’t just be seen as a nice
to have, it needs to change the
way you do business, change
the way you operate, allow you
to operate better and aect the
experience in your store, in your
hotel or in your restaurant.”
www.commsbusiness.co.uk August 2019 | Comms Business Magazine | 45
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