Define Your ‘New Normal’ with a Modern Meeting Room

If we could jump back in time to a couple of years ago, there would be a lot of people in this world who would never even have heard of Microsoft Teams or Zoom. Yet fast forward to today and many of those same people would now find it hard to imagine life without them.

As we start hearing more and more talk of ‘returning to normal’ or even ‘moving to a new normal’, we break down in simple terms exactly what a modern meeting room is, the benefits it’ll bring you and how it fits into your ‘new normal’.

What exactly is a modern meeting room?

Most of us have been in a meeting room that’s in desperate need of modernising. Everybody crowded around a table with a slow PC and an old projector, having to endure blurry images and audio that keeps breaking up. You had to turn up half an hour early just to get everything set up. Trying to remember who to log in as. Things not working properly so you spend the last five minutes in a mad panic trying to figure out what cables go where. In some cases, the setting up takes longer than the meeting itself! If you can relate to this, now is the perfect time to modernise.

At Pugh, we tailor our meeting room packages to meet the precise needs of each customer, so while there’s no hard and fast rules on what exactly a modern meeting room looks like, a typical setup would include a touchscreen control panel, screen, camera, speaker and microphone. And there’s no size limit either. Our packages cover small huddle spaces to large executive board rooms, and everything in between.

A modern meeting room lets you turn up to a meeting on time, tap the screen for a one-touch join experience and you’re in. It’s really as simple as that. Often, you won’t even need to bring your laptop with you. Not only have you saved half an hour messing around with cables and logins, but once you get going, the entire meeting experience is also so much better.

Why you need the right tools for the job

Meeting with somebody based at home? No problem. With a large interactive screen and crystal-clear audio, it’ll be like they’re sat right next to you. And with an ultra-wide camera and high-quality microphone, they’ll see and hear you perfectly too. Being able to maintain eye-contact and take in each other’s body language means that remote participants will no longer feel isolated and disengaged. And it’s not just at home that they can be based. They could be on a loud train. With a good laptop, a noise-cancelling headset and a custom background, you wouldn’t even know!

Rather than constantly asking “Can you see me? Can you hear me?”, you can get straight to the point. Rather than “Can you send me that report and I’ll take a look?”, you can get it up on screen within seconds for everybody to see. You can even start tapping away and work on that report together in real time. And instead of frantically jotting down notes and missing half of the important stuff, you can simply click record and watch it back at any time, leaving you free to focus on the meeting itself.

If somebody joins you late, no problem. They can just walk in, sit down and the camera will automatically adjust to get them in shot. With your ultra-wide camera, you can have several people in shot together even while maintaining a safe 2m social distance. If somebody leaves, no problem. The camera will again automatically refocus on those who remain. And for your busy meetings, the microphone will automatically pick up and focus on who’s talking, making sure they’re clearly heard over surrounding noises.

Plus, when the remote meeting experience is this good, you don’t need to travel as much, so as well as saving on travel time and costs, you’re also helping the environment!

Where does it all fit in?

A key benefit of a modern meeting room is the flexibility that it brings, and that has never been as important as it is right now. Some people will have returned to the office; some never left. Some people will still be working from home; some always did. Some people will be doing a bit of both, and some will always be on the go.

What sets a modern meeting room apart is its ability to create a blended working environment where people are not just seeing each other through a screen but are truly engaged to the point where all boundaries between the office, home and everywhere in between simply disappear. Everybody is seen, heard and valued equally, no matter where they happen to be at the time.

This is why a modern meeting room plays a key role in your ‘new normal’. After the progress we have all made both as individuals and as organisations, going back to the ‘old normal’ would be a step backwards. A modern meeting room will make you more agile, more efficient and more sustainable than ever before and set you up for success not only during these uncertain times, but also for whatever the future brings.

Pugh are here to help you

If there’s anything you’re still not sure about, just let us know and our friendly team will be happy to explain everything jargon-free. We can even arrange some demonstrations and trial units for you to have a go without having to commit to anything.

And don’t worry if all this technology seems a bit daunting to you. At Pugh, we have fully trained experts who specialise in all the complex technical matters so that you don’t have to. We can even set everything up for you and get your users fully trained, leaving you free to start benefitting from a top of the range modern meeting room that just works.

Featured Products

Screens & Interactive Displays – SMART, Promethean, ViewSonic

Cameras, Microphones & Speakers – Jabra, Yealink, Poly, Logitech

Headsets – Jabra, Andrea, Yealink, Poly

Laptops – Microsoft Surface, Apple, Lenovo, HP, 

Useful links

Pugh Blended Working Tools

Microsoft Teams Meeting Rooms

Yealink Work From Home and Return to the Office Solutions