For most companies making investments in meeting room technology is not a straight forward process. IT managers disregard the meeting room as a priority and are happy to keep it in the hands of general services managers. These in turn have to deal with limited budget for all-office expenditures and sometimes lack sufficient knowledge for an educated evaluation of meeting room technology.

Innovative concepts such as Norbert Streitz' Roomware ® are difficult to grasp for most people. Yet the full benefits of technology for group collaboration are already there and being ripped by the most successful companies. An investment into more effective meeting room technology can have big payoffs for your company in terms of increased productivity and more efficient group collaboration.

Room ware bonanza

The lack of a long term vision for meeting room technology is evidenced when we visit corporate meeting rooms today. Most executives stopped using overhead projectors and photocopies for some time. Nowadays they bring their laptops to the meeting room, and require the LCD projectors to be available. Typically LCD resolutions lag behind the one that is available from the company laptop standards. Likewise, note taking process from the room copy board cannot be exported to the laptops in the room or to the network. Some companies had brought costly ISDN lines to the meeting room for audio and videoconferencing. More recently they discover the internet has now enough bandwidth for high quality videoconference, so new equipments are purchased. Finally the operation of all this room ware technology needs to be controlled from a single location and more money is spend on cabling and wiring everything back to a room control hub, probably operated by proprietary communication protocols. In the end of the years, corporate board rooms absorb a lot of money. Yet the total amount of money that is spend in meeting rooms is normally way beyond the full benefits in terms of group productivity it should be delivering.

The cavalry arrives

Cost savvy managers would immediate notice a meeting room technology that could be integrated or integrating all previous room ware investments and had virtually no operating costs. Moreover, it would be able to create an electronic meeting workspace where notes can be made, stored and shared among all participants, including those that have not attended the meeting. This is not a dream come true. It is the result of 20 years of innovation from SMART Technologies, the inventors of the SMART Board, a recognized market leader for meeting room productivity.

Whenever is necessary to present suggestions, evaluate alternatives or make group decisions, SMART Board™ interactive whiteboards and its accessories make it easier to share information, contributing to more productive and useful meetings. The software that is included in a SMART interactive whiteboard or interactive pen display - SMART Notebook™ - helps you to create an electronic meeting process that guides you through the various meeting stages.

SMART Notebook™ software is extremely useful to assist you with the preparation and follow-up stages of your meeting as well as the meeting itself. By implementing an electronic meeting process, actual meeting time can be reduced by approximately 50%. If productivity improvements weren't enough, consider the other benefits of covering an electronic meeting using meeting productivity software and GroupVision expert advice:

• All meeting materials are housed in one location regardless of your location and are kept private and secure (combined with Groove Technologies™ or a choice of group collaboration repository software)
• Decisions and tasks are recorded, ensuring accountability (optionally mind mapping techniques can even enhance the tracking back of ideas or conceptual models that were used for the decisions made)
• Permanent records of meeting files are kept and easily converted to exportable formats such as PDF or as a web page.
• Past meeting files are easily accessible in a single file that includes all the content materials that were presented in each meeting (optionally Presentation Librarian™ software assists you in organizing a repository of all your company meeting information)

Do not hesitate to contact us if you are considering group collaboration technology. You would be surprised with the power and simplicity of use of SMART Technologies products for the meeting room.

Meeting Room Products

SMART Board Interactive Whiteboard

The SMART Board interactive whiteboard is the world's leading interactive whiteboard. Simply by touching the large display, users can access and control any computer application or multimedia platform, including the Internet, CDs and DVDs. SMART Board interactive whiteboards are used in classrooms, briefing rooms and boardrooms around the world, helping people to collaborate effectively whether they are in the same room or in another location.

Combining the simplicity of a whiteboard with the power of a computer, the SMART Board interactive whiteboard engages students and audiences around the world. The touch-sensitive display connects to your computer and a digital projector to show your computer image. You can then control computer applications directly from the display, write notes in digital ink and save your work to share later. Feature-rich software and intuitive functionality make the SMART Board interactive whiteboard the number one choice of educators, presenters and trainers in upwards of 100 countries worldwide.

 

 

Three types of SMART Board Interactive SMART Board:

• Front Projection SMART Board Interactive Whiteboards work with your existing video projector but can also be shipped with a wall-mounted Unifi™ projector.
• Rear-Projection SMART Board Interactive Whiteboards are useful for sophisticated training environments or when you want to take a mobile “presentation room” directly to the shop floor, the show room, the trade show or any other venue - includes built-in video projector.
• SMART Board for Flat-Panel Displays interactive whiteboard are useful for small groups such as those in corporate training programs and top executive training (in the picture): works with virtually any Plasma or TFT screen models.
  

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Sympodium Interactive Pen Display

Sympodium™ interactive pen displays are easy-to-use presentation tools that enhance digital information sharing in teaching, training and meeting environments. The displays connect directly to a projector and computer and simultaneously display a computer image on their screen and a larger presentation screen for everyone to see. Presenters simply touch the battery-free tethered pen to the LCD screen to launch and control applications, open files and write in digital ink over files and applications, including PowerPoint® slides, websites and moving video. Sympodium™ products enable you to effortlessly control any presentation and bring it to life - all you have to do is connect your interactive pen display to a computer and projector. Sympodium interactive pen displays feature all the interactive capabilities of the SMART Board interactive whiteboard, SMART'’s flagship product.
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Bridgit conferencing software

Bridgit conferencing software makes web-conferencing simple, whether participants are in the same building, city or multiple locations around the world. Participants can share desktop and webcam images, talk to each other using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), take over applications on a participating user's computer or write notes in digital ink for everyone to see. For enhanced data and video interaction, Bridgit software can also be used with SMART Board™ interactive whiteboards and Sympodium® interactive pen displays.
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SMART Ideas concept-mapping software

SMART Ideas software brings the power of visual learning to your classroom. Students can better analyze and understand complex ideas by building multilevel interactive maps in this fun, colourful software. Multilevel maps take students through concepts one level at a time for greater clarity, and easily convert into a multipage website for everyone to share.
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SMART Board Notebook Software

Included with all SMART products is SMART Board software for Microsoft® Windows® and Mac OS X operating systems. Richer, more intuitive and better than ever, the newest version offers new features and resources that help educators, trainers and presenters create, present, manage and teach digital content on SMART Board interactive whiteboards and other SMART products. Users can write and edit notes in digital ink, import or export PowerPoint® presentations, record data and audio, and create dynamic, seamless presentations in Notebook™ software. SMART Board software is regularly being upgraded and available as a free download to all SMART customers.

For complete information on SMART products, visit www.smarttechnologies.com