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Teachers manage heavy workloads in a variety of ways, but there are a few time-tested ways to address the issue to get make the most out of lessons. From involving school administrators and adapting existing content to adjusting assignments and priorities, here are a few tips to try when reducing teacher workload.
Read on for the complete list of tips. Or it you’re looking for EdTech solutions to streamline teaching and learning, learn more here.
Teaching can be challenging. What appears at first to be a 7 AM – 3 PM job can quickly turn into an 80-hour plus workweek filled with grading papers, attending meetings, creating lesson plans, and managing students.
This level of overwork can have devastating consequences. According to a 2018 paper by the Consortium of Policy Research in Education, more than 44% of educators leave teaching within the first five years.
But teaching doesn’t always have to be like this. In this post, we’ll break down some key ways you can effectively manage your workload so you can spend less time grading papers and more time on yourself.
Just like any relationship, communication is key to success. If you’re struggling with lesson plans, curriculum requirements, or other issues, let the administration know. The school administration is there to help you succeed at your job. Administrators can do everything from providing mentoring under a more experienced teacher, to hiring a teacher’s aide to help you in the classroom.
One of the most popular concepts in time management is the Pareto principle or the idea that 20% of your efforts produce 80% of the results. When teaching a specific unit, ask yourself what’s the most effective way to reach your students.
Is it through group projects? Book reports? Individual testing? Prioritizing the most effective learning methods and cutting out busy work will drastically decrease the amount of time you and your students spend on non-productive tasks.
While giving your students your full attention is important, it’s also important to be able to delegate. As an educator, your job is to teach. It’s okay to delegate smaller tasks like rearranging desks or passing out tests to your students.
Doing so not only frees up your attention for more important things but also gives students a sense of ownership in the classroom.
Want a few more ways to manage work and life? Check out 6 Ways to Improve Teachers’ Work-Life Balance
When it comes to work, everything you assign will eventually come back to be graded. For tasks like assignment planning, remember that less is more. Rather than spending hours grading everything by hand, try using software like Google Classroom to grade quizzes automatically.
Aim to assign homework and quizzes that enhance a student’s understanding of a subject rather than just trying to fill up a schedule. By simplifying and streamlining your assignments, you’ll cut down on your workload and give students more time to focus on assignments that enhance their understanding of a subject.
While curriculum planning is important, it’s equally important to actually adapt your workload to how students are performing. Sometimes if a section is taking a bit longer than normal, it’s okay to modify upcoming lesson plans to fit this new slower pace.
The key isn’t just to pass state benchmarks but rather to go through and ensure that students have a solid understanding of the subject material.
Rather than looking at lessons on a day-by-day basis, try looking at the big picture for your classes. Instead of creating weekly lesson plans, try creating lesson plans based on units and what ideas you want your students to walk away with.
Doing so will help you focus on the bigger picture and clarify your goals for your students.
Teacher workloads are as high as they have ever been, or even higher for those who are tasked with adapting their teaching to a digital education. There are ways that teacher manage workloads, however. A few simple actions can go a long way towards a better work-life balance.
Visit ViewSonic’s education solutions to learn more about how we’re helping educators teach their way. Or learn more about how video-assisted learning can streamline your lessons: Video-Assisted Learning: Using Educational Videos to Teach.
Video-assisted learning is becoming increasingly common thanks to both more video-capable devices and the availability of video resources. Here is a list of 18 educational video resources for a variety of subjects. And don’t miss the bonus content at the end from ViewSonic. Explore some recommended video-assisted learning resources below. Or check out our purpose-built video-assisted learning solution myViewBoard Clips.
No one can beat free. We searched across the internet for the best free education video websites for teachers. Our list specifically identified sites that offer videos for use without having to sign up to be a member or enrolled in a course. For an added benefit, many of the sites we found cover multiple subjects and grade levels. It is a great starting point for any teachers in building their own trusted list of educational video resources.
Here is our suggested list of 18 unexpected websites offering free educational videos:
Crash Course offers free high-quality educational videos across many subjects ranging from humanities, US history, philosophy, science, and more. The Crash Course team has produced videos on 21 subjects for high school and college-level students and learners. An extra bonus is many of the subjects are aligned to AP high school curriculums.
Edutube is a collection of educational videos with categories in animals, biology, chemistry, math, and more. You can refine your video search from the pre-school level all the way to higher education. They provide a great educational video resource with thousands of excellent free educational videos on the web.
Intelecom Learning is a developer of educational content for California’s community colleges but much of their professionally made video content is available on their YouTube channel. Designed specifically for college-level courses their content is a better fit for more mature audiences. They offer a wide range of topics from English as a second language to business management, political science, gender studies, and more.
Alltime10s is an interesting YouTube Channel that creates informative, fascinating, and engaging videos using the “Top 10” format. They cover a verity of topics including geography, crime, history, and pop culture. Check out interesting videos such as the 10 Incredible Indian Inventions or What if the Internet Was Destroyed? on their channel.
The Institute of Art and Ideas brings together its own collection of articles and videos of world-leading thinkers. They have over 1000 videos across subjects like philosophy, science, politics, and art. Directly from their website, you can watch videos hosted by industry experts, scientists, historians, researchers, and more.
One of the most popular business news portal in the world Bloomberg also have a great video collection on current affairs around topics such as surveillance, technology, markets, politics, and business news. Bloomberg is a great resource for both articles and videos on current events and news from across the globe.
TeacherTube is an online community for sharing instructional videos. They seek to offer a safe venue for teachers, schools, and home learners to access educationally focused videos. Currently, they offer an incredible 60 topics from math, social science, to languages for all ages.
The PBS NewsHour has a great selection of full episodes and clips from their programming. Topics are sorted into categories like art, economy, education, health, and politics to name a few. Videos on current events and news are a great resource for teachers looking to bring real present-day issues into their classroom discussions.
There are lots of subject-specific resources out there as well, so no matter what you’re teaching there are likely to be videos for you and your students.
The Bozeman’s video collection was created by Paul Andersen, an educational consultant and YouTube creator living in Bozeman, Montana. Mr. Andersen has 20 years of teaching experience in science education. His website has hundreds of science videos many of which are aligned to the AP curriculum in subjects like AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Environmental Science, and AP Physics.
The EcoHero Show is a great song and dance base way to introduce students to different topics around ecology such as recycling, food waste, and energy conservation. The live show has been performed at over 850 schools in five countries to over 400 thousand students. Their free online video selection is best suited for kindergarten to the 6th grade. Their videos are a fun way to get students to engage in environmental issues.
Created by a group of scientists, writers, and illustrators, Minute Earth offers stories about earth-related topics with easy-to-understand stick-figure animations. Topics range from animals, geology, ecology, human anatomy, and more. To view all their free resources you can visit their YouTube Channel.
The Fixies are an online animation series that is dedicated to explaining machinery and technology to kids. Cute animated characters help kids explore the world on a miniature level and learn about how things work from items like remotes, and refrigerators to digital technologies like text messages and more. Full episodes can be found on their YouTube Channel.
Let’s Tute is an E-learning company based in Mumbai. Their main product offering includes paid-for video courses that can be downloaded from their site. Their YouTube Channel offers free resources (and videos) around math including trigonometry, algebra, and geometry.
Math Fortress is a great resource for teachers and students to come and watch videos on math topics that they are struggling to understand. For each math subject, they provide extra help with additional problems, worksheets, quizzes, and video examples. They offer content and video series for Algebra 1 & 2, Linear Algebra, Calculus 1, 2, & 3, and Geometry. Free videos can be watched from their website and their YouTube Channel.
HipHughes History has over 450 instructional videos for students of social studies covering topics from world history, the US constitution, current events, politics, and more. Videos are linked from their site or you can find them on their YouTube Channel. Their videos are generally very short and energetic which is great for classroom lessons.
Simple History is a UK-based website offering books and videos to bring history to life. Their animated videos bring to life world histories from Tokugawa Japan to the American Revolution, all the way to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Created for children, the series has great summaries of events and antiquities from around the world.
engVid is a great resource for free English video lessons across topics such as business English, IELTS, speaking, slang, and vocabulary. Over 1400 lessons are available from real language teachers and split into 3 levels: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Their resources center also offers great downloadable materials for both teachers and students.
Rachel’s English is a very popular English learning website with over 400 videos to help students improve their spoken English and listening comprehension. Rachel hosts all videos herself and is highly respected for her English teaching skills.
Check out more about how to use educational videos in your classroom at Effective Educational Videos In The Classroom
Together the sites above offer a few thousand free educational videos that are usable in the classroom. However, no one source or even a collection of many sources has everything a teacher needs to find all the videos they would use.
All a teacher can do is build a large list of trusted resources so the video search can go more smoothly and quickly. The internet provides a great and almost unlimited resource for teachers to tap into but it is filled with dangers around quality, inappropriate content, advertisement, and copyrights. In our recent whitepaper, we found that 84% of teachers reported that they use YouTube and 61% of teachers actively search Google for websites to find the videos they need. Some teachers are also struggling to even access the internet with 30% of teachers reporting that their school blocks or limits access to certain websites.
Moreover, finding the time and effort to look for videos on top of the normal workload placed on teachers is high. Over 60% of teachers reported feeling frustrated sometimes in their search for the right educational videos. The hunt for a better solution to fix these issues and problems around educational videos will be a continual journey.
Learn more insights into video-assisted learning in our full whitepaper: Video-Assisted Learning Insights: The Struggle for Teachers to Access Video Content. Or learn more about myViewBoard Clips video-assisted learning solutions.
As a dedicated education solution provider, ViewSonic now has our own video-assisted learning platform to provide teachers using our digital whiteboarding solutions the best tools to prepare exciting content, present engaging lessons, and encourage participation in the classroom.
Our solution is to create a video-assisted learning platform for educational videos that teachers can use without concern over advertisements, inappropriate content, copyrights, sharing, and restrictions. Check out myViewBoard Clips powered by Boclips to learn more. Quickly find commercial-free, copyright-cleared, and curated educational videos for your lesson.
The latest workplace design trends are moving away from the purely aesthetic to blend the beautiful and the functional in new and exciting ways. Many modern designs focus on improving employee engagement and productivity through optimizing collaboration, focus, and efficiency based on their shifting needs. In this article we list 5 engaging design trends – along with a breakdown of different kinds of modular spaces for a workspace.Read the full guide on engaging workplace design trends below or visit our workplace solutions page for further insights and information.
RIP workplace cubicles! Workplace design trends are evolving to better engage how people work. One thing’s for sure: decades of cubicle domination are coming to an end. This change is happening at a surprisingly fast rate. Top talent simply refuses to be constrained by congested cubicles.
Employers that understand this will dominate in the competition to attract talent in a shrinking labor force. The fight for top talent has generated a rapid transformation in workplace design. Knowing how modern office design stimulates collaboration and engages employees and is key.
Workplace design trends are focused on the changes needed by a younger, more technological workforce. The promise of modern workplace design: improved employee engagement and retention.
Many factors are contributing to this massive workplace makeover. Chief among the evolution of workplace design drivers are:
Workplace design firms are harnessing this data to build a better place to work. Below is a review of how these factors are shaping the rapid pace of modern workplace design trends.
Several demographic shifts have occurred at virtually the same time. This is rapidly transforming the qualities of the American workforce.
Millennials and Gen Z grew up surrounded by technology. Social media is central to their lives. This has had a major impact on how they work and what they want from their jobs. Millennials are highly motivated by peers. They crave collaboration, work best in teams and require frequent feedback.
They also have a strong desire to work with the latest tech. Millennials will make up 40% of the workforce by 2020. By 2025 they’ll account for three-quarters of all workers. This will continue to drive workplace design trends toward collaborative spaces.
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Tech has always transformed workplace dynamics. Laptops, smartphones and convertible tablets ushered in a new area of mobility. This, in turn, has transformed workplace design. New tech continues to transform businesses of all types and sizes. Think wearables, media streaming, and wireless charging. Cloud-based personal communication services. Content sharing solutions and productivity apps. It’s a list with no end in sight.
Demand for talent is projected to outstrip supply until 2021. Smart workplace design helps companies recruit and retain top talent. Firms must find ways to make their workplace as vibrant as possible to retain top talent. A majority of today’s skilled workers value factors influenced by design. Businesses with appealing workplaces will have an edge in attracting and keeping top talent.
The research is in. High-quality workplace design improves overall employee health and satisfaction. Physical surroundings impact our comfort, mood, and focus. Workplace design also affects our personal effectiveness. The proper design increases happiness and reduces sick days. It also boosts productivity, increases focus and enhances employees’ sense of feeling valued. Further, employees make a better life and healthy choices based on the quality of their workspace.
Evidence-based design improvements provide employees with improved satisfaction and heightened well-being. It reduces stress, provides easier wayfinding and increases safety. For employers, this research-based design improves occupancy and financial performance. It also increases employee efficiency and retention and reduces absenteeism. Industry experts predict that design based on data will be the workplace design trend of the future.
The desire for fiscally efficient use of space isn’t new. For most companies, the physical workspace ranks second or third among top expenses. These days, though, it’s harder to anticipate space needs. Why? Rapidly changing workforce needs and tech innovations of course. Workspace expense thus becomes an even more pressing budget concern. Corporate real estate execs are tasked with improving productivity. As a result, they are placing greater emphasis on modifying facilities to support creativity, focus, and teamwork.
This whirlwind of change is quickly impacting the structure of our workplaces. Impacts include workplace layout, furnishings, and finishing elements. The most functional spaces employ the latest workplace design trends. This includes those that are:
Competing for top talent is one thing. Retaining them using modern office design is the goal. Here’s a look at the Top 5 Workplace Design Trends for boosting employee engagement.
Traditional office spaces are designed for fixed use. This model no longer works for today’s business challenges. Modular, adaptable workspaces offer a solution. Flexibility for today and tomorrow is today’s leading workplace design trend. Flexible-use spaces make it easy to adapt to changing employee, project, and company needs. It’s an ideal solution for a rapidly changing world, where many essential positions didn’t exist five years ago and companies are hard-pressed to predict the job functions they’ll need in future years.
Flexible space and adaptable furniture make it easy to integrate new technology. This increases the longevity of workspace investments. Modularity is also an ideal fit for the social, team-based work styles of Millennials and Gen Z workers. For example, movable furnishings that fit together in many ways enable a more dynamic, interactive setting. It’s a workplace design trend with no end in sight.
Up-and-coming generations thrive in social, collaborative environments. Nonetheless, there’s still a need for privacy and focus. Open floor plans with a variety of functional spaces can provide an ideal solution. This idea of mixed-use space is the basis for workplace design trend number two. Blended offices offer a mix of private, semi-private, and open workspaces. This makes the most of the benefits of each type of space.
Also called activity-based design, blended spaces are also typically modular and adaptable as well. Blended offices divide and define spaces for work styles and tasks. Most modern workplaces include one or more common areas, meeting rooms, unenclosed breakout areas, and casual seating groups.
The most common types of zoned spaces include:
Multipurpose Workspaces – Multipurpose spaces offer easy-access options for interaction. These spaces include conference rooms, project rooms, huddle spaces and unassigned workstation seating. Personal offices with oval desks and community tables also fit the bill. Sizes are trending small. Huddle rooms continue to overtake the traditional conference room in popularity. Data indicate that 75% of meeting rooms are now designed for four people or fewer. Recognizing the continued need for some larger spaces, the ability to join rooms or open spaces is another growing trend.
Lounges – These comfortable spaces stimulate relaxed, impromptu collaboration. Social hubs of the modern workspace, lounges are a new norm and a recognized zone for meetings-of-the mind between departments and project groups.
Client Lounges – Many companies offer separate lounge-style spaces to facilitate more casual client and visitor interactions.
Shrinking Personal Workspaces – Mobility, ever-smaller technology, and the prevalence of huddle spaces have led to a decrease in the size of personal workspaces. At an average of 300 square feet per person in 2001, personal workspace size fell to 225 square feet by 2012. Continued shrinkage is expected to condense it to a tight 100 square feet per person.
Privacy Pods – These individual spaces provide a peaceful oasis for focus within open offices. They’re often strategically placed to block background noise and interruptions from passersby.
Quiet Zones – Amidst the buzz of collaboration-minded workplaces, companies are providing silent areas as part of activity-based office designs. These zones indicate the desire to avoid spontaneous conversation and concentrate without interruptions.
Collaboration Centers –Two-thirds of today’s workers say that they are more efficient when working closely with others. By providing collaboration enclaves with appropriate furnishings, acoustics, and technology, companies can maximize engagement and productivity.
Neighborhoods – Hierarchy is no longer a defining factor in workplace design. Function has usurped job title for space allotment. Forward-thinking companies are taking this concept further by grouping workers into broad zones. The goal is to encourage a shift from identifying the area as “my space” to embracing it as “our space,” creating a sense of belonging in a unique workplace neighborhood. Designers suggest using distinctive furnishings, lighting, and colors to brand each neighborhood with its own visual identity.19
Color Coded Zones – Harnessing the power of color to boost happiness, productivity, and creativity, companies are increasingly using color to define and organize functional spaces within offices.20
The evidence continues to mount. Without a doubt, our surroundings affect our health. Design for wellbeing is a top priority for many businesses. Among the findings: prolonged sitting is a profound hazard to health. (You know, sitting is the new smoking.) On the upside, natural light and other elements of nature can improve health and productivity.
One suggested fix is to design spaces to promote movement throughout the day. Ideal features include sit-stand desks and strategic placement of endpoints. Sit-stand desks promote overall health and can reduce back, neck, and shoulder pain. They’ve also been shown to cut stress and boost productivity. Placing stairs, lounges, and restrooms away from workspaces encourages movement. It’s the same idea as parking your car at the far side of the lot.
Biophilic design is a subset of the wellbeing trend. It brings natural materials, light, greenery, and views into building design. The popular plant wall is an example. Don’t be fooled. This is more than an aesthetic trend. The use of biophilic design can improve productivity and creativity. It’s a workplace design trend with the potential to make a major mark on business success.
Recruiting and retaining top talent is a prime business concern. Millennials, in particular, seek workplaces that support their lifestyle. This often means jobs with inspiring, fun, comfortable facilities. Favored amenities include common areas and appealing food offerings. Workout rooms, outdoor break areas, and recreational chances also make the list. Modern furnishings and advanced tech can further sway an applicant’s mind. Combined, these features send the message that employers care about the wellbeing of their employees. For much of the talent pool, this workplace design trend can make all the difference in their job selection.
Technology in the workplace is nothing new. The trend here is to design offices that integrate digital-based business processes and tech. A top concern is concealing the masses of wires that accompany tech. In a Fast Company list of top workplace design trends, hiding wires topped the list. One designer quoted said that eliminating wires and clutter from desktops and conference rooms was a top client concern.
Companies are also seeking easier content sharing solutions. A chief concern is device-agnostic sharing for hassle-free meeting collaboration. By integrating tech into the environment, employees can get down to business quickly.
Wasting time in meetings is a chief concern in workplace design. Especially, the time wasted setting up for a meeting. Proper integration ushers in the business benefits of videoconferencing.
Getting setup without the need to fiddle with equipment is key. Furniture, workstations, lounges and huddle rooms must be created with connectivity and set up in mind. Common tech integration elements include:
Our workplaces are in a state of rapid change. The reasons are complex. New generations of professionals. Faster, smaller, and more capable technologies. Greater insight into the impact of design. All this contributes to the direction of change.
Companies seeking to maximize efficiency, productivity, and profit will benefit from implementing flexible, activity-based workspaces designed to easily integrate technology and maximize employee well-being.
If you enjoyed this article you may also be interested in 10 ways to improve your conference room, or feel free to browse through our collaboration solution page for further insights into effective corporate collaboration.
Huddle rooms – and the less structured huddle spaces – are collaborative spaces meant for informal, peer-to-peer communication. Perfect for brainstorming or touching base with co-workers or classmates, huddle rooms are becoming a popular addition to modern working spaces. And when outfitted with the right technology, a huddle space becomes a powerful workstation for a small team.
Learn more about huddle rooms and their benefits below, or visit our collaboration solutions page for more insights into effective business collaboration.
Huddle rooms are the result of changing demographics and financial mandates to make efficient use of space. They continue to drive change in how we meet. Traditional conference rooms continue to serve an important role in larger meetings.
Huddle rooms and huddle spaces, however, proliferate as an important way to hold more immediate, intimate gatherings. Finding the right balance between the two can result in an increase in productive work time and a decrease in wasted space.
Sure, huddle rooms are all the rage. But they’re far more than a mere design trend. Huddle rooms deliver compelling business benefits – not the least of which is cost savings. Huddle rooms are the antithesis of the formal conference room.
They’re small, convenient meeting spaces that enable a few employees to quickly meet. They eliminate cumbersome reservation processes. And they’re all about ad hoc conversation. Huddle spaces lose the walls and serve the same purpose within open areas. Either way, huddle areas facilitate informal closeness and easy collaboration.
In 2003 they were dubbed “huddle rooms” by an IT management company. Today, these teamwork-enhancing spaces are spreading like wildfire. Industry analysts estimate that there are 20 – 25 huddle rooms for every group video room. With 1.5 – 2 million group video rooms worldwide, the number of huddle rooms is projected to be 30-50 million.
Industry observers agree: huddle rooms are on the rise. A few key features define huddle rooms and how they contrast with typical conference rooms. Regardless of installed furniture or technology, huddle spaces are:
They promote productive work by providing a quiet, enclosed space for:
Business people meeting informally to brainstorm, strategize, and plan is nothing new. Today, however, several key trends are fueling the desire for places to do so. Among these are:
Trend-setting Silicon Valley companies pioneered the open floor plan. They feature open, partition-free workspace. No high cubicle walls. Open plans are a natural fit for the mobile mindset – a preference for using personal devices and spending less time in the office. They’ve been overtaking cubicles for the past decade. Today, around 70% of U.S. offices include some type of open floor plan.
The open floor plan is praised for boosting collaboration. It encourages the flow of information across the workplace. Embraced for cost-cutting advantages, open layouts maximize existing space while minimizing costs. This is helpful in the era of greater telecommuting, where cubicles are less used. Open space also eliminates areas used for small, informal conversation: The private office, even the partially-enclosed cubical. Employees, it turns out, craved closed-in spaces to meet with colleagues. The solution: the huddle room.
Mobile technology revolutionizes when, where, and how we work. With more employees traveling or working remotely, fewer are in the office full-time. This leaves valuable office real estate vacant. Those who are in the office often choose their own devices over a desk-bound company PC. The huddle room provides a cost-saving, productivity-boosting solution. When remote and traveling workers are in the building, huddle rooms serve as the offices that went unused.
The value of collaboration continues to grow. As such, companies increasingly rely on distributed work teams. Traditional conference rooms can, in theory, hold two or three groups working on separate projects. However, this results in distraction, a loss of privacy, and decreased productivity. The alternative is to let one group at a time reserve and use this large meeting room. This, however, can result in rushing, delays, and incomplete discussions. Again, huddle rooms are the logical solution.
Millennials – the 55 million adult Americans between ages 18 and 34 – came of age surrounded by technology. They now account for 30% of today’s workforce (the largest age group). They didn’t have to adapt to new technologies. They were born with them. This is having a massive impact on the US workplace. Millennials have distinctly different work styles and expectations compared to prior generations. They fully expect to leverage the latest tech tools.
Millennials are highly motivated by peer relationships. They crave collaboration, work best in teams and like frequent feedback. They are passionate about working with the latest technologies. Millennials are expected to make up 40% of the workforce by 2020 and 75% of it by 2025. The need to support a team-based workplace climate will likewise continue to increase. Huddle spaces provide an ideal place for this type of interaction.
By design, conference rooms are intended to host large meetings. They’re typically outfitted with best-in-class AV technologies. And they’re often furnished to impress, serving as brand showcases for meetings with important customers, clients, and suppliers. In the absence of huddle rooms, however, small groups often reserve conference rooms for internal meetings. Adding huddle rooms lets companies more appropriately use their showcase conference facilities and eliminate scheduling conflicts.
The forces behind the rise of huddle spaces and huddle rooms are clear. The benefits these spaces bring are likewise clear and far-reaching. The benefits of huddle space include:
The qualities making huddle spaces valuable also make them challenging to equip. Huddle rooms are often misunderstood, mismanaged, and under-appreciated spaces. One of the greatest risks is that companies may treat huddle spaces as scaled-down conference rooms. Among the downfalls of this approach is thinking huddle rooms can completely replace larger meeting spaces.
The converse concern is that equipping huddle spaces as robustly as conference rooms will diminish their immediacy, intimacy, and informality. This conundrum can make it difficult to determine how to outfit an effective huddle space. “If the need for a huddle room is clear, its definition, particularly in terms of audio and video technology, is less so,” says Infocom reporter Dan Daley.
“ONE OF ITS DEFINING CHARACTERISTICS IS ITS AD HOC AVAILABILITY, FREE FROM RIGID AUTOMATED SCHEDULING SYSTEMS. YET A HUDDLE ROOM OR SPACE STILL HAS TO CONTAIN SOME BASIC AV AND IT COMPONENTS TO BE USEFUL. WHAT THOSE COMPONENTS ARE EXACTLY SERVES TO UNDERSCORE HOW THE TECHNICAL DEFINITION OF A HUDDLE ROOM IS A MOVING TARGET.”
Huddle rooms should look and feel different than standard meeting rooms. Additionally, their design should vary based on each company’s needs. It may also vary within any given enterprise. Huddle spaces can fall within a continuum of formality. Some huddle spaces may be outfitted with sofas and beanbag chairs and exude relaxed brainstorming. Others may evoke a café-style conversation with high tables and stools. Some will feature traditional, sized-down meeting tables, chairs, and whiteboards. There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all huddle space. At best, there seems to be agreement on several setups that span the options. These include huddle rooms and/or huddle spaces that are minimalist, basic, mid-level and high-end.
At the far end of the continuum, collaborative spaces forgo even a room. These are created by designating a space within a space. They can be defined by furniture grouped to enable informal conversations. Workers can drop by to converse. Or they may use personal devices to launch a video conference or collaboration app. Furnishings and equipment typically include a small table, a few chairs, and (rarely) a speaker and microphones.
At its most basic, a walled huddle room will include a central surface (table or other furniture) with -4 chairs. It will contain one or more whiteboards or a display device.16 Some AV and space planning pros set a higher bar for basic huddle rooms, however. They recommend including a conference system with a speaker and a microphone. They also suggest incorporating a short-throw projector or touchscreen display and a collaboration app for content sharing. They may be set off from the office by partitions, glass walls or other design features.
Basic huddle spaces are often based on systems from office furniture makers like Steelcase. Typical configs include a small table with integrated tech for charging and connectivity. This includes two to six chairs and one to three displays. These spaces are integrated into the general office space but are more formal and have more tech than a minimalist huddle space.
Many companies equip huddle rooms with added tech for enhanced closed-door collaboration. This can include ceiling- or table-installed speakers and mics, headsets and a video conferencing camera. These rooms may include a telephone and network connectivity. They may also expand viewing with an LED display or an interactive display/projector. Tech may be provided to enable users to stream content from their personal devices.
Extensively-equipped huddle rooms are far from the norm. These rooms run the risk of becoming mini-boardrooms. This may cause them to lose the immediacy that makes huddle rooms powerful collaboration spaces. Nonetheless, AV analysts admit high-end huddle rooms offer tools to enable a wide range of collaborative functions. These amped-up rooms add to the capabilities offered in typical huddle rooms. They may include multiple wall-mounted digital displays or built-in video conferencing systems.
Collaboration software allows for multiscreen sharing while displays may offer touchscreen functionality. In highly advanced rooms, free-standing telepresence robots or telepresence-enabled tablets or desktop displays might also be available. Some companies include room scheduling apps. These are designed to accommodate use by teams collaborating on lengthy projects. The ability to reserve space saves time and boosts efficiency by eliminating the need to remove work at the end of one day, then set up again the next.18
ViewSonic® is a leading worldwide visual solutions provider with over 25 years of delivering innovation to the enterprise. We are proud to offer a wide range of products ideal for outfitting effective huddle rooms and huddle spaces.
ViewSonic offers displays in a range of sizes to enable a just-right fit for any huddle space. Commercial-grade large-screen displays from 32″ to 98″ provide high-visibility, wall-mounted use. ViewSonic interactive displays encourage engagement and empower collaboration with the familiar feel of a tablet or smartphone.
Designed for durability, with scratch-resistant glass and rounded corners, these displays are tough enough for today’s in-demand huddle rooms. They withstand heavy use while maintaining their smooth, responsive touch.
Interactive displays increase the business benefits of videoconferencing. In turn, they help reduce the amount of time wasted in meetings. Interactive models are available in sizes for the desktop from 22″ to 27″. Wall-mounted commercial-grade models come in sizes from 32″ to 98″.
Our projectors are durable, compact and cost-effective, making them an outstanding option for many companies. ViewSonic short-throw projectors enable big, bold images in intimate huddle room spaces. They offer a range of breakthrough technologies for outstanding functionality. These include SuperColor™ for vivid, true-to-life images and SonicExpert® for fill-the-room sound. The hidden PortAll® compartment enables easy wireless media streaming. The ability to network projectors enables easy management and maintenance of all huddle room projection assets from a single PC.
The ability to easily share content on a display expands a workgroup’s collaborative capabilities. Ideally, everyone who walks into a huddle room will be able to quickly connect, share and manipulate content. ViewSonic delivers this functionality via several technologies. These include ViewBoard Cast for Windows and Intel Unite.
ViewBoard Cast for Windows lets up to four users share content from any digital device. Freedom from cables adds ease and productivity to ad hoc meetings. Productivity is boosted by the ability to annotate content in real-time. Participants can then stream and share content onto a ViewSonic large format display.
Intel Unite delivers premium enterprise performance and security for collaborative meetings. Offering easy, cable-free connectivity, the Intel Unite solution gets meetings going faster for added productivity. Intel Unite integrates easily with ViewSonic® ViewBoard® Interactive Flat Panel Displays and enables co-workers to connect and interact with meeting content in real-time, with virtually any device and from any location with a corporate network connection.
Intel Unite provides seamless integration with leading enterprise apps and plugins such as Zoom, Go to Meeting, Logitech, Outlook Express and many more, making it easy to launch your preferred conferencing tools from within the Unite platform.
Content Sharing features to include in your huddle space:
AV analysts agree huddle rooms are here for the long haul. Increasingly, these cost-effective, collaboration-boosting spaces are showing up on architects’ blueprints for new office development. Huddle rooms and huddle spaces, however, will proliferate as an important way to hold more immediate, intimate gatherings. Finding the right balance between the two for your company’s needs results in an increase in productive work time and a decrease in wasted space.
If you have enjoyed this article you may also be interested in a separate article on how to choose a presentation display for your meeting spaces. Or feel free to visit our collaboration solution page for more insights into effective corporate collaboration.
Collaborative meetings are more common now than ever. Driven by new technology, it’s increasingly easier to work with your team towards shared goals. And collaborative spaces are no longer restricted to meeting rooms. They can now include just about anywhere set up as a huddle space. But the over-arching trend is the shift towards larger displays – and more displays overall. Read on for everything you need to know about collaborative meetings or visit our solutions page for more insights into how to collaborate more effectively.
Quick. Imagine a conference room.
Chances have you pictured a large room dominated by a long table. Seating for ten or more participants. The décor: serious if not somber. A whiteboard more than likely graced the front of the room. This is the consummate image of the traditional conference room.
But get ready to imagine something new – because this reality is rapidly changing. In lockstep with an evolving work culture that calls for increased collaboration, the ways we meet are rapidly shifting. To accommodate these changes, organizations are developing a range of collaborative meeting spaces. Many of which are displacing that traditional conference room.
Across the world, billions of meetings are called every day. Recently, business meetings have begun to leverage new technologies. This reflects the changing ways we collaborate. Many of the whys of business meetings remain the same – to brainstorm, train, develop strategy, and the like. The where and how of meetings, however, are undergoing a significant shift. This, in turn, is having a major impact on companies’ conference room strategies.
Key Trends impacting meeting room strategy are:
Ushered in by the laptop, mobility laid the foundation for the sea change in the way we work. Today, powerful mobile devices let us take work wherever we go. Our laptops, tablets, and smartphones are our constant companions. Sophisticated mobility software and advanced data security have further enabled new options for when and where we work.
Once the privilege of a few key players, flexible work arrangements are increasingly common. For example, work-at-home time among the non-self-employed grew 103% between 2005 – 2015. Mobile device effectiveness and social acceptance have converged. This created a climate that no longer required everyone to be physically present to conduct a successful meeting. Collaborative meetings can now span continents and conference tables with virtually equal ease.
Cloud-based personal communication services have altered the ways in which business workers choose to connect. Among the top players: Skype for Business, Zoom, GoToMeeting, and Jabber. Easy instant messaging (IM) and personal and group video conferencing solutions add to the options.
Together, these technologies are fueling rapid change. Structured, scheduled meetings are giving way to short, ad hoc, on-demand or just-in-time exchanges. Collaborative meetings now convene on a dime, when inspiration strikes.
The communication solutions that bolster collaborative meetings are becoming more robust. Mobile workers and distributed teams have become more efficient thanks to the shift from hardware to software-based architectures. This allows for a wider distribution of download-and-install audio, video, and data sharing communication clients. Anytime, anyplace and now anyone. Convening collaborative meetings is easier and more individualized than ever.
Millennials are the first generation to grow up surrounded by empowering technology. They now account for 30% of today’s workforce and are the largest single generation in the workplace. Digital natives, Millennials have distinctly different work styles and expectations than prior generations. They are highly motivated by peer relationships. And they’re steeped in the interactive culture of social media.
Because of this, Millennials crave collaboration and work best in teams. They require frequent feedback and have a strong desire to work with the latest technologies. The U.S. Bureau of Statistics projects that Millennials will make up 40% of the workforce by 2020, and 75% by 2025. Clearly, the need to support a collaborative workplace climate will continue to increase. Highly collaborative meetings are here to stay.
Collaborative meetings aren’t just more fun for Millennials. Decades of research have demonstrated that collaboration yields far-reaching business benefits. Among the benefits of workplace collaboration are:
Awareness of these benefits has increased in recent years. Along with it comes the drive to facilitate greater collaboration. This, in turn, has had a major impact on meeting room strategy. The need to develop spaces for collaborative meetings has taken center stage.
Open-plan workspaces have been replacing cubicles for the past decade. They are now an iconic symbol of the modern workplace environment. Around 70% of all U.S. offices include some type of open floor plan. The flexibility of open floor plans is a natural fit for today’s mobile employees, who often spend less time in the office.
These accessible spaces can enhance employee morale, cooperation, and flow of information among workers, management, and executives. They’re ideal for convening impromptu collaborative meetings.
Flexible work arrangements enable companies to reduce their real estate footprint to contain costs and maximize efficiency.
Cost containment initiatives are an often-ubiquitous result of ongoing financial pressures. Many companies continually seek ways to contain costs and maximize efficiency. And for many, the use of space has become a focal point of these financial pressures. Cubicles left vacant by telecommuting employees led first to a rise in hot-desking. Next came an even stronger embrace of the open floor plan. With fluid seating, the open plan maximizes existing space while minimizing costs. Combined with these strategies, mobility-powered flexible work arrangements enable companies to reduce their real estate footprint to contain costs and maximize efficiency. Anytime, anywhere, initiated-by-anyone collaborative meetings ideally support these initiatives.
The scope of the changes discussed above is sweeping. Their impact has had broad consequences for many areas of business. Below, a brief review of the ways in which these changes are impacting physical meeting space.
Meeting rooms have been shrinking. Analysts predict this trend toward smaller spaces will be ongoing for some time. Today, medium-sized spaces that seat up to 10 participants account for 44% of all conference rooms. Small spaces that seat up to four account for 26% of all meeting spaces. The largest rooms holding 10+ people comprise 30% of all conference rooms. Smaller is better for the objectives of today’s collaborative meetings.
Comfort and a friendly feel have become key attributes of the modern collaborative meeting space. Today designers work to create a relaxing atmosphere that promotes comradery, comfort, and collaboration. As one designer put it, “Gone are the long tables and high-backed chairs. Enter the couches, coffee tables, easy chairs, and pillows.”
Mobility and personal collaboration solutions continue to shape workforce strategies. Nonetheless, companies still need to provide on-site meeting space. This reality of this need is demonstrated by a study which revealed that 60% of attendees join audio, video, and/or web conferences from a conference room. They choose this location over their workplace desk, home office, or mobile device. Walled meeting space can also be critical for offering privacy and focus for collaborative meetings in open floor plan environments.
The disappearing conference room is giving way to small, convenient spaces that enable a few employees to quickly gather. Freedom from the need to reserve a conference room is a key feature. These huddle rooms facilitate informal closeness and easy collaboration. They provide an ideal environment for the type of interactions the growing Millennial workforce prefers.
Huddle rooms are a logical response to the ongoing changes in work-life dynamics and workspace management discussed above. They provide simplicity and spontaneity to collaborative meetings – and their use is growing. According to one analysts’ estimate, for every large group videoconferencing room there are now 20-25 huddle rooms. Industry observers agree that the number and use of huddle rooms are on the rise.
The changing places and ways we meet are shaping the use of technology in collaborative meeting rooms. Technology deployment trends show an ongoing shift from traditional whiteboards and projectors toward new collaborative meeting technology. Chief among these technologies are:
Many companies are moving from projection technology to large format displays (LFDs). A recent rundown of future meeting room tech trends listed multiple screens as the number one prediction. Multiple, large displays create an enhanced interactive presentation environment. Continued growth in this trend will be stimulated by decreasing prices as well as functional demand.
It may seem contradictory, but more displays are equally a trend for smaller meeting spaces. In fact, huddle space furniture from leading manufacturers like Steelcase now feature 2 or more displays. Any collaborative meeting space can benefit from all-in-one displays. Integrated features like webcam, dual speakers, and mic and headphone ports, offer easy video conferencing in any environment.
Meeting space displays are more useful when participants can easily display content from their devices. Traditional “pass the cable” laptop connectivity is inefficient. It saps time, fragments focus and only lets one user at a time share content. Today’s best solutions are wireless. They empower an unlimited number of users to simultaneously share and control content. And they enable sharing from any Windows, Android or Apple device.
Standardizing on this type of solution saves time and boosts meeting efficiency. After a one-time app install, participants walk into meetings and begin sharing. Look for solutions that offer multiple use modes. These enable presenter-controlled sessions plus ‘equal-access-for-all’ collaboration. Centralized IT administration keeps management simple. The ability to integrate with existing in-room AV control systems like Crestron, Extron, and AMX is another key feature.
The way we meet is beginning to look a lot different. Key factors in this are changing demographics, new technologies, social trends, and financial imperatives. Workers are no longer constrained to the formal, scheduled conference room.
Nonetheless, effective meetings remain critical to business productivity. In fact, collaborative meetings have increased in importance. For them to be successful, companies must provide appropriate meeting space and technology.
To address today’s needs, conference rooms are becoming smaller, more comfortable, and adaptable. Technology to facilitate effective meeting collaboration includes large format displays, interactive displays, and easy, wireless content sharing software.
If you have found this article to be helpful, you may also be interested in our piece on secure collaboration in a global business environment. Otherwise please feel free to visit our collaboration solutions page for more valuable insights and information regarding business collaboration.
The center of modern business is collaboration. Whether it’s a collaboration with co-workers, clients, vendors, or partners, the modern economy is built on teamwork. It all starts with having meeting spaces that serve one or more specific functions, such as hosting large groups or pairs. The right technology is also essential for efficient connections to each other. And we have a surprisingly simple, out-of-the-box solution already set up for you. Read on for more on improving collaboration in your organization or visit our collaboration solutions page for further insights and information.
Designing the best collaboration meeting space entails many factors falling into alignment. Thanks to today’s productivity software, collaboration tools, and remote access technology, work is more flexible, connected, and collaborative than ever. We’re less tethered to our desks and more connected to each other. From remote workers to business partners, clients to suppliers, we’re more connected than ever before.
Meeting spaces are an essential component of collaboration. According to research reported by Forbes, employees attend upwards of 60 meetings per month. Where do all these meetings take place? How do you tailor meeting spaces for all these different needs? That’s the issue many companies are struggling with.
Thanks to the proliferation of open floorplans, many organizations now have fewer offices, driving the demand for additional meeting spaces of all kinds—and the technology they require in order to facilitate communication and collaboration.
Unfortunately, workers can waste a lot of time setting up meeting technology, including connecting presenters and their devices and content as well as connecting remote participants. In fact, in the typical conference room, setting up video conferencing wastes up to 10 minutes of time each meeting. You then lose time mid-meeting by passing control to other meeting presenters, changing presentation platforms, looking for the right dongle, waiting for inputs to connect, and accessing the content.
How do you make sure your meeting spaces are ready and able to meet the tasks at hand? How do you make sure the meeting technology is helping productivity rather than hindering it? The right meeting room design—and the right collaboration tools—can make all the difference.
By paying attention to specific details, you can make your company’s meetings more productive, more efficient, more interesting, and more secure. Your users can interact and collaborate more powerfully, so they can get more done in the moment instead of taking notes on how to get more done later.
When it comes to meeting spaces, one size doesn’t fit all. Gone are the days of repurposing a solitary conference room for all your meeting needs. Companies now need a selection of meeting spaces that meet the needs of different teams and different workers, as well as the needs of clients, business partners, and other visitors.
What collaboration purposes do your meeting spaces need to serve? More than likely, you’ll need to accommodate a wide range of purposes, including different types of presentations and group activities:
Modern meeting spaces meet these purposes not only through traditional conference rooms but rooms of all sizes. Huddle spaces for three or four people. Focus rooms for one-on-one meetings. Phone rooms for individual calls, so they don’t disturb the rest of the office.
Modern offices incorporate stand-up meeting areas to take a break from sitting, lounge areas for casual meetings, and large meeting venues for all-hands meetings and other large gatherings. 50% of all companies have already redesigned their office spaces to create more meeting spaces. Particular emphasis centers on huddle rooms for small team meetings, small-group conference calls, one-on-one video conferencing, and other small-scale collaboration activities. (See here for details.)
IT pros who are upgrading existing meeting spaces or building out new ones have a lot of factors to consider, options to choose from, and decisions to make. Every space is going to be different, but great meeting spaces have several things in common:
What constitutes an “appropriate configuration” depends very much on the size, shape, and purpose of the room. Rooms may be configured with small round or square tables for small groups—tables that keep any one person from being at the “head,” while U-shaped tables very much put a central focus on a presenter or display.
Theatre-style seating maximizes the capacity for large groups, while classroom seating enables note-taking and use of laptops. Traditional conference tables facilitate face-to-face collaboration, especially boat-shaped tables that keep people from sitting in a straight line. These tables improve visibility both around the table and toward the focal point. Finally, informal discussion areas may call for comfortable and more modular seating and tables.
Of course, having more meeting spaces provides no advantage if those spaces aren’t equipped with the technology users need, whether for brainstorming, group presentations, video and teleconferencing, workgroup sessions, large group meetings, or other purposes.
This technology should facilitate both basic and advanced meeting activities before, during, and after the meeting:
Additional technology factors to consider include the end-user device platforms you need to support; capabilities for integration with other communication and collaboration technologies; and product support options for your meeting technology solutions.
The ViewSonic® ViewBoard® solution pairs the ViewSonic ViewBoard interactive large flat-panel display with ViewSonic cloud-based myViewBoard™ software to boost communication and collaboration no matter the meeting space or purpose. Dramatically increasing the business value of meetings, ViewBoard and myViewBoard combine enterprise-level security, cloud storage integration, digital whiteboarding and annotation, multicasting, and other advanced features to enhance the way your team connects and collaborates.
Powered by Amazon Web Services and protected by AES-256 encryption, myViewBoard software ensures that everything from corporate secrets to school test scores remains safe from unauthorized access. It provides multiple authentication options, including fingerprint reader, password, and QR, along with a cloud-based single sign-on portal. Whereas competing products can introduce security limitations and concerns, once logged out of myViewBoard, all access and temporary files are deleted, leaving no trace.
The ViewBoard solution allows you to store documents, images, and other content directly onto a shared cloud drive such as Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, and Box. With myViewBoard, your files are just one touch away and can be accessed, retrieved, and saved from anywhere.
The ViewBoard solution offers an enhanced, full-featured touchscreen canvas that includes a variety of annotation tools that let users write, draw, markup, control the screen, and save content using fingers and styluses. Multi-color pens and customizable backgrounds let you personalize presentations, and user-friendly handwriting recognition transforms handwritten words into typed text. Unlike competing products, the ViewBoard solution allows screen annotation over multiple input sources and supports multiple whiteboarding software options.
The ViewBoard solution provides powerful casting and multicasting features, with support for multiple wireless screen-sharing software options. With myViewBoard, multiple users—including remote users—can control the board from their own devices, allowing participants to engage in a presentation in real-time. A built-in screen camera records, saves, and plays back presentations for easy sharing. In addition, meeting participants can send—or “throw”—files, images, and other content from their devices to the ViewBoard, to supplement the presentation or discussion.
ViewBoard displays and myViewBoard software offer support for the full range of end-user devices, including PCs, Macs, Chromebooks, and Android devices. Hardware components include a 6th-generation Intel® processor (along with generous memory and storage), support for 4k video, an optional slot-in PC for a Windows® 10 experience, dual integrated speakers, and an optional Logitech® camera for video conferencing and recording. The displays are available in multiple sizes to suit any meeting space, with accessories such as wall mounts, floor mounts, trolley carts, and tabletop stands. ViewBoard display is backed by a three-year limited on-site warranty with support provided directly by the vendor, not the reseller.
The ViewBoard solution provides easy, in-menu access to YouTube and other browser resources. It also provides software integrations with Intel® Unite™ unified communications application and with Qwizdom™ educational software products. ViewBoard display is also now integrated with Zoom communication and collaboration software via Zoom’s SDK and API platforms. This access to Zoom software adds even more tools and functionality to the myViewBoard collaboration software already included with ViewBoard interactive displays, including enabling users to host video conferences directly from the myViewBoard interface with a single click.
A well-designed, well-equipped meeting space provides exceptional meeting experiences that can increase knowledge-sharing, encourage problem-solving, capture creativity, and accelerate innovation. These meeting rooms can pay for themselves through higher user productivity and business value. ViewSonic ViewBoard technology plays a central role in bringing collaboration to life. Learn more about ViewSonic ViewBoard displays and myViewBoard software today.
If you found this article useful you may also be interested in how to choose a presentation display for your meeting spaces or other ways to collaborate more effectively.
Remote collaboration has now become standard in many industries. There are a variety of reasons to connect teams remotely, including both distance and schedule. And while it may not be for everyone, connecting everyone via long-distance channels overcomes long-standing organizational problems in a number of ways. Read on below to learn more about remote collaboration or jump to our collaboration solutions page for more insights into effective corporate collaboration.
Remote collaboration technology could be the tool to connect you to the rest of the world.
Do you work with folks who are far away? Are they across the state, the country, or even, the world?
In the modern age of globalization, multinational corporations have become commonplace and remote collaboration has become more important as a result. In many cases, corporate offices are located in at least two continents. Even on a national level, it’s common to see multiple branches located in different regions of the same country.
Since you will likely have to work with your counterparts who are located elsewhere, you will need to learn how to work together with remote collaboration. Herein, we’ll give you a breakdown of remote collaboration, why it’s important, and why it’s the way forward.
Remote collaboration refers to the ability to engage as a team from anywhere in the world. Gone are the days of needing to work in the same physical space as your coworkers and superiors – with remote collaboration, you can truly be anywhere! This also applies to international corporations that require communication between teams separated by thousands of miles.
Remote collaboration remedies distance limitations by way of collaborative tools. In order to optimize a team’s success, it is best to understand the different variants of said tools as well as the differing ways in which distance may manifest itself.
First off, tools meant for remote collaboration are based primarily on the features a team may require to best succeed. Shared word processing services, file-sharing hubs, video conferencing, and general project management interfaces are just a few examples of features that may be required from remote collaboration tools.
Distance is the operating parameter around which remote collaboration operates. Without distance, remote work would not be necessary. To that end, bear in mind that remote collaboration’s distance is not just physical, but also operational and affinitive. Operational distance refers to that of communication between teams of various sizes, as well as the gap between the skill levels of different team members. Affinitive distance, on the other hand, involves the resultant gap in operational styles between team members, and it affects synergy, camaraderie, and management.
It’s unlikely that you’ll be able to jump straight into the facilitation of remote collaboration without thinking a few things through first. The underlying factors that will aid in your ultimate success are well worth the discipline and consideration you’ll need to put into them.
Without a team to collaborate with, remote collaboration is nothing more than a meaningless buzzword. Even with a team, however, remote collaboration is useless when the team, or certain team members, do not actually engage in collaboration.
The key, in this instance, is to ensure that your team achieves universal participation. Are certain team members contributing less than others in meetings? Is this a result of work output, or a side-effect of the remote work environment? Whatever the reason, it is the responsibility of those facilitating remote collaboration to note differing outputs and find solutions in order to make such discrepancies a thing of the past.
However you choose to ensure universal participation, whether it be individual meetings or new effective meeting strategies, you’ll have the end result as thanks. Especially when it comes to smaller teams, the more voices heard and opinions in the mix will only serve to strengthen the final output.
Just as universal participation amongst team members is essential for the success of the remote collaboration, so too is access to and communication with the other members of the team. This is particularly important when you find yourself requiring a collaborator’s input, only to find that they’re away from their computers or offline.
Ultimately, this factor comes down to the need for regular working hours. In most situations involving remote collaboration, especially team members who regularly work from home, the traditional concept of ‘working hours’ may seem outmoded. However, another commonality in remote collaboration is the presence of team members from a litany of time zones, perhaps continents away from one another.
When time has the potential to become such a variable, many facilitators of remote collaboration opt to set a minimum window of mandatory working hours. During this time, all team members should ideally be accessible and able to communicate on a moment’s notice. Keep in mind that this does not mean a whole 9-hour workday is being mandated for team members across the world. Instead, a small block of two or three hours would work just fine, and keep this essential factor from becoming a problem.
Mandatory working hours, as effective for effective remote collaboration as they may be, are only one part of a greater whole. Regularity, or habitual routines and practices, is the primary factor that governs the efficiency and success of long-distance collaboration.
Attendance at team meetings is essential for any team-based operation. In remote circumstances, which are typically more flexible than ordinary work environments, regularity ensures that attendance becomes second nature. Moreover, just as in the case of accessibility, regularity makes certain that collaboration occurs, even when team members are remote and located all around the globe.
Remote collaboration is one thing, but effective remote collaboration is another concept altogether. Like with most other types of project collaboration, poor lines of communication and a lack of internal standards are just a few symptoms of ineffective remote collaborations. We’ve outlined some of the main reasons why effective remote collaboration is so important below.
Considering the unique nature of remote collaboration, there is nothing more important than ensuring that your team’s communication is both clear and efficient. In that regard, it’s necessary for remote collaborators, who largely rely on text-based messages, to pay attention to the number of messages they send and the tone and manner they are using.
Unless you’re using fully constructed sentences and completely spelled out words, assume that there is someone out there that will not understand your messages. This means that when collaborating remotely, you should stay away from using slang and other variants of shorthand. Although you’re likely inclined to communicate in this manner for the sake of efficiency, the fact is that clarity will also supersede brevity in this context. If the rest of your team is spending all its time figuring out what you’re trying to say, then less time can be spent actually collaborating.
Unfortunately, in the modern era of texting, there are more acronyms than one could ever hope to understand. As such, particularly when those acronyms are corporate in nature, we suggest that you write out it in full, unless agreed upon beforehand. In fact, said agreement can be just one aspect of your team’s greater acceptance of a variety of internal communication processes. This is not just about slang and shorthand, but also about which word processor to use, which tone to use in official communications, and which format to use in internal memos.
Although these may seem somewhat trivial, when it comes to remote collaboration, no detail may be taken for granted. With so many people working pseudo-independently, personal preferences and styles will have a greater likelihood of carrying forward into the work at hand. Therefore, by agreeing to these matters ahead of time, potential issues can be resolved before they even arise.
Even with a greater number of remote workers than ever before, it is safe to say that remote work and collaboration are still outside the norm of traditional labor practices. As such, remote collaboration offers team members the opportunity to truly think and operate outside of the box. This is particularly true when it comes to contributors that perform better when working individually or away from the distracting influence of others.
When it comes down to it, remote collaborations possess the capacity to foster new and unique ideas. This doesn’t necessarily only have to occur in collaborative brainstorming sessions, but also when it comes to problem-solving or other creative workarounds. When all is said and done, it is entirely possible that remote collaboration could lead to the idea that catapults the final product to greatness.
Like anything else, remote collaboration has its benefits and its drawbacks. This is particularly the case when done in an ineffective and inefficient manner. However, when done well, remote collaboration can help team members transcend the sum of its parts and create final products that are nothing short of remarkable. With that in mind, the pros and cons of remote collaboration are as follows:
Pros:
Cons:
Because remote collaboration is such a commonality in today’s professional environment, there is an array of tools available to make facilitating remote collaboration easy.
In terms of collaborative hardware, ViewBoards are collaboration displays specifically designed with teamwork in mind. ViewBoard interactive flat panels like the ViewSonic IFP 7550 offer the ability to import files, make on-screen annotations, conduct video conferencing, record live, and save all on-screen content. While ViewBoards are geared towards group collaborations in meetings, in a remote collaboration setting, they could be used as a means of facilitating remote collaborations from one centralized device.
When it comes to remote collaboration, the Google Chrome-based software solution myViewBoard is a powerful tool to have at your disposal. The fact that it is web-based means that any device with Google Chrome is able to access the software no matter where they are.
myViewBoard comes equipped with wireless screen sharing and is a secure, unified way to facilitate remote collaborations. Additional features include live annotation, cloud-based content distribution, online whiteboarding, and seamless meeting recording, amongst others. This collection of powerful features make simultaneous group access, hosting brainstorming sessions, or simply conducting quick check-ins easy and effective.
If you have enjoyed this article you may also be interested in reading successful collaboration while telecommuting, or click here to learn more on how to collaborate more effectively.
The growing popularity and profitability of esports are pushing high schools, universities, and non-profit groups to redefine esports and its role as a competitive activity. But is esports a sport? There’s no easy answer. Esports doesn’t fit neatly into any of the existing definitions of a sport, but that’s only the beginning of the esports debate. Regardless of esports’ status, there are many exciting developments for the activity on the horizon. If you’re interested in taking a look at gaming monitors, here are some cool options here.
Is an esports a real sport? When I say the word sports, what do you think of? If you’re a fan, it could be football, basketball or soccer. Perhaps it’s tennis or golf. For some, it might even be chess or bridge, both of which are recognized as sports by the largest international sports organization. What about competitive video gaming? Is esports a sport? What, you may ask, makes an activity a sport?
As it turns out, there’s no one definitive answer. In fact, it’s an ongoing debate. One that’s been raging for hundreds (perhaps thousands) of years. Even the pinnacle of sports achievement and spectacle, the Olympic Games, has included (or banned) varying “sports” since its start in the 8thcentury BC. In our particular moment, esports is at the center of the debate.
Among the free online dictionaries, each offers a version of this theme: Sport is an activity that includes physical exertion, skill, competition, and entertainment. The one main variation on this theme: the degree of emphasis on the physical aspect of the sport.
According to the Oxford dictionary, a sport is an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. Dictionary.com downplays the physical. How athletic, after all, are hunting and fishing?
Sport, noun.
An athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, such as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.
It all comes down to one word. It’s an and/or conundrum. Physical exertion and skill. Versus, skill, or physical prowess. Wikitionary.org goes for the “or” but adds the requirement of a set of rules. The American Heritage Dictionary, on the other hand, insists that both are necessary. Merriam-Websterboils it down to bare-bones: Sport, noun. A source of diversion: RECREATION.
Choose one definition and esports qualifies as a sport. Choose another, and it’s a harder sell. Sport purists tend to insist on physical athleticism. But the cultural zeitgeist is clearly skewing toward more inclusive views on sport. Should esports be considered a sport? Let’s look at what some experts have to say about the matter.
The Euro Sports charter defines sports as: “all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organized participation, aim at expressing or improving physical fitness and mental well-being, forming social relationships or obtaining results in competition at all levels.”
At first glance, this definition seems to back the assertion that esports is not a sport. It would also limit the number of other activities often considered “sport.” Here’s a closer look at each of the components:
Other governing bodies take a broader view of what should be considered a sport. The International Olympic Committee (through ARISF) recognizes both chess and bridge (as well as air and auto sports) as bona fide sports. The largest, most all-encompassing sport organization, the Global Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF) agrees.
The GAISF recognizes numerous non-traditional, non-physical sports. Among them: bridge, chess, and checkers (draughts). Its members include organizations from a huge range of sporting endeavors. From the traditional, like tennis, ice hockey, and American football. To the less familiar, such as minigolf, tug of war, and sled dog sports.
The GAISF is considered the de facto representative of international sport. It recognizes sports as being primarily physical (boxing, football/soccer). Primarily of the mind (chess, bridge). Primarily based on coordination skills (darts, billiards). Predominantly motorized (air sports, motorcycle sports). Or primarily animal-supported (polo). Within this worldview esports clearly has a place to dwell.
Sport is all about leisure. From couch-bound fans to local league participants. High school athletes to community club members. It’s about how we spend our free time. Pro players don’t count. Their athleticism is a job. Their spectators, absolutely do. Whether in the stands or on the couch, sports as entertainment is a break from the obligations of life.
A vast range of activities fall under the umbrella of leisure. American’s favorites? Watching TV, socializing, and non-work computer use. Sport comes in a close 5th after reading. The “other” category encompasses everything from gardening to doing crossword puzzles. Most of which clearly bears no resemblance to most definitions of sport.
So what makes sports a sport? The following qualities distinguish it from gardening, reading, and the like:
Another angle in this many-faceted debate is how sports are distinguished from other competitive activities. Countless competitions are held annually across the world. Just about anything imaginable goes. Competitive eating is a thing. So is competitive wife carrying? Hoop rolling, sheep herding, and baby races can be found in the U.S and elsewhere. There’s even a rock paper scissors league.
How to decide which qualify as sport? We turn to ESPN for insight. It claims to be the “Worldwide Leader in Sports” after all. Clearly an expert in all things sport. The mega-media conglomerate holds the rights to cover sports ranging from the U.S. College Football Bowl games and Major League Baseball to the Masters Golf Tournament and Formula One racing. ESPN also broadcasts Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog-Eating Contest, which, in 2018, earned a higher viewership than any July 4th Major League Baseball game. And it’s been covering the Scripps National Spelling Bee since 1994.
We can infer then, that ESPN considers spelling and competitive eating to be a form of sport. Wife carrying, not so much. (ESPN appears to have written at least one humorous article on the topic, but has never broadcast an event.)
Where does this sovereign of sport stand on esports? In 2014, then ESPN president John Skipper had this to say about esports: “It’s not a sport—it’s a competition…..Mostly, I’m interested in doing real sports.”
Many found this a tad hypocritical, given the network’s history of airing coverage of bass fishing and poker. (Not to mention hot dog eating.) Then, just a few months later, ESPN2 televised the collegiate esports tournament Heroes of the Dorm. The two-hour broadcast showcased students competing at multiplayer Heroes of the Storm, with play-by-play commentary by other gamers. That, as it turned out, was the tip of the iceberg.
By 2016 ESPN had added a dedicated esports section to its website. It’s right there in the drop-down menu along with the NFL, boxing, and rugby. The coverage is as robust and visually dynamic as any other sport on the list. (By the way, poker and spelling didn’t make the list, drawing a deeper line in the sand between lesser sports ESPN may cover, and those worthy of their homepage.)
In March 2019, ESPN Events announced that it would host the first-ever ESPN Collegiate Esports Championship (CEC).
At the college level, the NCAA takes a hard line on the inclusion of physical exertion in its definition of sports. It does not yet include esports on its roster. Neither does it’s small-school cousin, the NAIA, which does include competitive cheer and dance as well as bowling – all once controversial in the “is it a sport” debate. In a nod to the growing esports movement, the NAIA posted an article in 2014 about the pioneering Robert Morris University’s addition of esports to its varsity sports lineup. Even more telling, it sponsored the National Association of Collegiate Esports 2019 annual convention.
Despite its tight definition of sport, the NCAA appears to be edging toward accepting esports as a varsity collegiate sport. In 2017 it’s Peach Belt Conference hosted the League of Legends championship in sold-out NBA-sized arenas. The PBC now includes esports on its official lineup of supported sports. Can other conferences be far behind?
In part due to Riot Games creating its own College League of Legends organization, the NCAA is reported to be taking a long, hard look at bringing esports into its fold. How serious are they? In October 2018, the NCAA’s Board of Governors held an in-depth meeting on the consideration. Among the topics: How to structure an NCAA esports championship. And should esports be a fall, winter, or spring sport?
In the meantime, Ohio State went around the NCAA, partnering in 2018 with the Electronic Gaming Federation. EGF now operates two distinct divisions: EGFH for high school esports and EGFC for college esports competitors.
A clear sign of the times, collegiate esports even has its own organized governing body, the National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE). Founded in July 2018, the nonprofit’s goals are straightforward. It aims to benefit its member institutions by “developing the structure and tools needed to advance collegiate esports in the varsity space.” NACE is working with members to form standards for eligibility, graduation pathways, competitions, and scholarships.
NACE is currently the only association of varsity esports programs at colleges and universities across the U.S. It claims:
As of January 2018, more than 94% of all college-level varsity esports programs in the U.S. were members of NACE. Its 2019 National Convention topics included:
It even included a session on “Esports Nutrition and Exercise.” Sounds pretty sports legit, right? One of its sponsors is the aforementioned NAIA. (Can the NCAA be far behind?)
Colleges themselves have been rapidly ramping up their esports participation. In 2016, just seven schools had varsity esports programs. By 2018 there were 63 colleges and universities competing with varsity-level esports. NACE now has more than 130 member schools.
The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) is the governing body for most high school sports in the United States. While it serves as an umbrella for education-based athletics and activities, only three listings qualify as the latter: music, speech/debate/theater and spirit. The others are common sports ranging from Baseball to Wrestling.
The NFSH maintains an additional category labeled “other sports,” which includes bowling, esports, golf, and tennis. There you have it. The lead arbiter of high school athletics says esports is a sport.
High schools and higher education, it seems, are on a parallel path with regard to the inclusion of esports. They’re just a bit behind their higher-ed counterparts. And there’s a bit less centralized management.
Several organizations currently compete to offer league participation to high school students. The High School Esports League (HSEL) claims to be the largest, with over 1,500 members. Relative newcomer PlayVS made a big splash with its exclusive contract with NFHS. Other esports leagues offering high school tournament play include the High School Starleague (HSEL), Youth Esports of America (YEA), the Electronic Gaming Federation for High Schools (EGFH), and the North American Scholastic Esports Federation, (NASEF). Each offers a range of tournaments for popular games like League of Legends, Overwatch and Fortnite, Hearthstone, Rocket League, Super Smash Bros. and DUCKS NHL.
In addition to these nationwide leagues, some states and regions offer organized high school esports action. For example, Orange County, CA, Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan, have established esports leagues.
It turns out that sport may, in fact, be a cultural construct. Ask “what is a sport” and the answer changes across time and geography. Bullfighting, after all, is the national sport of Spain. Ancient Mexicans played “field hockey” with a flaming ball. A generation ago, the idea of skateboarding in the Olympic Games would have been unthinkable. (Yet the International Olympic Committee has approved its inclusion in the 2020 summer games.) In the U.S., the popularity of the NFL is waning. Esports viewership is expected to surpass all pro sports other than the NFL by 2021.
Colleges, high schools – even parents and teachers – are embracing competitive electronic sports as a positive activity for students. Many wholeheartedly defend esports as a sport. The point of view of teacher and EdTech specialist Chris Aviles is particularly convincing, given his personal background. He says:
I was a good high school athlete. I’ve played sports at the collegiate level. I’ve also coached varsity sports for ten years. I also enjoy playing video games on a competitive level. I’m pretty good at those, too. Having a foot in both worlds, I have no problem saying esports is as valuable to a student’s social/emotional development as any other sport. Esports athletes are athletes. All the social/emotional learning and soft skills I developed in football, wrestling, track, and rugby can be developed through esports.
Let’s take a final look at the criteria for the sport outlined above.
What do you think? Is esports a sport? At the time of this writing, we say, you bet!
Esports is also a great way to build a community in schools, read about how competitive gaming can be a good thing for students. Or discover ViewSonic ELITE’s gaming monitor series here.
Project collaboration is at the core of any company’s work. Basically, project collaboration is strategic teamwork to accomplish a shared goal. A number of factors affect a team’s ability to collaborate – and improve their productivity – and we have some handy lists of both below. And of course, we offer a few of the technological tools to facilitate better collaboration.
Read more on project collaboration below or jump to our solutions page for more insights into effective corporate collaboration.
Have you ever had to collaborate on a group project?
Group work, or project collaboration, is a hallmark of most professional and educational settings. It’s commonplace!
As such, the answer to the original question is most likely a unanimous yes!
Well, these project collaboration skills that you developed all the way back in grade school are as important today as they were back then.
Below we’ll delve into the importance of project collaboration skills and how they can translate into success in your professional adult life.
Although some of your life lessons learned during your school days may have remained static – such as time management and research – others may have altered a bit over time. Case-in-point to this trend is group work.
Back in your younger days, it is quite possible that group work entailed jointly working on a collage, diorama, skit, or perennially overstuffed PowerPoint. In the professional workforce, sure, the base tenets of such work remain the same – inter-personal communication is key to any endeavor. However, the process now lives under a new, aforementioned, buzzword-worthy moniker — Project Collaboration.
A project can obviously take many forms, from the vertical integration of supply chain management to the proposal to a prospective client. That said, the keyword in this instance lies firmly in the realm of collaboration.
This is where the implication of project collaboration surpasses that of ordinary group work. Beyond achieving a shared goal, project collaboration suggests a greater synergistic relationship between group members that creates better practices, ideas, and results.
Much like how learning how to run an effective meeting requires a specific methodology, good project collaboration does not simply come into being, fully formed. Instead, it is cultivated by way of a series of influencing factors. These include group culture and group organization.
Through these overarching factors, collaboration is able to occur in the clearest and most concise manner possible, in any setting, between any members of the team.
While culture and organization are certainly important for project collaboration, those factors would be useless without other underlying components. Inter- and intrapersonal skills, as well as project management skills, also play a pivotal role in project collaboration. Without personal skills, for instance, the lack of self-awareness and the inability to maintain working relationships would hinder the successfulness of project collaboration.
Believe it or not, collaboration doesn’t stand a chance of success without proper project management skills. The ability to facilitate group productivity, delegate responsibility, and execute an overall vision is not a universally innate trait. The same goes for other useful strategies, which can assist several factors influencing project collaboration. These strategies involve group communication, productivity, and management:
Key Influencing Factors:
If project collaboration is not going well, you should either set new goals or reassess your existing ones. When laid out correctly, aims provide a sense of unity and motivation to the team at-large. By having something to strive for, team members will want to collaborate fully and do their best.
The key to good project collaboration is communication. Remote collaboration is becoming more commonplace and working with a remote team can make communication difficult. Fortunately, there are tools available that can help with this issue. While tools like Skype, Trello, Asana, Basecamp, etc. have been go-to collaboration tools in the past, they can be limiting in terms of their professional collaboration capabilities. Fortunately, more advanced tools such as interactive displays and online whiteboard software are now able to offer a complete range of collaboration capabilities. We’ll talk about the specifics of project collaboration hardware and software later in this article.
In and of itself, collaboration is necessary in order to collaborate. By encouraging input and feedback from all possible sources, including employees and clients, project collaboration can truly begin. Since effective input can come in a variety of forms, it is important that all sources be able to have their ideas heard.
When employees and team members work together in a supportive environment, the benefit is undeniable. The construction of intra-group trust and other open conditions will help to create a sense of cohesion, investment, and dependability between all members of the team. This leads to more effective overall project collaboration and management.
Great teams are only as good as the people that they are comprised of. When constructing an effective team, look for those who have unique skill sets and compatible personalities. While these parameters may not always be entirely achievable, the aim is to organize a team ripe for project collaboration and a productive work environment.
Through project collaboration, the ease at which proper division of labor and project management are executed becomes much greater. Thereby, each member’s strengths may be properly harnessed. With workflows optimized and streamlined, deadlines will become easier to meet, and time & money will be saved. As a result, collaboration directly improves team efficiency.
By ensuring that group members are playing to their strengths and working productively, morale will see a boost. Along with proper engagement, this correlation is reinforced by collaborative strategies and processes that may result in the elimination of stressful elements. These may include clear feedback channels and procedures for increased individual engagement.
Flexibility and adaptability make for good project collaboration. Through clear communication and well-organized project management, employees should be able to overcome last-minute hurdles and adapt to unforeseen changes in circumstance with ease – to the point of becoming second-nature. As a result, flexibility can result in an improved final product.
A successful team is only as good as the sum of its parts. When its members collaborate, their capacity for success skyrockets. However, successful teams do not come together overnight. Instead, through a process involving solid project management, workflow development, and procedure establishment, teams find a success one step at a time.
Multiple minds are better than one, especially in regards to project collaboration. A properly collaborative team, for instance, will be able to avoid pitfalls that would ruin lesser groups. At the end of the day, this form of teamwork yields a faster work time, thus allowing deadlines to be met with ease.
In any decent project collaboration scenario, an incredible benefit lies in the democratization of workflows. More specifically, each team member is aware of the project’s complete details, goals, and updates. With such transparency comes easier problem solving, as the entire team can offer feedback and solutions, rather than just the management team.
Project collaboration is a positive influence on intra-group communication. Even if there are tensions between individuals or difficulties with remote teams, collaborative communication processes are able to overcome these through procedural clarity and open channels of contact. As a result, breakdowns in communication become a rarity in the face of collaboration.
Nothing is better for business than happy clients. Project collaboration, which works great for team members, also brings benefits to the company/client relationship. At the end of the day, by keeping the client in the collaborative loop and providing them with faster, higher-quality results, their satisfaction will rise in turn.
As beneficial as it may be, project collaboration may not be enough when it is no more than a series of strategies and procedures. Sometimes, just as trying to hammer a nail is difficult without said hammer, a supporting tool might be necessary.
In terms of project collaboration, a good tool is something that not only makes the collaborative process more efficient but also fits for the modern workplace. In terms of hardware, the ViewBoard by ViewSonic is a collaboration display with functionality specifically geared towards group collaboration.
With an eye towards both education and corporate use, ViewBoard operates as an interactive whiteboard complete with digital whiteboarding features like annotation and other helpful features. These include Microsoft Office support, annotation, screen recording, casting, and more. At the end of the day, whether you’re seeking a collaborative tool for in-office brainstorming or for remote meetings, ViewBoard features can make your professional life as easy as possible.
Below is a list of ViewBoard capabilities aimed at aiding project collaboration:
Oftentimes, in the modern professional world, teams are not always based on a single office. It is common to see different parts of a team-based remotely around the world. In order to properly coordinate and collaborate, a traditional project collaboration tool would be of little use. This is when digital project collaboration software becomes worth looking into. For instance, myViewBoard is a cloud-based digital whiteboard solution geared towards collaboration.
myViewBoard is not confined to a ViewBoard interactive display. myViewBoard is a Google Chrome-based software solution, which means any phone or laptop with Google Chrome can access the software. This is helpful as it offers simultaneous group access for conducting meetings, hosting brainstorming sessions, or simply conducting quick check-ins. In order to easily facilitate such uses, myViewBoard offers live annotation, cloud-based content distribution, online whiteboarding, and seamless meeting recording, amongst others.
When all is said and done, myViewBoard is a good project collaboration software because it solves the problems associated with its analog counterparts. In short, with this software, there will be no messing about with cables, no deciphering of messy handwriting, and no limited writing space. With myViewBoard, the options for collaboration are limitless and a free trial of the software is available when you sign up for an account.
Below is a list some of the best project collaboration capabilities offered by myViewBoard:
If you enjoyed this article you may also be interested in reading about successful collaboration while telecommuting. You can also find more information about corporate collaboration on our collaboration solutions page.