It used to be that your personal space in the work environment was closely connected with both individuality and power. What indicated business success was the big teak desk in the corner office, complete with accommodation for your private admin support. Promotions often involved a better view or a few more square metres, and even the lowliest cubicle worker has always sought to personalise their own area with photos and knick-knacks. No wonder that the initial reception of hot-desking and hotelling was unpopular when first introduced in the 1990s and early part of the new millennium.
Even in our unevenly distributed workplaces of today, hot-desking remains inconvenient for many. My newly-refurbished bank branch has done away with private offices, but my adviser has to stagger around with her laptop and piles of documents, looking for a private corner for us to have a chat in, all while muttering resentfully about the change…
The vision that Crestron’s Director of Strategy, Unified Communications, Joseph Sarrasin, shares is very different — a way of using shared physical spaces to instantly connect and collaborate digitally, in a completely fluid and flexible way:
Small, flexible spaces for collaboration
“We’re seeing a massive rise in demand for smaller collaboration spaces, huddle spaces, really flexible meeting rooms — which might not even be meeting rooms, it could be the middle of a co-working space for example”, he told us.
“The buzz is about small, quick meeting rooms, where people come together in groups as needed, to get work done dynamically”
Being able to instantly connect and share and work together in a purpose-built space, even looping in remote participants as needed, is a powerful idea. And it doesn’t depend on lugging around an office-in-a-briefcase either. Everything you need is right there to log into…
“The reality is, that the laptop is at best a gateway into the cloud account, where their whole world lives”, Sarrasin continues. “We want to get to a point in corporate where the laptop is almost disposable… Once everything is cloud connected, you have your settings and preferences standardised, your meeting room will spin up everything you need”.
The workplace is digital
“It frees people from this idea that they have to hoard space and technology, to do their work, they thought that was where the magic was. But now they realise that the value is in the service and having access to that service. Your modern business tools are all services, whose purpose is to facilitate getting the work done.”
As the world reacts to forced-remote collaboration for the time being in many cases, Sarrasin believes that a truly hybrid future awaits, when everyone is free to gather together again as they choose. A future where the work itself and the way we communicate has moved into the online realm, and where individuals can connect and co-operate in the best way for them and the activity in hand. People come together in agile and flexible teams to work on something the way they want to, in purpose-built huddle rooms which enable real-time sharing and interaction at the touch of a button – all without requiring an IT department to intervene and set things up. There won’t be any point getting together in less functional and work-oriented spaces. Sarrasin concluded,
“This is going to spell the end of meeting rooms which are just a table and a whiteboard”
What matters is what’s on that table, and Crestron Flex delivers powerful and flexible solutions for collaborating teams of 2-15 people – delivering workplace-as-a-service precisely when and where it is most needed.
