Leading voice in the unified communication and collaboration industry, the IMCCA, recently held their Collaboration Week event in New York for 2020. From February 23rd to the 26th, the organisation welcomed industry professionals and end-users from across the globe to an incredible opportunity to learn all about the latest opportunities in the communication environment.
Attendees had the opportunity to visit amazing events at Google, Poly, Blackrock, Planar, and Gateway. What’s more, IMCCA also hosted a celebration evening, honouring Eric Yuan of Zoom, and Randy Klein of Crestron with their Emerging Technology Fellow awards.
Here’s What Happened at the Event
Collaboration Week is always an exciting experience, offering fantastic opportunities to interact with businesses and other communication experts in a variety of new environments. This year was no different. Poly and IMCCA’s David Danto provided a useful insight into the state of the UC&C industry today, and how the environment is moving forward. He highlighted some of the crucial battle grounds between various providers, and the rise of trends like AI metrics, interoperability, security, and chat.
There were also various fantastic speeches from other leaders in the marketplace. For instance, Vyopta’s Mark Hamisohn, highlighted how collaboration metrics can help businesses to gather actionable insights for the future. Additionally, Sam Kennedy from Poly, explained that organisations are now evaluating the benefits of switching from general purpose computing and BYOD in DIY rooms to a new kind of appliance endpoint that’s designed to run native collaboration apps.
One particularly interesting speech came from Dr. S. Ann Earon, who addressed the concept of collaboration “mindshare”, and how the leading industry platforms are doing their best to capture the attention of the evolving market. Similarly, Irwin Lazar from Nemertes Research, addressed some of the trends making waves in the collaboration space, including the rising demand for a “video first” culture in the workplace.
This sentiment of video driving the workplace was echoed by brands like Google. Sandy Jones from Google, also took to the stage to explain the vision that Google has for the G Suite of the future, and how this environment will support rich collaboration, using tools like video.
Exploring Emerging Trends in Collaboration
A common focus of the event was how various new technologies are emerging to support the changing workforce. We’re living in an environment where the standard employee may not be located in an office anymore. According to Mark Peterson from Shen, Milson, and Wilke, remote workers and social transformations are forcing companies to rethink the way that office facilities are built.
Similarly, Mark Beal from Rutgers, and a panel of employees and students offered an insight into how Gen Z and Millennials view the transformation of the workplace. There was even some discussion about emerging technology like graphical compute engines, AI, and the arrival of 5G. Greg Harper of Harpervision, noted that today’s AV and collaboration experts must expand their plans in the marketplace to include awareness of new technologies as they emerge.
The truth is that disruptive technologies are changing the landscape as we know it. Whether you’re planning to adopt these tools today or not, you need to be aware of their impact.
Elsewhere, Lanie Mataras from Planar, discussed how digital signage solutions can contribute to collaboration. Michael Goldman from CDA, also highlighted the growing world of Team Chat platforms, and how companies can compare the value of different offerings.
The final Locknote discussion at the event from Sean Lessman, Michael Goldman, and Dr S Ann Earon discussed and debated the events of the day, rousing debates about the collaboration and AV industries. To round off the event, a Tuesday evening Gala dinner presented Eric Yuan and Randy Klein with their respective awards, celebrating their achievements in the collaboration space.
Although Eric could not attend the dinner in person, he sent a team of his employees to the restaurant to rewire the entire internet service so that he could accept the award live over the Zoom conferencing service.
Learning About the Collaboration Industry
2020 marked another incredibly successful year for Collaboration Week, with sponsorship from countless brands ranging from Zoom and Poly, to Pexip, Google, and Crestron. According to the Executive Director of IMCCA, Carol Zelkin, the Collaboration Week events are a crucial industry initiative that offers opportunities for organisations and interested parties to learn more about the industry and how the technology is being used to craft intelligent collaboration and UC solutions.
Zelkin said that the team was honoured to support the educational discussions that take place at the Collaboration Week event and that she was looking forward to expanding on these events with other regions. Carol also gave a special shout out to the Sound and Communications company for providing the content available at the event online, for everyone who couldn’t attend.
The Director of Strategy for Poly, and the IMCCA’s Director for Emerging Technology, David Danto, also commented on this year’s event. He noted how exciting the conference was this year, and how important it was for delivering crucial information to the masses. According to David, IMCCA events bring together all providers, users, and other industry players in a single environment where they can share valuable discussions. David commended all participating organisations and sponsors for participating in the continued agnostic education of the industry, saying
“…it was an honour to coordinate expert curated collaboration industry information and discussions”
Over 2 hundred people attended the presentations that took place at various venues around New York City. Both industry and end-user individuals can attend Collaboration Week for free, as sponsors step in to cover the costs of the events.
