Always something of an afterthought when it comes to business technology is the meeting room.

However, if you think about it, meeting rooms in your office should have a high priority. 

Why is this?

If you regularly meet with clients, prospects or vendors then having the right meeting room technology helps paint your business in a good light.

In this article, we will outline 3 simple things you can easily set up to make your meetings run smoother and impress your visitors.

Many meeting rooms include a TV of some description usually with an HDMI cable trailing out the back which is used to display content from a laptop or mobile device.

Have you ever run into the problem when someone has an old laptop or a really new laptop which has no HDMI port?

This can be a show stopper and usually ends after a hunt around the office for an adaptor.

A wireless display adaptor comes in handy.  Many smart TV now includes wireless display as standard.  But, when it comes to compatibility there’s usually a mismatch.  Some devices will work, some devices won’t.

For a minimal price, you can set up a wireless display that beams laptop content to the TV with no cables and no fuss.

Microsoft Teams is now supported by a number of manufacturers that supply video conference systems.

What does this mean?  You can have a dedicated device located in your meeting room, known as a “Teams Room System”.  This is a bookable resource from within Microsoft Outlook & Teams.

When it’s time to start the meeting, simply press one button on the device and the meeting room becomes part of the virtual Teams Room.  This allows all to collaborate remotely and in the room.

The main benefit of these systems is the one-click function.  There is no unnecessary setup before the meeting and you can share content to everyone attending the meeting with a simple press of a button.

Meeting room technology is becoming smart.  Amazon is one of the bigger players now entering the market with there Alexa for Business service.

Alexa for Business lets employees reserve meeting rooms and start conference calls using intuitive voice commands.  Employees don’t need to use remote controls and manually dial into meetings or look up room availability on the calendar.

Employees can just say “Alexa, join the meeting” to start their online meeting, “Alexa, is this room booked?” to find if the meeting room is free, “Alexa, who booked the room”, to find who made the booking and “Alexa, book the room” to quickly book a meeting room.

Alexa for Business can also provide end-of-meeting reminders a few minutes prior to the start of the next meeting.  This encourages employees to end their meetings on time and allows the next meeting to start in a timely manner.

We’re only scratching the surface with what’s possible with today’s tech.