The Future of Meetings

This article was originally published in Hospitality Upgrade Magazine.

Imagine this scenario: Your guests arrive for a major conference at your hotel. During check in, your front desk employees answer their meeting inquiries with a friendly, "Simply turn on your room TV, and welcome to the world of digital."

Once in their rooms, your guests' experience begins. They turn on their TVs and read a welcome message from the conference hosts. Next, they see the two days of tracks that they've pre-registered for along with a detailed map of the session rooms. There is even information on how to attend specific sessions around your property, including an early morning motivational speaker streamed live into the fitness room. The choice is theirs for the keynote, either arrive early and search for seats or watch it live from the comfort of their rooms. Got questions for the speaker? They can easily take advantage of the live Q&A to submit questions or participate via their mobile phones with the real-time chat sessions shown on separate screens throughout your property. A key executive can't fly in? Just have him or her conveniently log in to participate live and in real time.

At this point, your guests are probably saying to themselves, "So this is what a digital conference is all about." While this scenario may sound futuristic, it's a lot closer than you may think.

The technology is here today: Digital meetings

All the digital conferencing technology to offer flexible and cost-effective digital-based meetings is available today. What has lagged behind is the implementation and execution that hoteliers and others in the industry need along with the ROI to prioritize this project over others.

Now, however, many of those barriers are being addressed. In early September, a new product entered the market that aims to greatly influence the pace at which the vision of digital meetings becomes a reality. It's a video conferencing solution for the mass market that takes the familiarity and comfort of a business tool, and delivers secure and easy-to-use Web-enabled video conferencing.

Microsoft Office Roundtable is an advanced collaboration and conferencing device that delivers an engaging, immersive meeting experience with Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 or Microsoft® Office Live Meeting 2007. It is a USB-based phone and 360-degree camera that mobilizes the capability of a video conferencing system.

Realize bottom-line savings while expanding guest services

No longer do hospitality companies have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to outfit a room for video conferencing, then fight with the system to get it reliably running and connected. Microsoft Office Roundtable is portable. Guests can place the phone in a board room or move it to their offices. All they need is an Internet connection and a laptop.

The Roundtable camera allows for a 360-degree panoramic video of everyone in its presence. And what's even more impressive is the high-resolution video of the active speaker. Roundtable actually follows the conversation by identifying the active speaker and broadcasting a close-up of their face. When the conversation shifts, Roundtable shifts with it automatically.

The panoramic and active speaker video integrates with Office Communications Server 2007 hosted inside the enterprise or Office Live Meeting 2007 hosted externally. Meeting content can be displayed centrally and application sharing is easy. With an online collaborative white board, the user handles Q&A sessions effortlessly and can chat live natively. Meetings can be recorded, saved and replayed as Windows Media files for quick, on-demand viewing.

While the Roundtable device is intended to enhance corporate meetings in rooms with six to 12 people, the low price point and mobile capabilities make it very suitable or placement in smaller hotel conference rooms, board rooms and hotel rooms. It can even be made available or rental as part of a group meeting practice.

Gemstone Hotels and Resorts sees benefit of digital future

Customers agree. Michael St-Laurent, director information technology with Gemstone Hotels & Resorts, saw fit for Roundtable both in its corporate operations and on property.

"We conduct regular meetings with our properties and the ability to do these meetings remotely, yet where we can see and collaborate with each other is key," St-Laurent said. "Our luxury boutique hotels and resorts often host corporate board meetings. Offering Roundtable enhances our meeting guest experiences and showcases how we leverage the technology to enable effective meetings."

In addition to using Roundtable in board rooms and connecting corporate office with remote locations, the product may soon evolve to provide restaurant-to-restaurant, table-to-table live connections. Guests will be able to enjoy a meal with friends or relatives in another city. By utilizing technology to bring together the diff rent ways that people work, communicate and socialize , hoteliers will offer truly differentiated service in a crowded industry. They'll take the guest experience to an entirely new level while gaining outstanding business and brand value along the way.

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