Convention centers plan to invest in collaboration technology

Earlier this year, the International Association of Conference Centers (IACC) released the second phase of their research project "Meeting Room of the Future." As reported by Meetings & Conventions, their ultimate goal is to "transform the meeting experience through a global collaboration of leaders in conference space design, audiovisual technology, hospitality, academia and conference management."

While it's hard for us audio-visual professionals to get excited about better food and beverage service, we can appreciate the technology trends that convention decision makers are looking to invest in. Areas include: 

• Gamification
• Connectivity to remote home and office workplaces
• Collaborative technologies

Obviously, this is good news--especially for those of us who manufacture automated technologies designed for multi-use spaces. Automation eliminates the need for hands-on control (think pushing on/off and input buttons), thereby eliminating the learning curve for the multitude of different users leveraging the space on a daily basis. In the convention world, this is key considering many of the users have a limited amount of time in the space and often possess limited audio-visual system knowledge. 

Cameron Smith, CEO of TechLogix Networx, explains, "Facility managers are an expensive resource, and deploying them for every onsite meeting to educate users is an expensive proposition. We anticipate large growth in automated controllers over the coming years, particularly because of the net savings in operations expensive and increase in user satisfaction."

Those surveyed by the IACC don't just recognize areas of technology advancement, they also recognize the supporting infrastructures such as WiFi networks and general internet access. 

Clearly, the future looks bright for AV investment in meeting and convention spaces.