OTMH Executive Boardroom
The Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital had a campus-wide conferencing infrastructure which relied on Polycom products and infrastructure to support a room-to-room conferencing experience. With their migration to Microsoft Teams, the facility desired to transform their meeting rooms, to support a 1-touch join experience within the Teams environment, starting with their Executive meeting room. Equity within a meeting was key for the participants sitting within the meeting room so that their presence within the conference could be seen and heard.
Enhancing Collaboration with a Microsoft Teams Room System
The clients existing system was in need of a refresh, and given the their UC needs had changed, a new system was inevitable. The existing system already in place supported a Polycom conferencing platform which was no longer utilized and the organization was still fully undecided on a new, uniform platform of choice moving forward. Ultimately Microsoft Teams won out as the primary platform of choice, with support for Zoom conferences still being required. The only piece of the original system that the client wanted to replicate, but in a more professional manner was an “Owl”, multi-camera system that resided on the boardroom table. This camera setup connected to the hosts laptop to capture participants all around the table in a temporary makeshift setup that was considered a “stop gap” until the room was completely redone supporting their new conferencing requirements. So multi camera speaker-tracking became a requirement for the client. Alongside the camera tracking, the client also desired a larger dual-screen display, and a simplified user experience, as the organization was intimidated by the idea of a full technology refresh.
A Microsoft Teams Room system was required, with support for Zoom calls still being maintained. With the addition of the feature-set allowing a native Zoom “guest join” experience on a dedicated Teams system, a Microsoft Teams Room system was the perfect fit. Due to the size of space, with a 22 seat capacity directly at the table, meeting equity was considered for each participant. Second to that was additional seating capacity outside the bounds of the table referred to as “Gallery” seating, which consisted of modular tables and chairs setup temporarily as needed around the perimeter of the space to accommodate the support staff required for larger meetings.
Lastly, and again due to the size of the room, a mix-minus audio capability was desired so that participants at each end of the table could hear a suitable amount of voice-lift from participants on the opposite side of the room.
Achieving meeting equity is the art of allowing each and every participant an equal “presence” in the meeting experience regardless of location. Achieving true meeting equity for participants within a room that can encompass up to 30 seated participants can prove to be a difficult initiative. Allowing those participants a perfectly framed “head and shoulders” shot while they share their thoughts and opinions encourages active engagement from meeting attendee’s.
Aligned Vision Group completes all custom engraving in-house. A company policy exists where no “P-Touch” labels are to exist on any connection points. Because of this, connection points like the lectern microphone wallplate, to support the lecterns existing gooseneck microphone were constructed of anodized aluminum which was custom-engraved with the words “Presenter’s Mic”. Providing custom engraving like this guarantee’s that important information on the various connection points does not rub off and fade with time. The same engraving technology is also used to cut custom lamacoid labels, much like what is used on each portable mic station within the “Gallery Seating” area. Custom labels indicating that mic stations position, have been created and affixed to the base of the station so that every user can clearly identify where that microphone should be located.