Commercial Integrator 2023 - 62

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C llab rati n
TODAY and TOMORROW
Jabra on the HybridWork
Transformation
Collaboration Today and Tomorrow chats with
Jabra's Olly Henderson on how technology can
facilitate enhanced collaboration in the office and
at home, and the impetus to achieve meeting equity.
Collaboration Today and
Tomorrow: Are hybrid work
and return to office evolving?
OLLY HENDERSON: As
opposed to something shiny
and new, 2023 is appearing to
be more of the same, when
I speak to the market and
listen to what some of our
leading clients are saying.
There's still that element of a
holding pattern of people fully
returning to the office. We're
still having a lot of remote
workers. But what is appearing
to be new is how people
are returning to the office.
The office is becoming a more
focused area of work. So, let's
say an organization chooses
to have their employees in
two or three days a week. The
people expect a much more
collaborative environment
when they get to the office.
So, how does that translate
for Jabra? What are we
seeing? We're seeing multiple
smaller rooms. Maybe not
the huddle rooms that were
the boom of 2020 and 2021,
but rooms of up to eight to 10
people. People can hop into
the room, and they have a
great collaborative experience
using something like
PanaCast 50. We've got the
62
full immersive views there.
Dynamic composition is one
of our views, where we're
popping people out into their
individual Hollywood Squares
on the screen. And that is
something that our clients
are really enjoying. So, more
rooms of a smaller size. More
collaborative environments
with great collaboration hardware,
such as the PanaCast
50. And whether that's a
BYOD environment, a Zoom
environment or a Teams environment,
that's really what
our clients are asking for.
CT&T: Which key tools most
help remote workers?
HENDERSON: With the
remote workers, having a
best-in-class headset always
helps. Before I came to Jabra,
I wasn't much of a headset
guy, and it has really revolutionized
my workflow from
home. I really enjoy the greater
fidelity audio that we get.
And then, obviously, we've got
our PanaCast 20, which is a
4K true HD webcam. You only
get one chance to make a
first impression - that's what
I always say to people. And
I'm really impressed with our
PanaCast 20. So, we can help
Commercial Integrator JUNE 2023
people with the full gamut,
however they're working.
CT&T: How is Jabra helping
all team members to more
effectively collaborate?
HENDERSON: I spoke earlier
about dynamic composition.
That's one of our features
where we're able to take four
individual streams and combine
them into one composite
stream. If you and I were
in a meeting room with some
of my other coworkers, we'd
each get a grid on the square.
And the PanaCast 50 is able
to pick out those individuals
and give them that more
equitable experience. If I was
the last person to speak out
of the four and a fifth person
joined the conversation, I'd
drop out of the grid and the
fifth person would hop in.
We also work hard on our
audio in our devices, as well.
Being a video guy for 20-plus
years, I'm very passionate
about my video. But, without
truly outstanding audio, the
meeting becomes a very difficult
thing to do. I can continue
to have this conversation
if I can't see you, but, if I can't
hear you, the conversation's
dead in the water. So, we
Olly Henderson, head of
technical solutions, Jabra.
work very hard to make sure
that the audio is encompassing.
We're looking at stereo
audio potentially in meeting
rooms, where, depending on
where the person sits in the
meeting, you can hear a stereo
audio signal coming back.
That's pretty exciting for us.
Also, our personal devices,
working from home. I'm lucky
I have a nice, quiet office
here. A lot of people working
from home don't have a dedicated
space to work from and
would rather have their background
blurred. Now, we're
all aware that, in Zoom and
Teams, you can do that. But
on our PanaCast 20, in our
latest software release, we
can actually have that blurred
background hardwired onto
the device. So, at an organizational
level, we can push
out that blurred background,
and all of the users would
have that as standard. Takes
the workload off the CPU in
your laptop, and everything
happens on the device.
We're working hard to think
of small, incremental wins
that make a hybrid workplace
a better place to be.
commercialintegrator.com
http://www.commercialintegrator.com
Commercial Integrator 2023

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