Crestron Masters has always been a key event for the workplace and AV technology professionals, and for 2021 it has been completely redesigned as a virtual event. Running from 27-30 April with a mix of live and pre-programmed training sessions, the virtual conference offers the perfect opportunity for Crestron-certified programmers, technology architects, and system designers to catch up on the latest Crestron technology, and explore trends and new opportunities for the workplace and beyond.  

This year for the first time ever, the event’s opening keynote, “Innovation Fuels Us” was made available to the public. With additional input from strategic partners Microsoft, Zoom, and Samsung, the keynote offered valuable insight into Crestron’s vision for workplace technology, content distribution, remote cloud management, smart home systems, and beyond. 

Hybrid work is the future of work 

During the Keynote, Brad Hintze, EVP of Marketing at Crestron, and Ilya Bukshteyn, General Manager of Microsoft Teams Devices at Microsoft, spoke about how hybrid work has shaped the way we communicate and what expectations we have developed for collaboration. This includes equipping all meeting spaces, not just the large rooms, with dedicated devices that allow employees to see and hear all meeting participants.  

“What may have been acceptable pre-pandemic, is not acceptable now,” Bukshteyn explained. “I’ve had CIOs tell me they are worried employees will turn around and go home if they can’t see each other and feel equal to the other people in the meeting.” 

Hintze’s conversation with Jeff Smith, Head of Zoom Rooms at Zoom, explored how insights from the past year will inform the migration to the hybrid workplace. In the last year, “employees have proven that they are able to work remotely,” Smith explained. The new challenge is providing an effective hybrid environment to optimize the scenarios for those physically in the office and remote participants.”  

Smith noted that employees will arrive at the office with more intent than before, with expectations to be with their colleagues, connect with their teams, and collaborate together. Meeting spaces need to be equipped with solutions that enable this collaboration in-person, while also creating equity of experience for remote participants. Simplicity and ease of use apply not only to the user but to the administrator that is deploying, installing, and managing that equipment. 

Bringing the Crestron vision to life 

Crestron’s keynote also told the stories of a diverse range of customers, including NASA JPL and the American football team, the Green Bay Packers.

Stories like these left attendees inspired as well as enlightened, as they prepare for a future of connected hybrid collaboration — where the latest collaboration tooling will enable the frictionless multimedia engagements, we’ve all grown used to while working from home. “A client told us recently, if he walks into a conference room and there’s just a star phone on the table, he’s going to go home,” Gross explained.

The standards for collaboration have changed, and video collaboration is now a baseline requirement for all industries and markets.

For a complete look at innovations and trends discussed during the “Innovation Fuels Us” Keynote, you can learn more directly from Crestron. 

 

 



from UC Today https://ift.tt/3e6nBMK