How to achieve better collaboration in your workplace

[Patricia Finlayson (Patfin)]

All of these trends point toward a world that is increasingly visual, populated by people who want to see—both content and faces. The world is more virtual than ever before, allowing people to connect and collaborate from any location. There are video-enabled devices that allow for rich connectivity for visual content and real-time video. Cloud services are growing, but there is still a need to work with on-premise solutions so a hybrid model will remain prominent for years to come.

All this rapid innovation and change has created a workplace that is everywhere. Only the most agile organizations can make that “work everywhere” workplace real today.

Not only is the technology changing but workspaces have evolved too. There are new ways of working such as flexible work times, dispersed work teams and remote working. Rooms are also changing with open, collaborative designs and smaller meeting spaces such as huddle rooms for 2 – 3 people.

As a result there is a move from traditional meeting formats to more informal, collaborative work practices. Meetings are more likely to be ad hoc rather than scheduled and less controlled or structured. The focus is on working together rather than on being presented to in a relaxed, comfortable environment. The optimum meeting experience is gained by having all the collaboration tools in the centre of the room – so the meeting becomes more focused and equitable.

Key considerations to achieve success.

One of the main things that you need to consider is to make sure that all collaboration systems can work together - the path to pervasive collaboration is through open standards and the network effect of being able to connect with the most people. End user experience also has to be simple and intuitive and to take into account human factors and integration into the way they work.

New ways of working require new tools so look for solutions that offer functionality with innovation. Having great collaboration tools that no-one can understand how to use is counter productive

If the organisation has or is moving to a full Microsoft solution – choose a company that can provide voice, video, and content solutions that natively integrate with Skype for Business / Microsoft Lync, SharePoint, Exchange and Office 365. Native integration means that no extra equipment will be needed to collaborate in the Microsoft environment.

Polycom has a broad set of collaboration solutions and of these we have close to 40 solutions that integrate into a Microsoft Skype for Business and Office 365 environment.

So if you are new to video conferencing or what to learn about the latest ways to drive use of collaborative technology then join me and Neil Fluester, our EMEA Senior Product Manager, on the 23rd June at 10am BST by registering for our latest webinar here. To get involved you can join the #ChoosePolycom twitter hashtag to be part of the full conversation.

If you are unable to make the webinar you can always watch the on-demand version afterwards which will be available on to view on our events page - http://www.polycom.co.uk/company/events.html or you can alternatively visit www.polycom.co.uk/go/ChoosePolycom to see some of the latest technology and innovations available to help you achieve better collaboration in the workplace.

Good luck…..