The Modern Workplaces – People, Places, Technologies

CenturyLink is a telecommunications company that offers high-speed internet, fiber, voice, phone, and TV services for both residential and small business customers. Following their dedication to empowering people through technology, both at home and at work, we designed and implemented 

a solution that integrated AV, control, and collaboration tools that lead to more productive interactions across the organization, given the present pandemic situation.

The Opportunity

With the present pandemic, the client had adopted Microsoft Teams across the entire organization and was looking to create several collaboration spaces utilizing the complete Microsoft Teams collaboration suite with the native user experience across the entire office space.

They had planned several collaboration spaces like Small to Large Conference Rooms, Collaboration Spaces for BYOM & Presentation, Training Rooms, and a large Multi-purpose cafeteria for greater flexibility, especially with larger audiences.

The pandemic and ensuing work and travel restrictions put a very tight timeframe for the completion of this project, which required exact planning and execution.

The Design

The client wanted to enable the employees with better tools for communication & collaboration and Presentation People was engaged to bring this vision into practice. The organization placed great emphasis on total flexibility in their collaboration spaces — which meant the spaces would adapt to the need of the teams using them, making them suitable for use across different functions and room sizes.

Presentation People helped create several versions of collaboration spaces including Small Informal Collaboration Spaces, VC rooms, Training Rooms, and a cafeteria. 

The Solution

The cafeteria was a large space planned to be used for smaller audiences to a full capacity of 490 seats as a Town Hall space. 

The Digital Cafeteria is equipped with a large 3×3 Video Wall set up as the main display and 5 ceiling-mounted Led displays to provide high visibility for content to the participants sitting anywhere in the large space. Microsoft Teams Video conferencing has also been enabled in this space with multiple high-performance Lumens cameras to cover the speaker as well as the audience. Harman audio including beamforming line array speakers, high-performance wireless microphones, and a BSS Digital Audio Server ensures clarity of audio, especially during VC calls. The entire solution needs the end-user to connect a single cable to their laptops to start using the intuitive and easy-to-use AV system.

Each Training Room is equipped with a large Samsung QM85N display, which can be accessed wirelessly and through ergonomically placed connectivity interfaces. Surface & Ceiling mounted JBL speakers and AKG wireless microphones are combined with a BSS Digital Audio Server to ensure perfect audio quality in every possible room application.

Several Collaboration Spaces were designed for more informal and on-the-fly meetings, which have a more basic setup and support smaller groups. This includes smaller 2-4 seat breakout spaces which have a 49” display, & an HDMI interface for connectivity.

There are several Microsoft Teams Rooms with seating capacity varying from 6 to 18 seats. These rooms feature a larger 65” inch display and use the Crestron Flex unit for VC. This is an integrated unit that consists of the display, and intelligent all-in-one camera soundbar and features a 10.1 in. touch screen which provides superior conferencing control. Wireless device connectivity allows users to connect their devices with ease.

In the larger 15-seater Microsoft Teams rooms larger 85” Displays, high-performance full HD(1080p) PTZ cameras, additional ceiling microphones, cable cubbies, and speakers have also been incorporated to ensure every participant is clearly audible. Wireless device connectivity allows users to connect their devices with ease. A higher level of control and convenience is provided in these VC rooms with a Crestron control system.

The Final Impression

The new unified collaboration infrastructure designed & implemented by Presentation People will have a considerable impact on the employee’s capability to utilize technology to match and serve their needs for any collaboration, learning, and meeting scenarios.

While individual rooms will help provide more powerful tools for in-room and remote collaboration, an even larger impact will be achieved due to the flexibility that they offer when combined.