In this fast paced millennia, just about all aspects of society have been positively (or adversely) affected by the rapid evolution of technology. Can you imagine working in your modern day office space in the Philippines without the comfort of high speed internet and all the advances of modern technology? As any business professional can attest, things such as communications, project management and presentations have all been altered by these leaps in technology.
Here’s a Throwback
25 years ago, the office and the meeting room were dominated by typewriters, whiteboards, and an overhead projector. Presentations were made in person and notes and copies were hand written. Things were simple, with more interpersonal communication— however things were inconvenient and the scope of the meeting is extremely limited to those physically present in the room.
During the mid-80s to early 90s our presentations and meetings were handled in accordance to what we can do in a limited manual environment. Remember how inconvenient it was when we had to provide vocal cues for presentations and work with manual slideshows over drawing boards or larger articles of paper just to show our business plans or strategies? Since everything was technologically wanting it also became hard to convey larger ideas over larger spaces.
Then came the last decade of the 20th century when technology continued to improve; however, and soon we were dragging our laptops to meetings, where we will connect it to a projector and show off our PowerPoint skills via an endless array of slides.
Hello, 21st Century
During the 2000s, in order for your presentation to have that “wow factor”, you needed to spend about a fortune on meeting room technology. This was the era in which many companies purchased super expensive equipment with the idea that the technology would be so advanced that you could leave it as a legacy to the next generation of users. However, things happened to move so fast that the speed at which technology becomes obsolete is second only to the speed at which its price drops as newer and better versions made it to market. Here’s a long, expensive and cumbersome list of tools we used before:
- Big Screen Projection TVs
- Digital Projection Systems
- Wall and Ceiling-Mounted Speakers
- Speakerphone Units
- Video Conferencing Systems
- DVD Players and AV Controllers
The 2010s and beyond
Let’s move forward to the present times. Today, there are numerous mobile apps and programs that can allow you to spread your ideas over the Internet to others no matter where they are as long as they have access to the internet. Now, even if you have an office space in Cebu, you can interact with clients and partners across the globe via platforms such as Skype. Information can now be presented in a much more interactive way— real time— thanks to the advancements of modern technology.
Now, the meeting room has become an amalgamation of the latest technologies. From markers and slides we’ve moved forward to an era of tablets and smartphones to communicate and manage our projects. Video conferencing has started taking over— ushering the end of the meeting room altogether.
Soon the need for a physical meeting room itself might disappear, as more advanced software and presentation platforms become cheaper and easier to access.
