Dick Hobbs

Stories By Dick Hobbs

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  Apps

  Apps By Dick Hobbs

  One click wonder for corporate collaboration

  Improving collaboration in the corporate environment has been a long time goal for many businesses looking for better outcomes and efficiencies from their employees. One of the major focuses has been on overhauling the time-wasting and performance-restricting behaviours that make many meetings unproductive. Solutions such as Barco's wireless collaboration technology, ClickShare, is changing both the dynamics of meetings and the way companies meet. Instead of focusing on one presenter, ClickShare encourages all attendees to participate by showing all of the visual content on a large meeting room screen. The result is, it becomes far easier for everybody to prove their point and collaborate far more effectively. In essence, ClickShare means that connecting to the meeting room's video system is just a matter of clicking a button. It can help participants to get presentations on-screen in a second, and also allows the other people in the meeting to participate more actively. This is done using the unique ClickShare Button, or by installing a simple app to share content from an Android or iOS smartphone or tablet. The ClickShare wireless collaboration technology was the first of what was a relatively under-represented niche, yet the trend has grown substantially alongside employees using their personal devices into their place of work. ClickShare's real differentiator is that it allows up to four people to share the content from their respective devices on a single screen at the click of a button. The most obvious use for it in workplace meeting rooms would be presentations, but it would be equally suited to sales conferences, planning sessions and other meeting environments. Without the device, sharing content from PC, Mac, Android or iOS devices on meeting room screens requires the need for the right cables and/or adaptors to hand. Even then, there is no guarantee that it will come out at the correct resolution, so text may be unreadable. ClickShare automatically ensures content is displayed correctly and without having to use a physical connection. With pressure on corporate budgets increasing, it is worth investing in a technology that not only reduces inevitable IT support call-outs commonly associated with meeting room AV while improving collaboration in the workplace. With ClickShare, out of the box, there is a base unit, a burnished steel box around the size of games console, with a matching holder to fit four "buttons", the USB devices that plug directly into laptops. A free app is also available from the Apple App Store and the Google Play store for Android devices respectively. Setting up the box is straightforward. For instance the ClickShare CSM-1 set consists of two USB-powered devices (ClickShare Buttons) and a base unit. The base unit has a fixed connection to the meeting room's visualisation system, and takes care of all the needed processing. Users who want to get their presentation on the large meeting room screen, simply connect a Button to their PC or Mac. They start the application, click the ClickShare Button and immediately their desktop is wirelessly transferred to the large visualisation system. Alternatively, when using a smartphone or tablet, a simple app allows you to share content in the same way. A one-click wonder, Barco's ClickShare is a simple, easy to use system that will encourage engagement and co-operation in a variety of meeting room scenarios across many different industries.

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  Computing

  Computing By Dick Hobbs

  Barco ClickShare - Taking the time-wasting out of meetings

  Meetings are the biggest bugbears of many office employees, and are frequently viewed as one of the most irritating time-wasters of the modern corporate world. Rather than being a hub of ideas and collaboration, we've all been in meetings where multiple participants attempt to share presentations and information, and the presenter is then upstaged by a technological problem. Cue a flurry of screens, wires and red faces as the speaker restarts the process of plugging in and fiddling with the configuration. With the advent of BYOD, these meeting challenges have further increased, as people also want to share and show information from a range of devices with different operating systems and software. What is needed is a simple, wireless display sharing technology. The Barco ClickShare system is effectively a bridging technology that claims to have the potential to make meetings more efficient and productive. This type of wireless collaboration technology for meeting rooms and boardrooms has apparently gone from being an emerging to an established trend in the last couple of years, and is cropping up everywhere from hotel conference rooms to sales meetings and corporate boardrooms. Using Wifi, ClickShare automatically understands content on any device, and ensures it is displayed correctly without the hassle of setting up a physical connection. The device has a premium price point at around £3163. It is true that there are cheaper technologies on the market, generally using Bluetooth, which allow users to connect devices to a main screen wirelessly. However, these technologies have invariably been developed for home entertainment, whereas ClickShare is unapologetically designed for collaborative business applications. While the initial investment may be weighed up against the potential of saving a few minutes' frustration during meetings, Barco is keen to point out that a unit will pay for itself over time by reducing the inevitable IT support call-outs so commonly associated with meeting room AV. All of those wasted meeting minutes can certainly add up. Past surveys, such as one by officebroker.com, have calculated that a whole year could be lost in the average office worker's life. Aside from the measurable ROI, the less tangible benefits promise to improve the quality of meetings and promote collaboration among workers. ClickShare's real differentiator is that it allows up to four people to share the content from their respective devices on a single screen, switching between devices at any time with a single click. The most obvious use case for the boardroom would be presentations, but it would be equally suited to sales meetings, training and planning sessions, or whenever more than one person turns up with something to show on screen. So what do you get for your money? Out of the box, there is a base unit, a burnished steel box around the size of games console, with a matching holder to fit four "buttons", Barco's name for the USB device that plugs directly into laptops. A free app is also available from Apple's App Store and the Google Play store for iOS and Android devices respectively, giving the same level of connectivity from mobiles and tablets. Setting up the box is straightforward. The base unit is connected directly to a screen using the DVI to HDMI converter supplied. There is also a VGA output for projectors. Once you pair with a "button" by inserting it into the USB socket at the front of the box, you simply plug it into your laptop and an automatic pop-up offers the option to install a programme for posterity or configure the button for one-time use. At this stage ClickShare may not be something the average small business could budget for, but for a larger enterprise it is a user-friendly and elegant solution to the jumble of wires that often constitutes multi-device support in meeting rooms. BYOD has become a staple part of corporate life, and this sort of technology could prove invaluable to businesses who embrace the concept. And save the red faces of presenters now, and in the future.

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