SCN: What prompted you to establish RoomReady, and when did you open your doors?
Aaron McArdle: I started a low-voltage/communications division for an electrical contractor (Zeller Electric) in 2002. I bought them out and spun off as a separate company in 2007 (Zeller Digital Innovations). The Zeller brothers were getting close to retirement planning, and the investments I wanted them to make in the business were not part of their plan. I wanted to aggressively grow the business through investment in different technologies, leveraging Ethernet and taking advantage of network topologies in new low-voltage systems applications.
[Executive Q&A: Under the Radar]
Zdi was a traditional low-voltage contractor. We installed physical security systems, fiber optic, horizontal cable, outside plant, and AV systems. RoomReady was an eventual division focused on installing meeting room technology for Cisco partners nationwide. RoomReady quickly started to outpace the other divisions of the company to the point that we sunset the other divisions—and the Zdi brand—and adopted RoomReady as our sole focus.
SCN: What verticals are driving the most business for RoomReady?
AMcA: We have the luxury of working for some of the largest companies in the world. Our demographic of client is more aligned to company size than vertical market. Our value proposition is the most meaningful for companies with more than 500 meeting spaces, offices mostly in the U.S., with a need to standardize meeting space technology across the organization. We do a lot of work with very large banks, law firms, manufacturers, and insurance companies. RoomReady has 11 patents on tools and processes to make meeting room easy to buy, deploy, and use.
SCN: How important is AI to modern meeting rooms?
AMcA: AI is going to change the way we view a meeting space, meetings, communication, and frankly business in general. AI will do everything from configure the room, monitor the room, self-service the systems in the room to take notes meeting participants, provide a summary of the meeting in .ppt form, and create automatic to-dos and reminders.
[SCN Hybrid World: Expert Insights and 16 Speakerphones to Know]
SCN: Is demand for hybrid meeting solutions still growing?
AMcA: Most companies assume that all meetings will have some remote participants, so good meeting room technology is more important than ever. Many companies are also using meeting room technology as a way to draw employees back into the office.
SCN: What are the key considerations for effective hybrid meeting rooms?
AMcA: Meeting equity. That’s a new term in our industry, but it means people on the far end have an experience as similar as possible to those in the room. Do all meeting participants have access to the same information, see the same information, and have the ability to participate in the meeting equally?
AI is going to change the way we view a meeting space, meetings, communication, and frankly business in general.
Consistency. Meeting rooms need to be the same … everywhere. Creating a common user experience was the trick a few years ago, but that’s all managed by the platform now. Consistency now refers to the way the systems are designed, configured, and assembled. The experience is produced through the tight relationship and partnership of the platform and the hardware manufacturer, and that is dependent upon each system being installed exactly the way they intended.
Dependability. Systems need to work every time. They are a business tool. If we can’t include the remote participants, we cancel the meeting. Simple as that.
[Top Integrators 2023: Meeting Equity]
SCN: During the consulting phase, what is something that most clients get wrong or don’t understand about meeting room technology?
AMcA: My brother once said, “The best way to screw up a project is to try to use technology to overcome a bad design.” We believe systems should be as simple as they can be, but not simpler. Understanding the nuance that some layers of complexity add consistency or dependability, while others add functional liability or risk. Also realizing the line between those ideas is consistently changing. Technology changes—and a layer of complexity that was needed on the last project to ensure consistency in the user experience may not be needed on the next. Now, it's wasted money and effort at best and a layer of liability at the worst.
SCN: RoomReady supports a variety of meeting platforms. Do clients have a rhyme or reason for choosing the “right” platform?
AMcA: That decision is usually made at a different time and by different teams. For most of our customers, the platform decision is generally decided by the team that makes desktop software decisions and is dictated to the facility or IT teams responsible for the room solution. It’s our job to help identify the best hardware solutions to fully utilize the platform features the end user values.
SCN: What prompted RoomReady to create its own hardware?
AMcA: The first piece of hardware we created was our RoomReady Set mount. Cisco challenged us to come up with a pricing model that allowed us to install a meeting room anywhere in the U.S. at a price consistent with a local integrator, without needing a site visit and with minimal downtime in the room. This was just when the industry started to move away from projectors and screens and into plasma displays. We identified that by mounting the hardware behind the display neatly, in a consistent footprint and concealed from view, we could eliminate most of the variables that caused added cost and complexity.
We also ventured into hardware and software development for a few years. The solutions we’ve created are still way ahead of the industry, but we realized we didn’t have a way to bring it to market in a meaningful way and allow us to capitalize on our investment. We retired that program right after COVID when we saw the platforms were going to align directly with the hardware manufactures, and integrator innovation would be marginalized. We still manufacture and sell the RoomReady Set, but many of the other products and software solutions have been shelved.
[Executive Q&A: Embracing Alliances]
SCN: What’s next for meeting room design and technology?
AMcA: AI. I think we’ll see a lot of manufacturers moving to manufacturing all the equipment need to deliver a room solution. The software (AI) is going to be unbelievably powerful—and to fully take advantage of its capabilities, all the components in the system will need to communicate seamlessly. Imagine you have a soft talker at one end of the table and a loud talker at the other. AI will notice and adjust the gain on the mics. Or if you have a meeting participant that is seated in a place that was unintended. The mics could reconfigure the beam to accommodate someone sitting on a windowsill. AI will also be able to know which meeting participants are paying attention and who isn’t. In new cars with advanced technology, your car can tell when your eyes are on the road right now and alert you when you’re dozing off. It won’t be long until we start to get similar meeting statistics.
