Houseparty

Houseparty lets you host virtual parties with up to eight friends via video calls. What makes it incredibly sticky? A host of built-in games such as Trivia, Heads Up and Guac & Chips. 
Ideal for: Friends and coworkers to catch-up for a break
What we love: The game Quick Draw, where your friends guess what you are doodling in real-time

Netflix Party

Miss going to the movies? Netflix’ Google Chrome extension allows you and your friends to watch Netflix together without having to be in the same room. 
Ideal for: Catching up with friends 
What we love: A chat room feature that makes it a truly social experience

Squad 

A squad that consumes content together, stays together. Chat, video call, and screen-share YouTube, TikTok videos and so on, with up to nine friends with Squad. 
Ideal for: Catching up with friends 
What we love: The screenshare option that lets you watch videos together with your friends

Facebook Messenger

Let’s face it—your parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents, even, are on Facebook. Catch up with up to eight of them with Facebook Messenger‘s free video calls with no duration limit. 
Ideal for: Family catch-ups
What we love: A bunch of face filters to liven up your conversation 

Zoom

Zoom is one of the most popular business video conference apps out there, thanks to its reliability and solid video call quality. With its free plan, you can host an unlimited number of meetings with a 40-minute duration limit. For remote teams, the paid plans come with an array of features like unlimited cloud storage, admin dashboard, and company branding. If you’re looking to conduct webinars with a large number of participants, we’d recommend Zoom.
Ideal for: Webinars and remote team meetings
What we love: The option to add a fun virtual background 

For the sake of convenience, let us consider a coffee shop that provides facilities including high-quality coffee, snacks, and wi-fi. Here is the break-up of what four people would spend in a cafe as compared to a meeting room in Converge.

A comparative analysis of how much one ends up spending at a cafe vis-à-vis renting a well-equipped space at Converge reveals that one ends up spending more at a cafe, yet benefiting less, both in terms of the tangible or the intangible aspects.

Cafes Vs Converge: Breaking Down the Difference

*T&C apply

Conclusion

Coffee shops have their advantages and are even good places to have a casual meeting with people who share a deeper relationship. They are also great places to get a certain type of work done. However, if you are looking at having more serious business conversations and making important decisions, it requires a professional setting such as meeting rooms at Converge. 

Looking for meeting and event spaces? Check out Converge by CoWrks here.

However, meeting rooms are also something that is often ignored in terms of design. Meeting room design can have a significant impact on the outcome of the discussion. Design elements such as the type and placement of furniture, conferencing equipment, lighting, acoustics and room decor play an important role in the direction a meeting can go. Yet, most meeting room designs seen today fail to support the types of conversations that take place inside. Here’s why:

Uniform room size

A workspace environment usually witnesses different types of interactions on a regular basis, from 1-on-1 meetings and a quick stand-up meeting to a full-fledged client presentation. Hence, meeting rooms should be designed to match the different types of requirements. However, the problem workspaces often face is that meeting and conference rooms are of uniform size and do not support different types of interactions. 

Oversized and underutilised rooms

Another problem workspaces often witness is that a significant portion of their meeting rooms are empty even during a meeting. According to data collected by CBRE, JLL, and Density, a people count sensor platform, only 40% of meeting rooms are occupied when a meeting is in progress. The percentage of participants who occupy larger rooms in a week falls further. For example, Density witnessed that the larger meeting rooms were occupied by only seven people for only 2% of the workday.

This creates a problem of suboptimal utilization of meeting rooms. Another problem it creates is that when a smaller team utilises a large meeting room, a team that actually needs a larger space will be left searching for one.

Faulty technology

Imagine that your meeting is about to begin and you are unable to connect your device to the projector or the internet connection stops in the middle of a conference. The time it takes for you to fix the problem is a loss of your productive time. Multiply this time with the number of participants waiting for the meeting to begin or continue. This is a significant loss of everybody’s valuable time.

Technology failure is a common problem that often plagues meeting and conference rooms. Some of the common technical problems involve poor wi-fi connections, faulty projections or display systems, stilted conference calls and presentations, and incompatible technology that make participants unable to connect their devices.

Another challenge many organisations often face is the lack of technology for booking meeting rooms which often leads to problems such as double bookings and no-show meetings. Without a proper booking system, teams find it difficult to know if a meeting space is available or not. According to a Steelcase Workplace Survey, about 40% of employees waste up to 30 minutes a day or 3.5 hours a week looking for an empty meeting room. This means that the lack of a proper meeting room booking system can affect employee productivity.

No-show meetings can additionally lead to wastage of meeting room resources such as electricity, wi-fi, and conferencing tech. 

Outdated designs

Another common problem associated with conference and meeting rooms is poor and outdated designs. Poor design can range from improper lighting and wrong acoustics to wrong screen size and uncomfortable furniture. For example, according to a study by the American Society of Interior Design, about 68% of the people complain about the lighting in their offices.

Similarly, a 2016 study by Gensler shows that three people sitting in a mid-sized conference room can generate an ability-limiting level of CO2 within one hour. This means that lack of sufficient ventilation can stifle the discussions in a meeting room.  

How modern meeting and conference rooms should be designed

Design spaces according to the purpose

Before adding a meeting room, it is important to know the different purposes a meeting space can be used for. Spaces should be designed and built to match the different sizes of groups and types of interactions that commonly take place. Additionally, meeting room analytics and utilization data can be employed in gaining a fair understanding of the right mix of sizes and types of meeting rooms to be added. 

It is a good idea to experiment with modular room designs. This helps in scaling up or down the meeting space depending on the need without hampering the meeting room experience.

Design for comfort

Everything you design for a meeting room should spell comfort be it lighting, air, acoustics, furniture or movement space. Sufficient care must be taken when installing the lighting and sound fixtures as well as ventilation in the room. For example, the light, air conditioning, and chairs should be comfortable enough so that people can focus on the discussion instead of getting distracted by the uncomfortable ambiance. Even if discussions extend beyond a certain duration, people should feel comfortable enough to sit for a longer time.  

Similarly, acoustics should be designed such that there is no sound echo, reverberation, or feedback between speakers and microphones. For rooms without windows, sufficient light must be provided while for rooms with too much natural light, blinds may have to be used to reduce light. 

Employ user-friendly technology

While selecting a meeting room equipment such as a video conferencing device, know the purpose of the room. While a room designed for a quick huddle may only need a whiteboard, marker, and a duster, a boardroom may need an advanced teleconferencing facility. 

Furthermore, meeting room technology must be user-friendly. For example, when users plug-in their device, they must be able to use it without hassles. The technology should further enable participants to share their screens and content seamlessly with other participants from a device of their choice. There are quite a few conferencing platforms that make it easy for participants to use their device to share audio, video, and data with other participants.

Technology should also be extended to meeting room bookings. Using a good booking system and ensuring the meeting room users follow the best practices of booking helps in utilising the rooms more efficiently and improves employee productivity.

Be creative

A person can instinctively feel comfortable or cautious as soon he/she enters a meeting or conference room. This depends significantly on the atmosphere the room projects. A meeting room design goes beyond the placement of the furniture or the equipment. The meeting or conference room should exude an atmosphere that is comfortable for a participant. To make this possible, there are certain design principles that should be taken into consideration.

Some of them include: 

• Emotions and feelings: Consider what emotions and feelings you want to evoke in your participants. Design elements such as visuals, seating arrangement, colour, lighting, and music should be chosen according to these feelings.
• Theme and identity: A good integration between the meeting room and brand themes instills a sense of familiarity and belongingness in the participants. Brand colours, slogans, and logo play an important role in infusing this feeling.
• Lines and shapes: Lines and shapes are important to set the mood of the space. Soft lines and circular shapes often create a sense of comfort and openness. 

Once you have fulfilled the hard requirements of the meeting room, you can get creative with the interiors. However, ensure that the designs focus on enhancing the productivity of the rooms instead of distracting the participants. Choose carpets, furniture and colour schemes that reflect your corporate culture while providing the necessary impetus for the meeting room goals.  

For example, if you are choosing a colour template, use your company colours to enhance the meeting room experience. For more formal conference rooms and boardrooms, choose neutral colours. Similarly, glass and chrome provide a modern and clean look to your meeting room. 

In closing

Meeting spaces are more than what meets the eye. They are where productive interactions happen. Meeting room design can impact the way meetings are conducted and the direction they take. Following modern design techniques can help achieve the most out of the interactions that take place in these spaces.

Looking for a meeting or a conference room that suits your needs? Click here.

What is event promotion? Event promotion is making the most of marketing strategies to drive registrations and get the word out about a brand, product, or service through live events. It is considered one of the most effective forms of marketing as it can help you build a strong relationship with potential and existing customers. Tools of event promotion can range from emails, flyers to Instagram posts. You can also come up with unique event marketing ideas to interest your target base. In simpler words, any marketing gimmick that you use to your advantage to draw customers to your event and successfully create awareness about your brand, product or service, is called event promotion. There is no other marketing strategy that allows a company to connect personally to their customer base as much as promotional events do.

Now the question arises, how do you promote your event, ensure registrations, register attended and also stay within a stipulated budget? What is event planning‘s next step? As an event marketer, here are some techniques you can effectively use to draw leverage to your event:

Promote your event by making the best use of existing channels

As they say, start closer to home. Begin working with what you already have. If your company already has a marketing team in place, utilise those channels to promote your brand events. Read on for a couple of ways in which you can use existing channels to be beneficial for you:

Blog posts

Blogs are a great way to interact with your audience and get the desired message across. Start posting updates about your event in an existing blog page and update it regularly with related content that can drive registrations and draw leverage to the event. Get a call-to-action blog post written by a hot-shot influencer with an impressive number of followers, or a single piece that draws attention to the nitty-gritty of your event. Let your audience know about the event, keep them up to date and while you’re at it, bring in a personal touch to add value.

Newsletters

Conventional as it sounds, newsletters are an effective way of conveying a message, and have time and again proven to be useful in nature. Newsletters can be sent out as part of both pre and post-event promotional strategies. Send out newsletters with recurring emails about your event at timely intervals to keep your audience in the loop. It is an imperative marketing strategy which does not require a lot of investment. Additionally, you can try and create a “lead magnet” that acts as an added incentive to your readers when they subscribe to your newsletter.

Have a strong SEO presence on the event website

As important as it is to have a website, it is equally essential to build and optimise the site to bring in smooth results. Start by optimising on-page elements like meta tags and descriptions, alt texts and more to make the page user-friendly, adaptable and easy to navigate for your viewers. Have a strong SEO strategy in place; target all the essential keywords that you feel might draw numbers to your website. A well-outlined website is a worthy contributor to direct client retention since users tend to reflect on a page by its navigability.

Utilise attendees in your marketing campaign

Your past attendees are crucial to an upcoming event, regardless of whether they have already signed up for it or not. Utilise positive reviews or feedback they’ve given earlier and integrate them into your existing strategy; methods like these help increase goodwill. Encourage them to create a positive buzz on social media but posting updates stating previous experiences while using your event hashtag. In return, you could bring in incentives for your attendees by creating personalised gifts, or you could add a discount promo code for each referral. Advocacy marketing is slowly foraying its way when it comes to branding through events and with the widespread popularity of social media channels; it’s a great way to increase traction. 

Promote your event on social media

Social media has proved to be one of the most effective ways of communication, both one-way and two-ways. Whether it is specific information you want to pass on to a targeted group of audience, or you want feedback on a certain topic of discussion, it is social media to the rescue. Here are a couple of tips you can use to streamline your social media strategy:

Use consistent hashtags

Your hashtag ties all your social media posts together, hence, settle on a consistent hashtag for all your posts related to the event. Ask your attendees to use this hashtag on all their posts across any of the social media platforms. Not only does this help you trend a topic or event but also ensure that a buzz is created just in time for your event. Additionally, a consistent hashtag helps to track the posts on social media.

Sponsor content on LinkedIn

Just like any other platform that works on the concept of a newsfeed, LinkedIn allows you to display sponsored content. So, if you know that a large part of your audience is active LinkedIn users, choose the platform to sponsor your event advertisement and promote a formal event. The company has an elaborate database of professionals who belong to a multitude of fields, which ensures that your targeted audience is varied and come from various kinds of backgrounds. Sponsored content on LinkedIn can also ensure that you contribute to value-added marketing, eventually beneficial for your event.

Retarget ads on Facebook

While brand positioning through events, as an event marketer, you also need to delve into the concept of retargeting ads on Facebook. Facebook helps you retarget ads to viewers who have visited your website but not registered for the event. Insert an HTML code provided by Facebook, which enables Facebook to track visitors on your page and once if they log into their Facebook account; it pops up recurring advertisements about the event reminding them to sign up for it.

Share referral links for each user registration

Using referral links is an organic method to garner attendees and promote your event. For every referral add an incentive, therefore every time a new user registers on the website using a referral code, the original registrant gets a discount or reward. This technique is an effective way to ensure a wide campaign for your event.

Segregate your email campaign

Event promotion and email marketing go hand-in-hand. With a sound email marketing campaign, you can use email as one of the most effective ways to help promote your event. However, segmentation is important; which means you need to classify your email recipients into groups and then sending out content that may be most relevant to each group. The idea of segregated email campaigns is to promise the most optimised reading experience to your viewers. Here is how you can segregate users:

According to industry It is important to analyse the kind of industry you are targeting to ensure that your email is relevant. For obvious reasons, while sending an event email to an