Huddle Spaces - Is it
football season already?
Build more Huddle Spaces! Or, at least build the rooms
you’ve already been building, and call them Huddle Spaces because it’s time
once again to add to the plethora of football terminology in AV. Since no one
will know what you’re talking about anymore if you mention Collaboration,
Ad-Hoc, or Study Rooms, make a rushing attempt to relabel those drawings before
you’re sacked.
In an unnecessary effort to help perpetuate this trend, here
are some suggestions for other football-themed spaces we can build.
Dead zone
Meeting rooms used by upper
management for endless powerpoints, where your tortured soul leaves your body
by about hour four, that’s if your bladder lasts for the duration.
End zone
Rooms where excessive celebration
at the end of a long AV-challenged meeting will cost you a penalty.
Red zone
Meeting spaces within twenty yards
of the executive suite, where AV failure rates increase exponentially.
Bench
Meeting
room with inferior AV, reserved for the less important, or underfunded projects.
Neutral Zone
Imaginary meeting space with
excellent AV, where all ideas are considered solely on their merits, and all
input is valued equally.
Of course, football terms can also be names of important features
found in meeting spaces:
Goal line
Exit door of a Red Zone room
farthest from the executive suite
Hash marks
When
the previous meeting’s participants didn’t clean the table after the breakfast
buffet
Line of Scrimmage
Line on the meeting room table past
which the single available HDMI cable will not reach, also the imaginary line
dividing participants across which it is rude to reach for the donut box
Sideline
Cheap seats around the outside
walls of an undersized huddle space, located out of camera shot, for those not
important enough to claim a chair at the table
Finally, football terms can be applied to many procedural
issues during the meeting, regardless of the complexity of the tech:
False start
Restarting the meeting because of
a videoconferencing failure. Penalty involves overtime.
Illegal procedure
Any
attempt to collaborate without the use of Powerpoint.
Turnover
What
will be gone from the pastry tray by the time you get to it.
Two-minute warning
What you give tech support when
you call, a measure of onsite response and issue resolution time, beyond which
jobs are lost.
Punt
Postponing the meeting, because
screen-share failed.
Rush
Skipping over your last 20 bullet
points to wrap up before the videoconference times out.
Running out the clock
Going over your last 20 bullet
points in excruciating detail because the videoconference hasn’t timed out yet.
Touchdown
Successful completion of a meeting
with fully functional AV. Rare but desired outcome in any game, er, meeting.
