3 ms·

You'd probably write these off as "$BIG_CO reinvents the wheel", but a few things these things did really well: - Big bright LED ring around the outside that g

You'd probably write these off as "$BIG_CO reinvents the wheel", but a few things these things did really well: - Big bright LED ring around the outside that glows red or green to tell you if the room was available. This was very useful when performing one of the most common big company rituals, craning your head while speedwalking to try to find a free meeting room. - 1-tap to book a room when you found such a free meeting room. They listed a bunch of common durations, including ones that rounded up to the next half-hour/hour. - The "outside" Gizmo is integrated with an identical Gizmo inside the room that controls the VC equipment, providing a consistent UX. This is something I only appreciated after leaving: at my current company, the two are sourced from different companies and don't integrate -- you have to exit the meeting room and use the "outside" tablet to extend your meeting or check in, for example. - When a meeting was running over and people checked in on the "outside" Gizmo, a loud ping sounded on the "inside" Gizmo to tell everybody to GTFO. This was not always successful. Some pictures: https://andrea-locatelli.com/facebook-roomtool https://andrea-locatelli.com/facebook-roomtool

rachelbythebay 6y ago
Pro tip: once people are working in offices again, if this happens, whip out your phone and dial the room directly. People tend to speed up when they realize they are blocking someone far away from dialing in, even when they don't seem to give a crap about the people standing just outside the door. Of course, the ones who see your name dialing in and then spot you outside the room a few seconds later will be confused at first, and later may get annoyed with you, but remember, they were the ones who were being abusive.
- lightgreen 6y ago
  It’s OK-ish to just open the door, say something like “uh sorry our meeting just started in this room”, then leave but keep the door open.
  - phillco 6y ago
    I always wanted to breeze in, sit down, and say, “so, what are we talking about?” but never had the guts.
    - piva00 6y ago
      Which is probably good you didn't have the guts. Being passive-aggressive-impolite to people won't help them to be more polite about running over others' time. I always did the knock-on-door + tell them my meeting time has started and never had an issue, be assertive and people will move quickly. Escalating impoliteness doesn't help anyone except your own sense of self-justice.
      - phillco 6y ago
        Don’t worry, it was not a very seriously considered idea.
    - Izkata 6y ago
      Back in school, I was one of those people who watched the clock so I could just zoom out when it was time. That habit led me to assume others did the same, so when I started my first job I assumed meetings would end on time and I tended to just walk in without checking who is actually in the room (then pause and quietly back out when they all looked at me). Eventually broke the habit, but for the time I was doing it it did break up the previous meeting pretty quickly.
  - ThePadawan 6y ago
    This is also a helpful tip if the room has more than one door. I can't tell you how often my team knocked at door A to throw out another group that then all left by door B, leaving us waiting outside until we knocked again 5min later.
- nindalf 6y ago
  A simple knock usually suffices in my experience. Only a couple of times have people not heeded a knock, and there were extenuating circumstances.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  The physical rooms usually don't have phone numbers. The virtual meetings do. Anyway, peers shouldn't blame each other for management refusing to provide enough meeting space. It's management's fault.
  - bayindirh 6y ago
    Our physical rooms have phones and external phone numbers. Also we had a big teleconference room back in the day where we did hybrid meetings. So, it depends. :)
tareqak 6y ago
If everyone is reinventing the wheel, then it means the incumbent products are too expensive or lack some necessary features. On the one hand, I agree that these devices are pretty useful, and there is some measure of thanks for the big companies inventing them. On the other hand, these devices don’t seem to be as well-marketed compared to the things the big companies are known for (probably because the margins are probably not as good at big company scale / the big company is too specialized around its cash cows to really refine these innovations into something that people or other companies would buy). It seems like an innovator’s dilemma to me. I guess I have better idea of what Steve Jobs and Bill Gates meant when they said that they only used some of the ideas they saw at Xerox PARC. Follow-up questions: 1. Have you seen anything at any of the companies that you’ve worked at and isn’t part of the company’s business, but is cool and should/could be used elsewhere? 2. In contrast to 1., have you seen anything that some of the companies that you’ve worked that isn’t part of the business that they repeatedly perform poorly?
temikus 6y ago
That’s definitely not reinventing the wheel. As someone who used to be Service Desk for a very large company I can say that those (not even cheap) off-the-shelf MIMO panels caused so many call-outs to reseat/restart/replace them that I bet you’d actually save money by developing something that works reliably well.

rachelbythebay 6y ago

Pro tip: once people are working in offices again, if this happens, whip out your phone and dial the room directly. People tend to speed up when they realize they are blocking someone far away from dialing in, even when they don't seem to give a crap about the people standing just outside the door. Of course, the ones who see your name dialing in and then spot you outside the room a few seconds later will be confused at first, and later may get annoyed with you, but remember, they were the ones who were being abusive.

lightgreen 6y ago
It’s OK-ish to just open the door, say something like “uh sorry our meeting just started in this room”, then leave but keep the door open.
- phillco 6y ago
  I always wanted to breeze in, sit down, and say, “so, what are we talking about?” but never had the guts.
  - piva00 6y ago
    Which is probably good you didn't have the guts. Being passive-aggressive-impolite to people won't help them to be more polite about running over others' time. I always did the knock-on-door + tell them my meeting time has started and never had an issue, be assertive and people will move quickly. Escalating impoliteness doesn't help anyone except your own sense of self-justice.
    - phillco 6y ago
      Don’t worry, it was not a very seriously considered idea.
  - Izkata 6y ago
    Back in school, I was one of those people who watched the clock so I could just zoom out when it was time. That habit led me to assume others did the same, so when I started my first job I assumed meetings would end on time and I tended to just walk in without checking who is actually in the room (then pause and quietly back out when they all looked at me). Eventually broke the habit, but for the time I was doing it it did break up the previous meeting pretty quickly.
- ThePadawan 6y ago
  This is also a helpful tip if the room has more than one door. I can't tell you how often my team knocked at door A to throw out another group that then all left by door B, leaving us waiting outside until we knocked again 5min later.
nindalf 6y ago
A simple knock usually suffices in my experience. Only a couple of times have people not heeded a knock, and there were extenuating circumstances.
srtjstjsj 6y ago
The physical rooms usually don't have phone numbers. The virtual meetings do. Anyway, peers shouldn't blame each other for management refusing to provide enough meeting space. It's management's fault.
- bayindirh 6y ago
  Our physical rooms have phones and external phone numbers. Also we had a big teleconference room back in the day where we did hybrid meetings. So, it depends. :)

tareqak 6y ago

If everyone is reinventing the wheel, then it means the incumbent products are too expensive or lack some necessary features. On the one hand, I agree that these devices are pretty useful, and there is some measure of thanks for the big companies inventing them. On the other hand, these devices don’t seem to be as well-marketed compared to the things the big companies are known for (probably because the margins are probably not as good at big company scale / the big company is too specialized around its cash cows to really refine these innovations into something that people or other companies would buy). It seems like an innovator’s dilemma to me. I guess I have better idea of what Steve Jobs and Bill Gates meant when they said that they only used some of the ideas they saw at Xerox PARC. Follow-up questions: 1. Have you seen anything at any of the companies that you’ve worked at and isn’t part of the company’s business, but is cool and should/could be used elsewhere? 2. In contrast to 1., have you seen anything that some of the companies that you’ve worked that isn’t part of the business that they repeatedly perform poorly?

temikus 6y ago

That’s definitely not reinventing the wheel. As someone who used to be Service Desk for a very large company I can say that those (not even cheap) off-the-shelf MIMO panels caused so many call-outs to reseat/restart/replace them that I bet you’d actually save money by developing something that works reliably well.