Meeting spaces in today’s offices and institutional facilities are vastly different from the stodgy conference rooms of old. This trend is driven both by advancing technology and the changing way people work. Technology has enabled greater collaboration, either in face-to-face meeting spaces or via the web using video conferencing.

Because people spend less time at their own desks, facility managers and corporate planners are creating more dedicated spaces designed to encourage interaction among workers. These rooms are designed to support multiple meeting types, including training, presentations, and collaboration, with furniture that can be easily reconfigured. However, flexibility can be compromised by a lack of easy access to power, data, and audio/video at any point in the room.

Dysfunctional meeting rooms

In order to better understand issues relating to meeting room cable management, Legrand conducted ethnographic research into how workers in commercial office, financial, educational, and healthcare facilities meet and how they interact with technology. This research included a virtual focus group with facility managers, telephone interviews with end users, customer surveys, and face-to-face interviews with more than 40 people. This research also included conducting photo studies in many facilities.

The key finding? Many meeting rooms lack full functionality. Among the problems discovered were:

• The number and complexity of cables that come with ever-expanding technology;
• Tangles of cords and cables under and on top of tables;
• Running wires on the floor from the wall to a table, often covered by duct tape as a make-do safety measure;
• “Work-arounds” and “jury-rigged” cabling that compromise the original installation and make accessing technology difficult;
• A lack of easy access to power and/or USB device charging;
• No easy access to A/V connections; and
• Systems that are not fully accessible for upgrades or additions.

Interestingly, in one-on-one interviews, users rarely articulated cable management as a problem, even though photo studies showed otherwise.

Cable management needs

Creating cable management systems that address these issues requires direct input from people who install, manage and maintain meeting room spaces, including facility managers, network administrators and A/V integrators. Legrand design engineers observed how space was being used and how people come together to get work done. Among the research’s findings were the need for:

• Adequate, accessible power;
• Flexibility to reconfigure space to suit the needs of team members;
• Enhanced aesthetics, because a finished look is important; and
• Accessibility for future add-ons or change-outs.

Wireless systems have largely eliminated the need to provide direct network access in meeting rooms, but the availability of power and A/V is still critical. Links to these infrastructure components must cross the floor, run under the floor or be provided from above through a pole or column. No matter which pathway is selected, wires and cables must be properly managed over the “last metre” to the work surface to eliminate unsightly tangles on and under tables.

Cable management can have a significant impact on meeting rooms and the people who work in them. Facility managers shouldn’t overlook the role of the cabling and electrical infrastructure in supporting new work styles. Ultimately, by transforming inefficient meeting rooms into well-connected space, facility managers can enable users to focus on their business, and not on the technology.

Jeff McDermott is a product marketing manager at Legrand North America in West Hartford, Conn. He has also served as a product development engineer. He currently heads up Legrand’s meeting room initiative.