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Barco’s Meeting Survey Finds When Technology Doesn’t Work, We ALL Get Stressed — Duh?

barco-infographic-stress-0516A week or so ago, I received a press release from Barco about a survey they did — it started, “9 in 10 office workers experience seriously elevated stress levels when dealing with troublesome technology during meetings.”

Duh, right?

Well, did you know that everyone’s stress level goes up when tech doesn’t work right — not just the presenter, but also the meeting attendees?

Well, it’s true – and as a presenter at well over 50 seminars or keynote speeches a year, I certainly have had my share of stress over AV gear connectivity and compatibility as well as seen firsthand the ripple effect it has on attendees. However, tech related stress is not just felt in meetings. In fact a great example of this tech-related stress ripple effect is one I experience often in my personal life as a proud father.

Case in point: my daughter swims on a year-round swim team. The meet schedule is prepared nearly a year in advance, everyone knows all the details. Yet, nearly EVERY SINGLE MEET starts late due to what else? Technology – specifically the Electronic Timing System (aka Colorado Timing System). So even though everyone, including the people in charge, know MONTHS ahead that the swim meet starts at 8 a.m., the timing system seems to nearly always fail at 7:59 a.m. making the swim meets start around 8:15-8:30 a.m. Always. Remind you of anything yet?

Barco’s survey has some interesting findings. In trying to deal with tech problems, staff are wasting significant amounts of their valuable time — 73 percent try to fix problems themselves, 57 percent call IT/tech support, 31 percent end up giving up with the tech and going to their plan B. 13 percent even postpone meetings until technology problems can be fixed (sound familiar). A majority of Americans actually pre-prepare for technology failures: 53 percent prepare handouts as alternatives to tech, 54 percent coordinate with IT in advance and 49 percent even do a tech rehearsal.

See related  rAVe [TV] — Episode 154: Gary Tours Barco

And who gets blamed? When something doesn’t work in your client’s install, do they blame the technology provider? NO — they blame YOU!

Barco is obviously promoting their ClickShare wireless meeting room systems indirectly with this survey, in case you hadn’t noticed. But, to be frank, it’s a clever (and real) way to do this.

Seriously — who gets blamed when stuff doesn’t work?

I’ve been traveling with a ClickShare for over two years. And, it ALWAYS works. And, the one time it didn’t (when Apple updated their iOS last year), they did a firmware update that fixed it immediately.

Barco prepared a cool infographic for this survey, and it all points to the Barco.com/clickshare website. Click here to see the full infographic. The details of the survey are here.

Unless, of course, you have no tech stress. Then, please disregard all of the above and PLEASE tell me your secret!

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