Barco execs are saddling up for the long ride to InfoComm, sharing their insights on how we're helping our customers connect their worlds in and beyond the enterprise. Join us On the Road to InfoComm as we explore hot topics and provide a glimpse of what's to come at the show.


Just a few short years ago, we were casually discussing the emerging trend of "Bring Your Own Device" commonly known as BYOD, in which business professionals were increasingly bringing their personal laptops, mobile tablets and smartphones to their workplace. After all, thanks largely to Apple, Inc., personal computing has become all about the "user experience," enabling people to customize their device for every whim and preference.

Today, as we celebrate the third anniversary of ClickShare - our one-click, wireless presentation and collaboration system - we are witnessing a virtual tidal wave of BYOD usage infiltrating nearly every organization, classroom, and business environment. IT directors and AV integrators have been scrambling to accommodate the myriad of devices so that everyone can "have it their way." But how does the influx of BYOD translate into the meeting room environment?


Until recently, not very well. Research has shown that 68 percent of professionals cannot use their own computing device with the meeting system. The fact is that most are inflexible and difficult to use, and typically result in the main presenter dominating the meeting. Without the ability to clearly share information in an efficient way, many workers choose not to participate in the discussion, inhibiting any chance for meaningful dialog, and thus never achieving true collaboration.


Yet, fully 41 percent of business leaders attest to the usefulness of displaying content from mobile phones or tablets on the main meeting room screen, according to an article in last month's AV Magazine. At Barco, we've known this for some time, and that's why we developed ClickShare - to make content sharing easy for everyone in the meeting room. It's a simple solution to an age-old problem, and we've continued to evolve the product line with new features and functionality to improve the collaboration experience, emphasizing ease of use and flexibility.


Enlarging the circle of influence
Barco ClickShare CSC-1, our most robust option, enables up to four participants to share their content simultaneously on the main display with the click of a button controlled by each user. Because it's wireless, there's no need to switch devices or cables; users simply share a document, a video, an Internet browser and more to enrich the discussion.

In a typical meeting scenario, an employee may carry in his laptop, a consultant could bring her iPad or PC tablet, while others may pull out their smartphones to share information. ClickShare can accommodate all of these devices and quickly provision them through simple hardware or software apps to push content to the main display, with no need to determine IP addresses or connect with the corporate network. This is a perfect illustration of how ClickShare helps users collaborate better.

Now, with AirPlay capability, our entire ClickShare family enables full iOS mirroring on any compatible device. This is a huge benefit to collaboration, as an overwhelming majority of professionals use this platform and can now seamlessly connect and share anything on their tablet or smartphone with all participants in a meeting. With this added functionality, both ClickShare CSC-1 and CSM-1 provide support for every type of mobile device, allowing all meeting participants to quickly and easily join a meeting and share their documents, videos, a website and much more to enliven the discussion.

This boost in interactivity and heightened information-sharing tends to result in better decision-making, since ideas and information can flow rapidly when supported by visuals that reinforce discussion. In fact, over 70 percent of users cite improved decision-making as the top benefit of data visualization tools and it can literally pay off fast: The ROI of collaboration tools is 4x the initial investment, making it a win-win for users and the organization alike!

Harnessing the collective intelligence
Now that everyone is armed with the ability to share their knowledge, how do meeting leaders manage the flow of content in an organized, efficient way? Enter Barco's new NRC-200 interactive collaboration platform for meeting and training rooms. While it gives participants total freedom over what and how to share, the system's networked room compositor manages all of the inputs (up to eight sources), performs the necessary processing and allows the meeting leader to size and arrange content to their preference. The moderator function gives the meeting leader the ability to determine how and when content is shown on the main display by using a PC with touch-screen GUI. Furthermore the new NRC-200 accepts a broad range of sources including laptops, smartphones and tablets, and also document cameras, networked video sources, IP cameras, and more, for a rich, interactive experience. Non-networked sources can also be added via AV-to-IP encoders.

Please join us on the show floor at booth 2529 as we showcase all the ways Barco is helping you connect your worlds.

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