This Blog recounts the happenings that occurred on a single night, and entails a group of employees of varying job titles within a successful corporate enterprise, the name of which will remain undisclosed. On the Wednesday night that this story transpired (it was 2:00 am), these employees were gathered in the dark basement of their corporate facility. Usually lofty, this basement was made cramped by the nearly 100 employees that were gathered in this basement. Dressed in suits and pantsuits, these disgruntled employees grumbled to each other until they heard three loud clanks from a mallet hitting a wooden coaster. All the employees fell silent and looked at where the clanks had come from. A woman was sitting cross-legged on a desk chair, on a small stage in a corner of the basement. Initially hidden in her dark corner, this lady now had a spotlight illuminating her literal and figurative presence.
Her name is Gene. She hit the mallet two more times, perhaps for theatrics, glanced across her constituents before projecting a firm, seated speech, “We know why we are secretly gathered here. Each of us are frustrated, and rightfully so!” The crowd gives a hoorah. “This bitter frustration chips away at our souls day in and day out, we are sick of the status quo. It is time to change it. It is time to change the conference room status-quo!” The crowd gives another louder hoorah. She continues, “Currently our situation is such that we have people who book meeting rooms every Monday because they think they might need it…but they never do. We have people, who take a meeting room, and then they don’t leave…‘your meeting has been done for 35 minutes, what are you still doing here?’ And then we have the people leaving wrappers, books, drinks…these people think that conference rooms are to be transformed into their personal office. No more!” Another loud hoorah from the crowd.“Starting tomorrow, for the betterment of our corporate culture, this will change. It will not be easy, some will have to sacrifice their good cubicle, maybe someone will even take a day off, but a noble sacrifice is a sacrifice worth-”She was then interrupted, when someone among the crowd grunted for attention. The crowd started whispering. The leader asked whom it was that grunted. An unassuming man in the back raised his hand. The crowd immediately began grumbling in apprehensiveness, one person yelled out that they thought the man was a spy from HR here to bust them. The leader hit her mallet again, told everyone not to jump to conclusions and she asked the mysterious guy up to the stage. “What is your name stranger?”
“My name is Joel.”
“And the reason for your interruption?”
“Well, I don’t think any sacrifice is necessary, that’s all. Your conference room problems have a simple fix.” “How is that? And how do you have the solution?”
“Well, I actually just heard people complaining about conference rooms outside, so I came in to see what was going on.” Joel hands Gene his business card, “You see, I am a web-developer that works for SPREO, we do indoor wayfinding and mapping. One of the solutions that we provide for corporate facilities is a comprehensive mapping platform with capabilities for booking and hoteling, and really just creating a smart-officespace on the whole.
“Our platform seamlessly integrates into any system…365, MS Exchange, Slack, you name it. We give a central management system that involves calendar integration, desk reservations, meeting durations, conference room check-ins, cancellations, visitor details…whatever you want.” Gene responds, “But how do you all at SPREO make sure that people will follow these reservations?”
Joel smiles, “Well, our clients can actually analyze metrics, so they see exactly who schedules meetings and does not show up, who does that consistently, who doesn’t check out on time, and so on. The repeat offenders will be identified and can be spoken to.” “Ok then. So I see that SPREO would help enhance our satisfaction, by making the work place easier. But how else would our company benefit with SPREO?” “Well, using SPREO also helps improve building efficiency. Using the metrics that we provide, a building will be able to tell which rooms are used often, and which rooms are not used often. With this info, a company can reduce the power going to unused rooms by lessening the amount of air-conditioning that the room receives, for example. Also, the workspace is made more efficient by SPREO’s platform. Guests can receive turn-by-turn directions to a meeting room; and people don’t have to scour the office-space looking for an open conference room.” “I guess we have found our solution everyone. SPREO increases building efficiency, increases the workspace efficiency, and improves guest and employee satisfaction. But I have one more question. How did you find our basement in this huge corporate venue?” Joel scoffs, “Please, I’m in the mapping and wayfinding business.” The crowd all mumble that this makes sense before Gene speaks, “Tomorrow we’ll introduce your company to our board of directors. Meeting adjourned everyone.”
As everyone drifted out of the basement of the corporate facility, Joel stood pensively, thinking about how he never gets tired of modernizing corporate facilities around the world.