Meeting rooms are dead 💀
First, let me add a caveat on that article: we believe old-fashioned meeting rooms are dead for all jobs for which you use your smartphone or laptop during a meeting.
That being said, there are plenty of other jobs for which these old-fashioned meeting rooms might make sense 😉.
We have been inspired by our friends at TheFamily, Google Paris, or Facebook HQ (that we visited last year in the Valley).
What we came up with is a blend of all good ideas, that were making sense for our company.
Cozy, spacious and motivating your creativity
We believe that meeting rooms should be like your living room: cozy, spacious and motivating your creativity.
After 2 months of experiencing this new configuration, here are our thoughts.
Human interactions & dynamics
For 6 years at Lunabee Studio, we had old-fashioned meeting rooms.
Why? Well, I guess the day we had to furnish the meeting room, we did it the same way we’ve seen so far in companies, without really thinking about the dynamics we wanted to infuse.
Old-fashioned meeting rooms are not designed for human interactions — it’s super static: you have to sit down, and if ever you want to stand up or move in the room, it’s complicated with this large table in the middle of the room.
It forces you to keep your old habits of sitting and listening, like what you did at school for many years — it’s a shame. And it’s not what we want in our company (I guess in yours as well).
With this “living room” concept, you can easily move and choose the (arm)chair you want (or stand up if you want!) depending on your “role” and mindset for the meeting.
This configuration creates dynamics we never saw before — it’s definitely a great improvement for our meetings, in terms of creativity and interactions.
It’s comfy
It’s as well very convenient when you have to discuss with someone over Facetime/Skype during 1 or 2h.
Seriously, don’t you prefer spending time sitting on a cozy armchair, instead of an uncomfortable meeting room chair?
Wow
And it has a great impact on the prospects/customers/journalists we meet with: we’ve had a “wow” effect each time we shared a coffee or tea in such a comfy meeting room. And obviously, your meeting starts in a good mood!
Long story short: there is no reason why sitting (or walking) in your meeting room should be unpleasant 😉.
Open (cozy) space
An interesting fact we observed as well: this meeting room goes beyond the simple meeting room with a bunch of guys coming, closing the door, and discussing a topic.
We use this meeting room as an “open space” e.g. if you want to stop being at your desk for few hours.
It’s good for your brain, back and legs to move. And changing your working habits, environment and posture is great from time to time!
Tips
Here are some tips to furnish your “2.0” meeting room:
- Take your time selecting your furniture items, one by one, and iterate (as you do for your products?).
- To stimulate creativity, we selected very heterogeneous chairs and lights.
- Don’t be shy —add stuff to feel at home, it won’t be odd.
- If available in your country, we recommend to take a look at Made.com, Fatboy and Lumisky. Their products are pretty good!
- Of course, you need a bunch of Lego.
Here is a bonus with some team members watching a demo. Imagine this with an old-fashioned meeting room 😃…
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Lunabee Studio is a company creating premium mobile Apps in the Alps. We love mobile UX, iOS and Android. Follow us to keep up with our latest publications and news.
