Wire Management For Your Conference Room
There’s nothing worse than walking into a meeting room and seeing a clump of jumbled cables and cords that were left by whoever installed your technology. With a room that already has existing conferencing equipment and furniture, it can be challenging to go back in and organize the chaos of cables that have been left for you. It’s definitely not impossible, but it just may require some tools, time, and patience. There are a lot of easy and affordable cable management tools that can help keep your cabling organized, so let’s go over some of the best ones that can be found at either an office supply retailer or online.
Clips and Clamps
These usually come with an adhesive on the back so you can attach them underneath a table and on other furniture to keep your wire management under control.
Cable Sleeves
Cable sleeves are such a simple fix. They allow you to gather multiple wires and cables together into one flexible tube. Since cables can be such a safety hazard, this helps keep them together and out of the way from getting caught in a chair wheel or from being run over repeatedly which can damage cables.
Cable Labels
Something so small but so important! Labeling what each cable is and where or what it is connected to will make your life so much easier when you need to refer back to that cable at a later time. By having labels for your cables, others who use the room will be able to easily identify the cables which will help reduce disconnections and misconnections.
Floor Cord Protectors
Similar to cable sleeves, floor cord protectors are also great for keeping multiple wires out of the way of chairs and out of walkways. In rooms where you can’t hide the wire on the edge of the wall, cord protectors will help reduce tripping hazards from exposed cables and wires.
Grommets
These are a bit more advanced but can still be installed if you know how to use a drill. Grommets are installed into the table’s surface which allows you to pass cables through while still keeping your cables hidden.
Cable Management When Outfitting a Room With New Equipment
If you’re outfitting a room with new equipment it will be much easier to take care of cable management as you go. It’s important to plan ahead and get an idea of the connections of the room so you can gauge the amount of work to get the cables organized which will vary based on the level of complexity of the installation process for the devices you ordered. You can use the tools listed above to still achieve marvelously managed cords and cables but there are also a few additional things you can do when updating or outfitting a conference room with new furniture and equipment.
Consider a Conference Room Table
When looking for new conference room furniture, finding a conference table with built-in connectivity options and/or pre-drilled grommet holes will make your under-the-table cable management and organization much easier!
Consider How Users Will Share Content
You can easily eliminate unnecessary cables by giving your users the option to share content wirelessly either by using a conferencing platform like Zoom or a BYOD tool like Barco ClickShare.
Look for an Audio Solution That You Can Install Yourself
Typically the most complicated equipment people order for their conference rooms is audio because they think they need an overcomplicated and crazy expensive solution, which of course isn’t true. You can eliminate complicated cabling in your meeting rooms with a solution like the Stem Ecosystem which is made up of three audio devices (Table, Wall, and Ceiling) that can be mixed and matched to fit in any room.
Stem devices only require a single Ethernet connection to get up and running which means you can keep your conference room cabling organized without having to worry about if you have enough outlets.
Again, conference room cable and wire management doesn’t have to be complicated! Just remember, it’s always easier to do it as you go and there are plenty of tools to help you along the way.
