50 Moments From 50 Years of ET Group

50 Moments From 50 Years of ET Group

With roots in Toronto dating back to 1976, we’ve grown alongside the technology that shapes how people communicate, collaborate and connect.

Over five decades, a lot has changed — the technology, the projects, the places we work and the scale of what we do. Along the way, we’ve welcomed new people, built lasting relationships and continued to evolve with the needs of our customers.

Behind every milestone are the people, projects and ideas that have helped move us forward.

To celebrate our 50th anniversary, we’re looking back at 50 moments that have shaped our story — and helped create the foundation for what comes next.

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Our Roots and Evolution

1. Our Story Begins in 1976: Our history traces back to Pistil Enterprises Ltd., founded in 1976, and its later evolution alongside Sound Power Luminescence. In 1991, Pistil Enterprises Ltd. took over Sound Power Luminescence, helping create the foundation for who we are today. That history is why 1976 remains the starting point in our story — marking 50 years of growth, change and evolution in 2026.

2. From Traditional AV to More Connected Technology: In our earlier decades, our work included installed sound systems, amplifiers, speakers, wired microphones, projection screens, slide and film projectors, and early video and television systems. As the technology advanced, meeting and presentation spaces began bringing more of these tools together. Projection gave way to digital displays, laptops became part of the meeting experience, and interactive presentation and collaboration technology created new ways for people to share and work with content.

3. Expanding Into Hospitality and Entertainment: Our portfolio also grew across Toronto’s restaurant, nightlife and entertainment scene. We supported recognizable hospitality brands with audio, video, displays and control systems designed around the guest experience. From walls of screens showing sports and entertainment to custom AV control behind the scenes, these projects showed how technology could become part of the atmosphere and experience of a space.

4. Growing Into Integrated Corporate AV: As workplace technology evolved, our corporate projects evolved with it. Boardrooms and meeting spaces increasingly brought together videoconferencing, displays, presentation technology, room control, tabletop connectivity and dedicated AV infrastructure. Rather than operating as separate pieces, more of the technology in the room began working together as one integrated system.

5. From Individual Installations to Enterprise Scale: As our capabilities and customer base grew, the projects got bigger too. What might once have involved a single system or location can now mean designing, deploying and supporting hundreds of spaces across offices, campuses and multiple locations. At that scale, consistency matters — from how rooms are designed and deployed to how they’re supported long after installation.

6. Our Toronto Roots: Our home has changed a few times over the years, with each location marking a different chapter in our growth. Our Toronto and Etobicoke addresses have included 500 King Street West, 90 Thorncliffe Park Drive, 500 and 524 Front Street West, 29 Booth Avenue and, since 2022, 130 North Queen Street in Etobicoke. From our earlier downtown locations to where we are today, the spaces we’ve worked from have grown and changed right alongside us.

7. Built on Long-Standing Relationships: Some of the relationships behind our work have lasted for decades. Several team members have built long careers here, with some approaching 40 years with us, while customers and technology partners have continued to grow alongside us. That shared history has created a depth of knowledge and familiarity that can only come with time.

8. Trusted in Complex and Mission-Critical Environments: Over the years, we’ve built deep experience in justice, government and other environments where technology simply has to work. Courtrooms, correctional facilities, command centres and other highly regulated spaces come with requirements around security, reliability and day-to-day performance that go well beyond a typical meeting room.

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Building a National Presence

9. Growing Beyond Toronto: We started in Toronto, but our footprint has steadily grown across Canada through acquisitions, new offices and a more distributed team. Today, we have employees based in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

10. Welcoming CONTI and Forte: In September 2022, we acquired CONTI Electronics’ audiovisual design and integration business assets, including the CONTI and Forte brands. The acquisition brought CONTI and Forte employees into our team and established a Vancouver presence, supporting our continued growth in Western Canada.

11. Expanding into Atlantic Canada: In 2023, we opened a new office and technology demonstration facility in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Now known as the Fredericton Experience Centre, it gives customers and partners a place to experience workplace technology firsthand across collaboration, personal, social and justice spaces.

12. Extending Our Reach Through Ricoh Canada: Joining Ricoh Canada in 2026 added a broader Canadian office and service network to the footprint we had already built, giving our teams access to additional resources and support across the country.

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Behind the Work

13. A Home That Reflects the Work We Do: Our current North Queen headquarters is more than office space. It brings together people working across different parts of the business with areas for collaboration, staging, service and the hands-on technical work that happens before and after a system reaches a customer site.

14. Building and Testing Before We Reach Site: A lot happens before an installation ever reaches a customer. Our in-house staging and pre-build process gives our teams space to build, configure, label and test systems ahead of deployment, helping catch issues early and making onsite work more predictable.

15. The Service Work Customers Don’t Always See: Installation is only one part of the lifecycle. Behind the scenes, our service and onsite support teams troubleshoot issues, prepare equipment, maintain systems and help keep technology working once it is in use. Some of that happens at customer sites, while some happens from our own service and support areas.

16. Different Specialists, One Project: A finished space can involve people across strategy, design and engineering, programming, project delivery, installation, unified communications and ongoing support. Each sees a different part of the project, and complex environments often depend on several of those disciplines working together from the earliest design conversations through deployment and support.

17. Thinking About Virtual Work Before It Became the Norm: Flexible and virtual work were already part of the conversation well before hybrid work became commonplace. In 2017, Dirk Propfe was featured on the cover of Ivey Business School’s Intouch magazine for a story on “Virtually Virtual,” reflecting on virtual teamwork and why it could work for organizations. It’s an interesting snapshot of how early questions around remote collaboration, trust and the workplace were already becoming part of our story.

18. Bringing Human-Centered Thinking Into Our Technology Work: The way we thought about our own workplace also began influencing how we approached technology for customers. Rather than starting with products or equipment, the focus increasingly shifted toward the people using a space — how they work, how they need to collaborate and what the technology needs to make easier. Dirk later shared that approach through Human-Centered Technology Design for a Hybrid World at WORKTECH Toronto.

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Recognition Along the Way

19. Seeing the Transformation Take Hold: The changes weren’t limited to organizational structure. Collaborative workshops, ET Connects and other opportunities for people to contribute ideas became a more visible part of how we worked together. By February 2022, we reported a 95% employee retention rate and an employee Net Promoter Score consistently above 50. We also reported profitability at 2.5 times the industry standard and four times the growth we had experienced in 2016.

20. Recognized for a Different Business Strategy: In 2018, we received an NSCA Excellence in Business Award in the Differentiating Strategies category, recognizing our move toward design thinking, participatory leadership, self-management and a more consultative approach to workplace technology.

21. Named Pexip’s Most Agile Partner: In 2021, we were named Pexip’s Most Agile Partner of the Year at the Pexip Americas Partner Leadership Summit, recognizing our ability to adapt quickly and find collaboration solutions around specific customer needs.

22. Receiving the Inaugural Tony Hsieh Award: In December 2021, Dirk accepted the inaugural Tony Hsieh Award in Las Vegas on our behalf. The award recognized the work we had done to explore more empowering and participatory ways of working. (Read the story behind the transformation and its impact.)

23. Taking Our Story to a Global Stage: In 2024, we received the Zero Distance Excellence Award for Emergent Excellence. Mark Chen represented us at the Zero Distance Excellence Summit in Qingdao, China, where he accepted the award and joined organizations from around the world in conversations about self-management, decentralization and customer collaboration.

24. Building a Multi-Year Record as a Best Workplace: Since becoming Great Place to Work® Certified in 2023, we’ve received recognition across several workplace categories. In 2025, our growth placed us among Canada’s Best Workplaces for organizations with 100 to 999 employees, where we ranked #15 in Canada. We were also recognized among Canada’s Best Workplaces in Technology, for Mental Wellness and with Most Trusted Executive Teams. In 2026, we ranked #30 and received the Fairness Award, alongside recognition for Inclusion, Technology and Most Trusted Executive Teams. (Explore our workplace awards and recognition.)

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Projects Across the Years

25. Supporting Justice Environments at Scale: We have designed, implemented and supported secure AV systems across courtrooms and correctional environments, and by the end of 2026 that footprint is expected to exceed 1,000 justice spaces. The work supports remote appearances, interpretation, evidence presentation, accessibility and other functions where reliability and security are critical. (Explore our justice technology solutions or see the case study behind this work.)

26. Growing with GreenShield Across Seven Cities: Since 2017, we have completed 57 AV projects with GreenShield across seven Canadian cities. The relationship has grown across executive boardrooms, hybrid rooms, multipurpose environments and other workplace spaces while supporting greater consistency across locations.

27. Building a Nationwide AV Standard with Sobeys: In 2024, we partnered with Sobeys on more than 12 AV projects across Canada. Through discovery sessions and stakeholder engagement, we developed repeatable designs for executive rooms, training spaces, huddle rooms and town halls, creating a more consistent hybrid meeting experience across locations.

28. Supporting Hybrid Learning and Collaborative Research: Our work in education has included a range of approaches to teaching, learning and collaboration. At BCIT, we helped connect existing video technology with newer collaboration platforms to support campus-wide hybrid learning. Our work with York University’s Lassonde School of Engineering included an interactive virtual classroom, while at OCAD University we supported collaborative research spaces designed around accessibility and participation.

29. Technology Across the Campus Experience: Our education work also extends beyond traditional classrooms. At the York University Student Centre, technology helped create a more connected social and community space for students. Our work with a leading Canadian independent school has grown across more than 25 projects and two campuses, spanning classrooms, gymnasiums, a swimming pool, boardrooms, multipurpose spaces and shared areas.

30. Bringing the Cisco Innovation Centre to Life: At Cisco’s Toronto Innovation Centre, we helped create a flexible environment for demonstrations, training and global collaboration. The project brought together cross-platform videoconferencing, intelligent cameras, ceiling microphones, touch control, wireless content sharing, digital display pillars and a multi-panel video wall.

31. Creating an Immersive Digital Experience at B6: At Bentall GreenOak’s B6 building in Vancouver, we helped transform a large architectural surface into an immersive digital canvas combining a large-scale video wall, custom content and discreet audio. The installation also created a platform for showcasing work from local artists.

32. Designing Around Sagamok Anishnawbek’s Council Circle: We partnered with Sagamok Anishnawbek on a hybrid-ready Council Chamber built around the Nation’s circular Council layout and governance practices. Microsoft Teams Rooms, Televic Plixus and individual uniCOS units were brought together alongside custom nameplate overlays and VR design work to support the unique environment.

33. Standardizing 176 Rooms Across 40 Locations: For a leading Ontario utility, we designed and deployed AV across 176 rooms spanning 40 locations. The work ranged from smaller collaboration spaces to executive environments, with standardized room templates, centralized conferencing and remote monitoring helping make a large distributed environment easier to deploy and support.

34. Connecting Technology Across an Entire Headquarters: For a leading Canadian dairy provider, we helped create a Toronto headquarters where technology extends across huddle rooms, boardrooms, collaboration spaces, digital signage and larger Town Hall and streaming environments. The project also used CAD and VR planning and incorporated existing equipment where it continued to serve a purpose.

35. Supporting Infrastructure Teams Across Eight Locations: Since 2022, we’ve delivered more than 10 AV projects across eight locations for a leading Canadian infrastructure organization. Standardized meeting environments connect executive leadership, regional offices and project teams whose decisions can directly affect active job sites.

36. Building an 8K Centrepiece at GreenShield: At GreenShield’s downtown Toronto office, we helped deliver a 10-foot-high, 27-foot-wide video wall with 8K native resolution. People-tracking cameras add an interactive element, allowing content to respond as people move through the space. The installation is another chapter in our long-standing work with GreenShield.

37. Modernizing Secure Collaboration at RBC: Our work with RBC has included modernizing executive and meeting environments to create more intuitive, hybrid-ready collaboration while meeting the reliability and security needs of a major financial organization.

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Learning and Staying Connected

38. Bringing Global AV Insights Back from ISE: Our teams attended Integrated Systems Europe in Barcelona in both 2025 and 2026, meeting with global manufacturers and partners while exploring developments across unified communications, LED, audio, workplace management, immersive AV and smart-building technology.

39. Staying Close to the Collaboration Technology Ecosystem: Enterprise Connect and Cisco WebexOne have given members of our team a closer look at developments in AI, collaboration platforms, room systems, security, governance and interoperability while strengthening relationships with the partners behind many of the technologies we work with every day.

40. Sending Our Largest Team Yet to InfoComm: In 2026, we sent our largest team to date to InfoComm in Las Vegas, with people representing Growth and Innovation, Design and Engineering, Customer Engagement, Project Delivery and Vendor Relations. It gave people from different parts of the organization a chance to explore new technologies, meet partners and bring ideas back into their own areas of work.

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Supporting the Full Lifecycle

41. Managing More Than 200 Rooms Proactively: For a major Canadian financial institution, we introduced Remote Monitoring and Management across more than 200 meeting rooms nationwide. The program reduced average issue-detection time by 98.7%, lowered support-ticket volume by 75% and produced more than $100,000 in annual support and energy-related savings.

42. Embedding Technicians Across 135+ Spaces: Our Meeting Room Technician programs place dedicated AV specialists directly within customer workplaces. For one global financial client, our embedded technician team supports more than 135 spaces across Toronto, London and other global locations, including executive boardrooms, hybrid classrooms and mission-critical environments.

43. Expanding Our Work in Justice and Corrections:  As our justice work grew, so did the range of environments we supported — from courtrooms to correctional facilities. That included purpose-built solutions such as Video Remand Cabinets, designed to support secure virtual appearances and communication, alongside courtroom collaboration, remote monitoring and ongoing AV support.

44. Seeing a Space Before It Exists: We’ve used immersive VR design reviews to let customers experience proposed spaces before construction or installation begins. Stakeholders can walk through layouts, assess displays and sightlines, review camera coverage and make decisions while changes are still much easier to make.

45. Connecting Old and New Technology: Not every modernization needs to begin with replacing everything. Across projects in education, energy and enterprise environments, we’ve helped customers connect existing video systems with newer platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Webex. For one Ontario energy provider, interoperability allowed existing systems to work with newer cloud collaboration platforms without requiring an immediate rip-and-replace.

46. Building Sustainability Into the AV Lifecycle: Our approach has included maintaining and reusing equipment where it still has value, replacing individual components where possible, reducing unnecessary site visits through remote support and directing end-of-life equipment toward responsible reuse or recycling. (Read more about our approach to a more sustainable AV future.)

47. Staying Involved After the Installation: Many of our customer relationships continue long after a room goes live. Help desk support, onsite technicians, preventative maintenance, remote monitoring and ongoing optimization all play a role in keeping spaces working as technology, workplaces and customer needs continue to change.

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The Next Chapter with Ricoh

48. Beginning Our Next Chapter with Ricoh: On February 2, 2026, we announced that we had joined Ricoh Canada as a wholly owned subsidiary. It marked one of the biggest changes in our 50-year history and the beginning of a new chapter — one that allows us to build on what we’ve created while becoming part of a much larger organization.

49. Preserving Who We Are: We continue to operate under our existing brand and leadership team, with customers working with the same people and teams they already know. As we move forward with Ricoh, we’re continuing to build on the relationships, experience and specialized expertise developed over the past 50 years.

50. Combining Our Expertise with Ricoh’s Scale: Our next chapter brings our AV design, integration, unified communications and managed workplace expertise together with Ricoh’s broader resources, digital capabilities and service coverage. Together, we can support more of the workplace technology lifecycle while continuing to bring the hands-on approach our customers know us for.

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Looking Back — and Moving Forward

Our story has been shaped by five decades of people, projects, customer relationships and turning points.

Some of that history can be seen in the finished spaces. Some of it lives behind the scenes — in old project photos, equipment racks, design drawings, staging work, service calls and the people who have spent years learning how to make increasingly complex systems work.

Together, these milestones show just how much has changed, from our early Toronto roots and individual AV installations to projects spanning hundreds of rooms and locations across the country.

As we begin our next chapter with Ricoh Canada, we’re carrying that experience forward. Technology will keep changing, and the spaces where people work, learn and connect will change with it.

The next 50 years will build on the projects, relationships and people who brought us here.

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Collaborative Justice Technology: a compounding investment in the pandemic era (and beyond)

By Ketan Kulkarni – Linkedin

In 2021, technology is not only fundamentally changing how industries function, but also the ecosystems they are a part of, in no small part due to the global pandemic. An organization can choose the degree to which they will embrace the purposeful evolution of their ecosystem in uncertain times. The organizations with the strongest embrace will see the other side while also leading the innovation of their industry. Such innovation is the domain of teams of highly collaborative teams versus the great insight of an individual innovator.

Transforming a Traditional Ecosystem

The Justice system is a traditional ecosystem with hardened processes (laws are about as hardened a process as you can get) and well-established training initiatives. Is it possible to apply new technology tools to realize drastic benefits?

The opportunity to improve communication lies in the application of technology, precisely because the processes are hardened and the training is well-ingrained into the traditional culture of Justice systems, wherever you look.

With this backdrop let’s see how the four categories below can be applied to the Justice ecosystem, transform it with collaborative technology and compound the ROI of the initial business case.

• Operational Savings
• Productivity Improvements
• Strategic Transformation

Operational Savings

The lowest hanging fruits in any ecosystem are operational savings. Operational savings are when you either stop doing something you used to do, or do it differently in a way that allows you get the same result but with less cost. Let’s take the remand process as an example.

Remanded inmates are individuals who do not qualify for bail and who instead are being held in pre-detention facilities, waiting to have their trial. When they are required to appear in front of a judge it is referred to as a remand appearance. Remand appearances require a lot of people and activity to conduct. Accused individuals typically need to spend an entire day being moved from the detention facility to the courtroom and then back. This requires accompanying guards (at least 2, sometimes up to 4), specialized vehicles for transport, all the costs of being away from the facility for the day – food, gas, etc., facilities at the courthouse to hold the prisoners until it is time for their hearing, and the risk of moving prisoners around is inherent in the undertaking.

Applying video conferencing technology to facilitate remand appearances is a perfect example of how substantial cost can be taken out of the ecosystem, maintaining the same end result.

The Operational Savings = Cost avoided / Cost of video conferencing technology

While it is difficult to obtain costs for all the components involved, here is a high level estimate of the costs that could be avoided:

Costs Avoided
1)    Guards (avg. of 3) for a day = 3 x 8 hours x burdened hourly rate of Guards = 3 x 8 x $50 = $1,200 day
2)    Cost of transportation: specialized vehicle + expenses = $750/day
3)    Facilities requirements to handle prisoners in courthouse = $300/day

So, one remand appearance is probably costing taxpayers at best about $2,000. Multiplied by the number of appearances in a year that could be delivered via technology ~ 14,000 x $2,000 = $28,000,000 / year. Over a 10-year period, that is $280,000,000. Even if the estimate for the cost of one remand appearance is 50% above actual costs, there is still significant opportunity to realize operational savings.

Investing in the infrastructure required to facilitate these hearings would be significantly less than the 10-year cost of doing it without technology. One of the key investments in this process is the technology in the courtroom that allows the remand appearances to be conducted remotely.

In any organizational ecosystem there are always rooms where people from different parts of the ecosystem come together to meet. In the judicial system, these are the courtrooms in the various courthouses across the country.

A courtroom is where the 4 different constituents (Judicial, Legal, Law Enforcement and Corrections) come together to conduct their trials and is the focal point for moving the judicial process forward. To enable new communications tools to change the processes, the courtrooms must be equipped with the technology required to conduct electronic communication, which are rich experiences – just like being there.

Productivity Improvements

Courtrooms that have been enabled in this way can now be much more productive in processing the courtroom workflow (the proceedings) – a must given the backlog created by the shutdown of physical locations as a result of the pandemic. A judge in court can hold remand appearances sequentially, connecting with prisoners who appear, via video, from various correctional facilities – one after another. The physical scheduling and logistics that used to be a key component of the “old method” suddenly becomes vastly simpler and less costly. The simplified scheduling and logistics of remand appearances through the use of video conferencing technology also increases the number of appearances processed. The beneficial results of doing this:

• Less facilities required for remand prisoners = less time required in remand facilities
• Greater use of the judge’s time, as well as other court personnel, and their ability to handle cases (therefore less judges and court personnel required)
• Less backlog of cases to be heard

The opportunity for greater productivity in the Justice ecosystem can be found in many other processes. Many jurisdictions have learned that leveraging video can reduce — or eliminate — many of the hidden delays and costs of the Justice system associated with logistics such as travel time for a variety of participants including witnesses, interpreters, attorneys and inmates. In an ecosystem where everyone wants to talk to the inmate (prosecutors, probation officers, public defenders, judges, etc.) easier access via video can accelerate workflow.

• Judges can hold sessions across a wide variety of locations one after the other all from the courtroom or chambers
• Cases get processed faster – no delay waiting for critical mass of cases in remote locations
• Bail hearings can be enabled by video
• Plea bargains can be implemented much faster (don’t need a 2 hour process to get into the jail to see prisoner), which means less time in jail for visitors and less requirements for facilities
• Access to justice – inmates can access attorneys and other legal aid remotely, which includes the benefit of upholding social distancing guidelines
• Video testimony – expert witness (can greatly reduce cost),
• Vulnerable witness – appearing in court is dangerous, disruptive and disturbing but their testimony can be critical; video makes it easier
• Interpreters – can handle multiple sessions just minutes apart in different locations. Therefore overall need goes down because of the tremendous compression of time.
• Telemedicine and educational programs in prisons
• Visitation

Clearly these productivity improvements, which were not planned for as part of the initial business case, would likely add even more financial benefits. Often, the productivity benefits that are realized in an ecosystem will quickly outweigh the operational savings provided.

Strategic Transformation

As new communications infrastructure and endpoints have been put in place over recent years – a process accelerated by the pandemic – the Justice ecosystem is being unintentionally transformed with far greater capability than was initially envisioned. The people who are using the new communications tools will start to apply the same tools to situations that were never envisioned at the start of the ecosystem’s transformation.

Let’s look at three real life examples of strategic transformation in the Justice ecosystem:

1) International Trials

With the globalization of business, there are now occasions where the globalization of court communications could greatly help the operation and productivity of trials that happen where multiple countries are involved. Our company, ET Group, facilitated a trial like this where two courtrooms in two different countries were in a single combined session at exactly the same time. The benefits were substantial:

• Air travel was substantially reduced
• Lawyer’s monetary and timespend costs for that travel were eliminated
• The proceedings were able to progress faster because both courtrooms in both countries were connected to each other in real time.

One court session brought together two different jurisdictions simultaneously.

2) Virtual Meeting Rooms (VMRs)

The use of VMRs in a collaborative ecosystem typically happens at a later stage in the development of the ecosystem. VMRs are very powerful because they can:

• Drastically reduce costs
• Drastically accelerate the workflow (the velocity of collaboration) of both existing processes and re-engineered processes

In the Justice ecosystem a perfect example of using VMRs would be to allow the general public to pay their traffic tickets with a hearing in a VMR. When you use a VMR you don’t need a courtroom (massive cost savings), and you allow a person who received the traffic ticket to call into the VMR for their trial. The judge, the officer, the lawyer (if required) and the defendant would all be participants in the VMR. The result is significant savings in travel costs for all involved.

Using VMRs as described in the traffic ticket scenario above would also require software which would would mimic the workflow of the traffic court. People would need to check in online, be held in a queue waiting to see the judge in the VMR with the other participants. But over time this additional expense stands to be minimal compared to what could be saved through the strategic use of VMRs within the Justice collaborative ecosystem.

3) Collaborative Portals

With technology infrastructure in place, new functionalities can be implemented that were not possible before. With software, recordings of the courtroom proceedings can now be captured in a way that was not previously possible. Video and audio streams can be recorded simultaneously from the different cameras and microphones in the courtroom and can be captured as the record of the court.   These court records can be:

• Instantly archived in the courtroom, with two layers of back-up (courthouse and datacenter)
• Instantly retrieved whenever required by authorized personnel
• Transcripted instantly
• Distributed with different pieces redacted in the recording, depending on who needs to review the record
• Used as evidence in a court of law and have the veracity to stand up to any challenges
• Be used in an online secure portal for authorized personnel to collaborate by reviewing and commenting on the record

Extending capabilities leverages the initial investment in technology already in place and further accelerates the velocity of collaboration in the Justice ecosystem, thus compounding the initial investment.

There are more than just these three strategic transformation examples which stand to further influence the business case for investment in a new collaborative technology platform. Being able to continue to conduct business and enable access to justice for citizens using VMRs in the face of a global pandemic – in some cases more than ever before – is a prime example.

Conclusion

The natural evolution of a collaborative ecosystem is to capture operational savings first, then to realize productivity gains as a by-product through the extension of the technology to new processes, and finally, hit the home runs through the strategic transformation of the ecosystem.

It takes considerable fortitude by those steering the ecosystem to make the investment without truly understanding how the ecosystem will function when the collaborative technology is fully implemented and enabled. They must resist the temptation to cut corners and compromise on the building of the platform that will become the foundation for transformation for years (if not decades) to come.

All its woes aside, COVID-19 helped accelerate a fundamental systemic change that was already occurring – one that has now proven itself here to stay. The technology stakeholders in Justice systems around the globe would do well to take notice.

Building a virtual culture

How do you maintain and build a strong virtual culture in a pandemic?

By T. Smitten

Creating a Culture That Thrives

Over the last year a vast majority of organizations have transitioned to some form of a hybrid workspace, where team members have the flexibility to work remotely for most, if not all of the time.

Mark Bystrek is the head of ET Group’s People Development. He works to maintain an enriched company culture of human connection, co-creation and collaboration while using virtual technology. Through our expertise in virtual technology, ET Group has built an effective hybrid work environment and developed a company culture that thrives in it.

The Importance of Company Culture

Mark admits maintaining company culture isn’t easy, but he highlights the importance of it , “It’s going to be a challenge for all organizations, how do you connect and keep that team spirit together? Remotely? It’s something we can never let go of.  We always have to keep that in paramount, no matter how busy we are. “

Mark and the ET Group leadership team have worked to find the right balance of technology, and collaboration to create a well-connected agile work environment for team members within virtual space. But how did ET Group do this?

Mark has has found the keys to successfully maintaining company culture are:

• Definition
• Sharing Your Culture
• Open Communication

Define Your Team Culture

At ET Group Mark and the leadership team have outlined the ET Group way, this is a document that is posted with the details of the company’s values, code of conduct and best practices. You want to make sure your company values are clearly outlined and easily accessible.

Share Your Team Culture

Post, post, post! Mark post videos, links, and announcements in the company’s web messenger channels for all staff to easily access. You want to make sure you are continuously sharing items the highlight, support and outline your company culture.

Open Communication is the Foundation

Communication is the foundation of a successful virtual team. Company culture should encourage communication and welcome feedback. ET Group has found using web messenger channels for announcements, surveys and to share info has been an effective for team members to share their ideas, reactions, and responses easily and openly. You want to create and allow for dialogue around your company culture posts and messages.

Ideas for Staying Connected

Communicating workplace culture in a virtual environment can seem a daunting task but it can be done using the technology we have today. It can take a little strategizing and some tech savvy but once that work is done, organizations can easily maintain organizational culture and real human connection amongst their members. Mark often will use WebEx (A web conference and message application) to share company updates. ET Group schedules company wide video conference meetings for all to attend. As part of the company culture the team is encouraged to use “video first” to hold  “face to face” conversations to help maintain connection.  

Mark is continually finding ways to develop virtual teams. He’s found the company to be far ahead of other companies working virtually in 2020 citing the various creative ways they have brought the team together. “We did weekly townhall meetings, we have a water cooler chat, – we were far ahead of a lot of organizations as such and that was keeping us connected.”

Mark also schedules virtual Team building events for the team such as:

• Virtual Team Lunches
• Virtual Escape Rooms/ Games Nights
• Virtual Company Townhalls / Team Connect Meetings
• Company Message Boards/ Communications Channels

Please see our company handbook where we share open information about how our company works together. This includes unique approaches, processes, and practices such as self-set salaries and decentralized decision making.

The workplace is going Hybrid

Exploring the new reality of a hybrid workplace. One which allows the flexibility of employees working between home, office, and remote locations.

When asked how he would describe 2020, David Kerr, ET Group’s Unified Communications and Collaboration Specialist replies “exceptional and unprecedented.”

On any given workday in 2019, David would be designing and implementing Unified Communications solutions for a variety of large Canadian organizations. Fast forward to present day and his workday remains fairly unchanged. While most organizations found the requirements of social distancing a major challenge to their continued daily operations, ET Group did not. In his five years with the company, David has been a part of the ET Group team that works on designing, integrating, and optimizing clients unified communications and collaboration environments. The kind of hybrid environments that allow working from anywhere, whether at home, in the office, or completely remote.

Work is no longer about where you do it, it’s about what you do and how it gets done.

Hybrid is the future workspace

Organizations have mobilized work from home infrastructure and policies that have forever shaped the way we approach work. Now that the dust has begun to settle, they are collectively looking to the future once again. As companies explore shifting their workers back to the office. They are also envisioning what a flexible workplace might mean to their long-term workplace strategies.

• How will our workplace strategies and technology strategies need to change?
• How will our office evolve to integrate and include the remote workers?
• What technologies will support flexible working between the office, home, and remote locations?
• How will we enable our people to convene for group work?

David is part of the HybridX innovation team at ET Group. He has witnessed and assisted in the architecture of workplace communications firsthand. He is proud to share that, “We’re not afraid of doing remote work and using remote technologies. We’ve been demonstrating it for years. It works, I mean, we’re thriving.”

Workplace and tech strategies are changing

Having worked with many clients to implement their technology strategies to transition to an integrated modern-day workspace. David reflects on the success in leading others to their ideal connected and collaborative work environment, both physically and virtually. “We’re (ET Group) currently experiencing what we’ve been already living for the past few years. Covid has forced us (society) to put it into place now to some degree. By living it, it gives us great advantages in terms of being able to share the experience with others and see what the potential could be.”

“73% of employees want their company to embrace flexibility (working both remotely and in office) post COVID-19.”

Mckinsey Report – June 2020

David has noted the required changes that companies have begun making to their workplace strategies:

• Increased prioritization of workplace technology within business. Organizations need to have a technology strategy that can evolve for the future.
• Intuitive tools; Organizations should be able to define their desired user experience with the technology they are choosing.
• Reliable and user-friendly video communications. Organizations are now in a video first culture that requires high quality audio and visual performance along with an easy to use platform.

Prioritizing flexible, collaborative technology

David has also witnessed some setbacks for companies who did not prioritize flexible and collaborative technology tools within their operations. He remarks at the number of companies who were unprepared to work remotely this year. “It was really quite surprising to me but it’s not all that uncommon. It seems that some companies are still kind of slow to change and Covid has really exposed that.”

David listed some fundamentals items every organization will need for a hybrid workspace:

• Laptops – Companies should ensure their teams have laptops for mobility vs. desktops. HD built in cameras are critical.
• Webcams – Companies should ensure team members have working high resolution video tools for home offies.
• Secure Communications – Companies should invest in secure software and platforms to maintain privacy.
• Remote work connections like a VPN – Companies should invest in a virtual private network.
• Headsets or Audio Boxes – Quality sound and audio for meetings. Forget the basic headphones.
• Data Sovereignty   -Companies should be familiar with the location of their servers and data and be aware of any privacy laws relating to the storage of their information.

Challenges of going to a hybrid workplace

As part of ET Group’s HybridX innovation team, David works on identifying and resolving the human challenges of collaboration, communication, and connection using technology.  “There were a lot of users that weren’t ready for this. From the standpoint of some users – technology kind of makes them afraid.” Increasing team adoption, training, and comfort levels with technology is critical to overall success when transitioning to working flexible between the office and at home.

When implementing new technology into a hybrid environment, David notes some things to consider are:

• Get feedback from your team on their desired user experience and ease of use. What do they need from the technology to get their work done?
• Ensure you fully understand what the technology will allow you to do and not do. Research your options and assess reliability.
• Find a good consultant to work with your leadership team and determine the technology roadmap that works for your business. ET Group offers a human-centric approach to visioning, strategizing, designing, implementing, and evolving your technology roadmap as part of our HybridX offering.

David offers his take on additional challenges he has seen this year, “What I think is happening is a couple of things, one, sometimes whoever is making the decision makes it a challenge. It could be making the decision on the technology platform that we should move forward with, but there was really no consultation with the users in terms of what we really need. Which can definitely be a challenge and wreck user adoption or hinder user adoption. The other element is personal bias at times that gets in the way. So, it’s like, ‘Hey, I’m a Microsoft guy’ and that’s all I want to deal with’. I don’t really care about whatever else is out there, even if there are better tools. Other challenges are a lack of information around what technology you need to work better, which is what we’ve been trying to do at ET Group, share that info. “

Preparing your company for the transition

David shares valuable words of wisdom when it comes to integrating new technology into your business. “Organizations must lose the fear of failure”. This can cripple the ability to discover new things. He recommends keeping an open mind when it comes to trying new technology and stresses the need to consider your users when implementing new technology.

“I had the opportunity to work with my church, for example. There’s a lot of users there that just aren’t into this remote working space at all,” says David. “A proper understanding of the users (i.e. accessibility requirements, sights impaired vs hearing impaired, etc.) is crucial to seamless user adoption within an organization.”

Many businesses are still unprepared to implement work from home programs although we are at a time in history when technology makes it more possible than ever. With companies starting to reintroduce their teams back into the physical workspace amidst and post-pandemic, they are experiencing unique operational challenges within their industries. “ET Group is really taking the time to hone in on what we have not only experienced but kind of referring back to what we’ve heard from our customers.”

Work isn’t about where, it’s about what

HybridX (Hybrid Workplace Experience) makes it possible and beneficial to every team, organization or business that thrives on communicating, collaborating, and connecting anywhere in the world.

Work is no longer about where you do it, it’s about what you do and how it gets done.

ET Group has invested years into studying and fine tuning the design for the workplace of the future. ET Group’s strategies for collaborative work environments have kept people together even when apart. “What HybridX is really saying is there’s a new work experience, we want to hone in on what that experience is for you and what makes the best sense,” says David.

ET Group takes a strategic approach to designing innovative hybrid workspaces solutions. By applying human-centric design processes, we create seamless and powerful connections between the office, the home, and the remote worker.

Transitioning your organization to a hybrid work environment can seem overwhelming and costly. With the right tools and design process, your organization can experience a new level of communication, collaboration and connection while increasing your ROI (Return on investment) in the long term.

5 Tips for hosting effective large video conferences

If your team has been hosting large group video conference meetings because of COVID-19, here are some key insights to maximize your meeting potential.

By Tracy Smitten

Article based on our Webinar: Hosting Large Group Video Conferences Effectively. Download the webinar.

Amid the COVID-19 public health emergency and for the first time in our history, society has committed to maintaining physical distancing with a strong need to work together to find new ways to communicate, collaborate, and connect with each other.

For the last 4 years, ET Group has grown as a productive, self-managed, collaborative unit, while working almost entirely remotely. Our team’s operate regularly in large group video meetings. We host virtual team connects that run up to 5 hours in length, host large group town hall meetings with over 40 people, and collaborate daily in large group virtual settings. We continue to explore new tools and practices that can enrich our team’s virtual experience. Technology strategy and design help increase productivity, but it’s not all you need.

Here are 5 key tips we have learned to make your next meeting more effective.

 

 

 

 

1. Identify the technology you will need

What are the technology platforms, tools, and equipment will need to use. Make sure to choose a video conferencing platform like Zoom or Webex that can take advantage of large groups using settings like gallery view. Equipping all of your team’s participants with the best audio and video equipment available will maximize everyone’s experience. This will ensure that everyone is on the same playing field, limiting technology issues and creating a more engaging experience for all.

2. Define your meeting roles

It is critical to establish a few base roles to ensure you create clarity and the ability to run a smooth meeting. Who will be the meeting hosting? Who will be facilitator to guide and hold space for the conversation? Who will be scribing and taking notes? Who will be responsible to manage the technology?

It may sound like a lot of roles but they are key to your success!

Host: Establishes the meeting context and the meeting objectives
Facilitator: Guides the conversation, keeps the meeting in check and on-time, while allowing the group to focus on the content.
Scribe: Takes notes and documents the meeting.
Technology Manager (Optional): Ensures the meeting is set-up, handles tech issues, and records the call if necessary.

3. Put together the structure for your meeting

What is the purpose of your meeting? What do you want to get out of it? What do you want people to experience?

Establish a structure for your meeting to make effective use of time and increase the clarity and expectations for participants. Create your meeting objectives, meeting milestones, determining meeting length, and choosing your facilitation style.

4.  Choose your meeting practices and processes

Determine the level of engagement you plan to invite from your participants.

Check-in’s are a fantastic way to establish everyone’s place in the meeting. Asking a question such as, how are you arriving and what do you expect out of today’s meeting. It helps people feel engaged and not lost in such a large virtual group.

However, in a large group setting it can be tough to manage this in a timely manner. Instead, ask your participants to write their check-in via the chat window or using a collaboration platform like Webex Teams or Slack.

Use practices that maintain involvement and engagement from your participants. Send out periodic meeting polls or pose questions that participants can answer in the chat window, rather than out loud. This can also help manage time in a large group while involving everyone.

It is important that you use practices and processes that create an environment that invites everyone to participate. So that it is not the One-to-Many experience that so often plagues large group settings. This is one person speaking to a large group.

5. Understand the mindset of your participants

Understanding the mindset of your participants is key to an effective meeting. What mindset are participants potentially arriving into the meeting with?

Are they arriving with confusion surrounding the meeting? Are they unclear of why they are invited? Are they feeling excited or down?

As a host or facilitator, it is your job to gauge the room and ensure you can manage the group, shift gears if required, and draw the best out of everyone.

 

We would love to hear about your experience in the comments

We have sought and found virtual meeting techniques that enhance human connection.  We have found video conferencing can be extremely productive! We thrive when we can bring harmony to our work and workplace with technology.

We would love to hear about your experience with remote working and how the 5 core elements of Effective Video Conferencing have worked for you. Contact us and let us know how you do!

Register for our upcoming webinar series

In an effort to help organizations and individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic, we are launching a series of webinars to offer our expertise.

 

3 Real-Life Solutions to Ensure Video Conferencing Adoption

I was really disheartened the other day when I heard an IT Director at a major consulting company say that they have video conferencing equipment deployed across the country but they don’t use it much.  It wasn’t that I hadn’t heard this before, it takes much more than equipment deployment to make collaboration technology (in this case video conferencing) catch on.

Being an avid user of video conferencing, I am always baffled about why people don’t use their video conference solution. But I realize that it’s a little like John McEnroe asking why everyone doesn’t play tennis. As a seasoned pro, I always want to get to the bottom of what hampers adoption.

So I asked, “Why don’t people use it?”

His reply: “I blame myself for not really understanding the deployment.  We wanted to bring 3 locations into a single video call and each location has dual screens.  So if I am in Toronto and want to have a call with our New York and San Francisco offices, I want to be able to see New York on one screen and San Francisco on the other screen, but I can’t.  I have to look at them both crammed into one screen. So we don’t use the equipment much.”

Unfortunately for this IT director and many like him, that is a lot of money spent on a wasted video conferencing implementation.  This is a very real problem and probably a lot more prevalent than you might think.

And he was right. There wasn’t much he could do to get the results he was looking for from his video conferencing deployment (technology design & technology strategy are key for adoption). But that doesn’t mean you have to repeat the mistake he made.  You can achieve exactly what the consulting company wanted to with multiple locations on separate screens in the same call.

In fact there is more than one solution but the price difference between them is very different.

First, let’s define the problem.

• Most phone calls are between two people and likewise so are most video calls.  The tech speak for a video call between two people is a “point-to-point” call.  And if you continue the tech speak analogy, a video call with more than two people is a multi-point call.

• Most of the traditional video conferencing vendors – Polycom, Cisco, LifeSize, Radvision, Sony, etc., use a communication protocol called H.323 and when a multi-point call is made using H.323, what happens is that the video streams from each location are “combined” and sent to the other locations as a single stream.

• So in the example above, the Toronto location would get a single video stream sent to it which has the people from New York and San Francisco “combined” into a single video stream.  This single video stream can only be viewed on a single screen – it can’t be split up over two screens.  This practice causes the video images of the remote locations to shrink on the display, dramatically diminishing the value of the video images.

In other words, the screen real estate which the people in the other locations occupy on the screens is drastically reduced.  Screen real estate was critical to the Consulting Company and real estate is critical to a good video conferencing experience – see these blogs for more…

• • What the Movies Can Teach Us About Real Time Collaboration
• • Screen Real Estate – a Critical Factor in Making Video Calls As Good As “Being There”
• • The 5 Biggest Mistakes Made in Determining Screen Real Estate in a Video Conferencing Room

So what can you do to achieve video conference adoption?

Option 1: Have More than One Codec

With all the traditional video conferencing vendors, if you set up each location with 2 codecs and 2 cameras, you then have each codec in the office call one of the other 2 offices.  Then all the participants will be full screen on one of the 2 screens in the room.

Problems with Option 1

Twice as expensive; clumsy call operation; this solution will not scale.  Besides the obvious cost differential of adding a second codec and camera at each location, trying to integrate and operate two separate calls simultaneously is very difficult and most end users will never pull it off.  The scaling problem comes into play if you try to use this solution when adding in a 4^th or 5^th location into the call.

Option 2: Go Telepresence

This is similar to Option 1 in that there are either multiple cameras or codecs deployed in the Telepresence rooms but the images are stitched together and combined and sent to other locations as a single image to be displayed on a set up that is exactly the same (physical mirror images of each other) at the other locations.

Problems with Option 2

There are no problems with this type of deployment, however they are very expensive.  It takes a lot of technology, network and integration to elegantly pull off the high end Telepresence solutions.  But they are elegant and they work beautifully.  These rooms also tend to become dedicated “Video Conferencing Rooms” and not multi-purpose.  This is not good or bad, just a fact.

Option 3: Use a Different Video Technology

If you move out of the H.323 world and move to a newer video technology, you can deploy room systems that will allow you to use a single processor (codec equivalent) to put full screen images on both of the screens in the Toronto – New York – San Francisco example.  These commercial video solutions will allow for support for two screens with active presence or video on each screen.  The video architectures will let you move beyond 2 screens and go up to 20 screens – Hollywood Squares Plus!!!

Note: This solution would not only have provided the Consulting Company with exactly what they were looking for but it would have cost them less than the video solution they deployed.

Problems with Option 3

There are no problems with this approach except that if you have an existing video deployment like the Consulting Company mentioned above, you have to basically replace the core of the old solution with the new (except for the screens), plus, if you do go beyond a 2 screen system you will need to invest in additional decoders for each of the extra screens beyond the initial two.

There are very good solutions out there to make your video collaboration experiences as good, or better, than actually being there!  Doing it right will increase the velocity of collaboration in your organization.

Stay tuned to the blog for some of the upcoming topics including best options for sharing content and video in a collaborative call.