Cisco and Teknion Bring the Workplace of the Future to Life at NeoCon 2015

NEW YORK, June 10, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Teknion, a leading international designer, manufacturer and marketer of innovative workplace interiors, announced that it is working together with Cisco, a worldwide leader in IT, to create new workspaces that unite modern, adaptable workplace furniture arrangements and Cisco collaboration technology to address the needs of today's highly mobile, flexible and dynamic workforce.

Technology is fueling a rapid shift in the way businesses plan and design their workspaces. At NeoCon, the commercial interior industry's biggest annual event taking place in Chicago next week, Teknion will feature several examples of innovative work environments that address three key trends in the evolution of workplace needs: a focus on health and wellness, the uptick in demand for flexible workspaces, and the rise of the remote worker.

"Our work with Cisco is clearing the path for us to unify technology with design in a way that's never been done, rather than having to work around it," said Joe Regan, Teknion, senior vice president of Design & Marketing. "Cisco's Red Dot award-winning video technologies – paired with our expertise – are enabling us to rethink office design in a way that simply wasn't possible before."

These new work environments will include:

• Meeting Spaces of the Future
  • Teknion has designed a new workspace setting that leverages mobile, height-adjustable and light-weight furniture that can easily be reconfigured to support a number of different work activities, including decision-making, brainstorming and training. This new workspace also includes Cisco's dual screen, dual camera video endpoint, which has the ability to find, zoom in on, and switch between active speakers in the room without the need for manual camera controls, regardless of how the space is arranged. This powerful combination of customizable furniture and video technology will drive increased space utilization and provide employees greater work style flexibility.
• Bringing the Comforts of Home & Functionality of the Office to the Remote Worker
  • Nearly one-third of knowledge workers work remotely, creating demand for a new way to better engage telecommuters. Teknion has created an office setting that borrows from the comforts of home with warm wood elements paired with soft seating to give the remote worker a sense of home when they're in the workplace. Employees can connect with others instantly through Cisco's compact single-camera video unit that can turn any standard flat screen display into a high-definition collaboration endpoint in less than 10 minutes. 
• Open Floor Plan Private Workspaces
  • With the increased popularity of open floor plans, this workspace showcases how an individual workstation can enjoy privacy amid a crowded open space. The design features Cisco's touchscreen desktop video collaboration unit, an all-in-one endpoint that makes the most of desktop real estate by combining best in class HD video with voice and enhanced collaboration capabilities from a single screen. This endpoint is built for open spaces, with intelligent audio that eliminates background noise and noisy neighbors by triangulating on the person seated in front of the unit to reduce disruption.
• Video enabled Huddle Spaces
  • In today's fast-moving work environment, decisions are increasingly being made in smaller groups. To address this need, Teknion has created innovative video-enabled open huddle spaces with furniture like swing out benches that can comfortably accommodate additional participants or transform back for more intimate gatherings.  This setting shows how employees can collaborate in small groups for impromptu meetings, using a Cisco video endpoint designed for smaller spaces to connect with team members across time zones and countries when decisions need to be made on the fly. The result of this marriage of casual, comfortable furnishings and technology is an approachable ad hoc meeting space for three to six people that will encourage quicker decision-making, foster team collaboration and increase employee engagement across the organization.

"Research has proven there's a direct link between job satisfaction and flexible workspaces," continued Regan. "In fact, according to a recent HOK study on trends influencing workplace design, job satisfaction is 60 percent for workers who have high access to flexible workspace, compared to only 22 percent who say they have little / low access to these environments. This underscores the critical need for increased collaborations like ours with Cisco to solve for these kinds of challenges that are clearly vital to today's worker."

"Companies are consistently looking at ways to drive new levels of engagement and collaboration in the workplace," said John Hernandez, Vice President and General Manager of Cisco Collaboration Market and Solutions Development. "Tighter integration of technology and interiors is critical in making that happen.  Cisco is excited to work with Teknion to illustrate the possibilities of what can happen when technology is part of the workplace design from the start."

About Teknion
Teknion creates furniture that connects people, technology and spaces. We hold to a simple yet powerful principle: design does matter. Teknion offices and facilities are located in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, India, Russia and Malaysia. Clients are served through a network of authorized dealers worldwide. Through our 30 years of dedication to innovative and sustainable design, we offer a diverse portfolio of award-winning office systems, office furniture, ergonomic accessories and architectural products. Visit Teknion at teknion.com and join Teknion at facebook.com/teknion.

SOURCE Teknion

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