[From 
FC Expert Blog
Mezzanine Steps Meetings Up A Level
By FC Expert Blogger Rob Salkowitz
Thu Jun 16, 2011
Despite decades of earnest technological advances, meetings generally remain as unsatisfying as they are unproductive. The culprit is the meeting room model of a single computer hooked up to a projector, which forces participants to work in sequence rather than in tandem. This stymies collaboration and channels meetings into a presenter-driven dynamic, where each person must wait their turn to load up their material or use the mouse.
Whiteboarding and application sharing can restore some of the sense of mutuality and participation, but they typically limit the collaboration to one document or application at a time. It can also be difficult for participants to incorporate materials that they’ve prepared in advance of the meeting into the collaborative session.
In teleconferences and virtual meetings–even in high-end telepresence environments–the problems are amplified by the inevitable fifteen minutes of troubleshooting and verifying connections, and the disconnection that remote participants experience by not being in the room.
So we have a consensus: meetings suck. Can we adjourn now?
Not so fast. Mezzanine, an innovative new technology from Los Angeles-based startup Oblong Industries, promises a cure for the common meeting with a feature set straight out of a science fiction movie.
Imagine this: Participants walk into a meeting room outfitted with a series of large flat-panel monitors on every wall creating a display surface nearly a dozen feet long and three feet high. Additional monitors in vertical aspect are mounted on adjoining walls. Attendees attach their laptops, iPads, SmartPhones or any device with a video output to one head of an octopus-like connection cable (or, perhaps someday soon, through a wireless technology).
All the video signals are aggregated across the series of displays, which function as a single interactive workspace. Additional input sources can come from remote participants, video cameras positioned around the room, whiteboards, Web-based or networked media, or applications running elsewhere. Read more on Mezzanine innovation creates common interactive meeting space…
