YArooms Blog
Meeting room management articles
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NEW Look for YArooms Outlook add-in
Check out the new look, find out about the improved features and why you should be using YArooms Outlook add-in
You love Outlook for keeping track of your emails, but you also love YArooms for booking your meetings. We’ve been working hard these past few months to make your Outlook room booking experience more enjoyable by overhauling our Outlook add-in’s appearance. Let’s take a look at what’s new!
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Shared Office Spaces & Coworking spaces
What they are, why they are trending and what the trends are
More and more businesses choose to share their space with other companies. Here's what you need to know about shared office spaces.
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How to Throw an Epic Office Party
(on a budget)
Here's what to do when the budget for your office party is limited (or non-existent).
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Do you need a meeting room manager or a meeting scheduler?
A tale of managing space and time
Language is an approximation of thought - so it should come as no surprise that similar expressions tend to be mistaken for one another. Here's how a meeting room manager differs (greatly) from a meeting scheduler.
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8 Employee Appreciation Ideas
That Won't Break the Bank
Employee appreciation is the easiest way to retain top talent, motivate employees, and drive productivity.
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Free Meeting Software
to complement your YArooms setup
You don't always meet face to face with everybody. Here are a couple of apps you can use if you don't want to break the bank.
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Small business scheduling software - a short list
(to which you're welcome to add)
While huge corporations are leveraging big data and behaviour tracking solutions to optimise every last inch of their operational costs, small businesses hardly need go so far - the cost of deploying intricate analysis systems far outweighs the benefits it could yield for middle-sized entrepreneurs.
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Can you automate visitor management?
(tl;dr - Yes, you can. With The Receptionist)
Office Automation and the Internet of Things are slowly improving our lives and - to a growing extent - our jobs. This week, we're focusing on the Reception Desk.
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Smarter offices for 2017
How smart technology is impacting the office environment in 2017.
The office has seen many revolutions over the last quarter century, computer's, email and the internet have all revolutionised the workplace. To keep up with this revolution and the emergence of smart office technology, successful companies will need to do their best to keep up with the increasing pace of change.
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Best meeting scheduling software in 2017
(and one AI assistant)
Before you can schedule the room in which your meeting is going to take place, you must first agree on a date and time. Turns out, you have many options.
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How much a meeting costs you
And how you can improve those numbers.
The average company holds at least 1 meeting every day. At least 3 people take part in it.
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How to book a meeting room
In Outlook, Google Calendar, on paper or in YArooms
Booking a room can be quick and painless. Or not.
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Outlook YArooms Add-in version 2.1.1.0
update your add-in to the latest release
We've released a new version of our Outlook Add-in. Read on to see what has changed.
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How to manage new office hires
Read this before scheduling a conference room
Unless you work in a huge company, the Office Manager is the one to handle most HR duties. We put together the tactics we love to use when trying to bring a new team member in.
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Office Hoteling 101
Not all office spaces are created equal
Just like pineapples aren’t apples and do not grow on pine trees, but do look like cones and are sweet like apples, hoteling is a confusing term.
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3 things to do when moving to a new location
that will make your colleagues happier
Moving office is a lot like moving house - a chance for a fresh start, for a new beginning. In a sense, a chance to fix past mistakes.
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How to manage a University library
An easy guide
Campuses are a beautiful thing... until you have to manage one. Then they become a beautiful nightmare. Luckily, there are tools that simplify your job. Like YArooms.
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Halloween Special - 3 Dark Negotiation Tactics
Trick or treat. Or trick some more.
There’s more to convincing people than meets the eye. And a lot of it is not ok.
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Should you really hold that meeting?
Probably... not?
There’s a lot of hate out there for meetings. “Wasted time”, some voices say. “Useless banter”, others chirp along. But meetings shouldn’t be the bane of all office-related activities. They have their place, just like everything else.
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NEW Features Available
Pending Bookings & Shared Services
We sometimes get asked if YArooms is constantly being updated or if it’s a stable system. To this we say - why not both?
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Meeting room Hacks Episode 10 - 3 Room Booking System Alternatives
For when you don’t really need one
You don’t always need something as robust as YArooms. Here’s what you can do when we’re not your most viable option.
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Meeting room Hacks Episode 9 - Priming for meeting success
How to use cognitive biases to your advantage
First things first - grab a copy of Thinking, Fast & Slow. It’s a book we highly recommend to pretty much anyone working behind a desk.
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Meeting Room Hacks Episode 8 - Showcase your YArooms schedule
without learning to code
The first rule of Product Management states: “Keep your roadmap clear and clean”. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t work your way around the rule. It’s been a while since our last hack, so we hope this is worth your while.
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Choosing meeting room reservation software
3 things to look for
This post is not about how great our online room booking system is. Nor is it about how subpar others are. Tooting our own horn is not something we do, and we dislike brands that attack other brands.
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Use YArooms as a Resource Booking System
(it's simpler than you might think)
It's amazing how inventive some of our clients are. Here's a quick way one of them turned YArooms from a meeting room manager into a resource booking platform.
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Just in case you are not entirely sure whether YArooms is what you need, give these articles a quick read.
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Meeting Room Hacks Episode 7 - Conference Booking Kiosk with YArooms
A Raspberry Pi powered standalone Kiosk
Some of our clients use YArooms to book meeting rooms at conferences and events. Here’s a simple and affordable way of creating a booking kiosk.
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Meeting Room Hacks Episode 6 - How to boost participation
and discourage slacking off
Creative people go through 2 stages - insanely passionate and productive and then inhumanly lazy. This is due to their hunger for the new, for the unexplored.
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Meeting Room Hacks Episode 5 - Include short breaks in your presentation
to keep people focused
The media has been touting a shortening of attention spans for decades. But there is more to it than meets the eye.
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Meeting Room Hacks Episode 4 - Remove some furniture
(it’s not what you think)
A large table surrounded by chairs. Some awards scattered along the walls. Wires everywhere. Window blinds drawn and secured. A faint smell of potpourri coming from a pot of cold coffee. A presentation with walls and walls of text that you can read later. No wonder people spend their time on Facebook rather than paying attention to the discussion.
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Meeting Room Hacks Episode 3 - The Rolling Doors
Maximise and minimise your space when you need to
This week’s hack doesn’t involve software or negotiation techniques. Instead, we focus on the office itself and the way its space is distributed.
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Meeting Room Hacks Episode 2 - Gather Feedback More Efficiently
Approach it from a different angle
Some of the best choices made come out of avoiding groupthink. Having multiple people debate the same problem poses several advantages: a greater number of solutions, different points of view to underline their faults. But you need rigour.
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Meeting Room Hacks Episode 1 - Get Your Testimonials on Steroids
Use Facebook Remarketing To Boost Your Testimonials
Just because you are a b2b company doesn't mean you cannot use Facebook ads to bolster your meeting room performance.
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Software should be familiar
Regardless of its scope - room booking, time management or food ordering
Many argue that simplicity is your best bet when designing software. That, however, comes with its own pitfalls.
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The smallest branding step you can take
That can have a great impact on how your company is perceived.
The word branding gets thrown around too easily these days. It started as a business tool and it has become more and more a buzzword. Branding is corporate personality building, nothing more. If you admit that, innovative and out of the box branding ideas should come natural for you and your company’s marketing team.
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It depends on the task that is to be accomplished. Taking breaks off research or long creative endeavours can prove beneficial.
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The Outlook Plugin you've been longing for
is about to go live next week
Last year's YArooms will always be our fiercest competitor.
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Regardless of your business, you can never thrive in a vacuum. You need a community to support you but, to get that, it is up to you to support your community.
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Sync YArooms with your other calendars
(via iCal feeds)
“Do you sync with Google Calendar? Outlook? Mac Calendar? Do you?” We used to say no. Now, it’s a big YES, WE DO!
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Manage your meeting rooms' resources
and know if they’re costing you more than they’re worth
“Guys, we have a coffee problem. It’s too expensive… and it’s driving this company in the ground!” - that’s something you’ll probably never hear in a cutting-costs meeting. But do you honestly know how much coffee costs you?
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3 Things you should consider before investing in office automation software
and 1 you should be looking forward to
Office automation is one of the best trends to have hit the business environment. It allows for fast and secure storage of information and data exchange or management, bridging the gap between software and hardware solutions.
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Why you shouldn't host business meetings at Starbucks
and when you should
We have nothing against Starbucks. Their coffee is pretty good, the ambiance is fine, everything looks stunning - it’s the perfect place to take a date or have a business lunch.
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Merging Rooms In YArooms
As simple as A,B,C
Listen to your customers - that’s one mantra we’ll never forget. Read on to find out what our engineers have been up to, thanks to your input.
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The 3 facets of Project Management
And the best tools to address them
If you look up “project management tools” on your search engine of preference, you’ll find listicles and “Top X” articles. This is not one of them.
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3 Ways To Boost Discussions With Silence
And Engage People In The Meeting Room
Remember the old adage, “silence is golden”? Truer words have rarely been spoken. Here’s how you can leverage silence to gain an advantage in and out of the meeting room.
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6 Signs You Need An Office Manager
(desperately)
Starting companies have no need for an office manager. Ordering a pizza and two notepads isn’t much of a hassle. Scheduling one meeting per week is simple enough and doesn’t take much time. But what do you do when you start growing?
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Get More Out Of Your Meetings
Reach Goals Faster and Easier With A Discussion Facilitator
The best way to win someone over is to use arguments they want to hear. But, to know what those are, you have to get them talking. And that’s… not always as simple as it sounds - you’ve probably faced the awkward situation in which a discussion turns into a monologue. Your monologue. Here’s how to get everyone to speak their mind.
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Improve The Quality Of Your Meetings
By Improving Your Note-Taking Abilities
“Just a sec, let me write this down so I don’t forget”. Sounds familiar? Irritating, maybe? This is how you avoid it.
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More often than not, small companies won’t need any kind of room scheduling software. They don’t have that many rooms to begin with, so something like YArooms seems unnecessary. The keyword here is, of course, “seems”. Ready to dig in? Good. We prepared a use case for you, to make things a bit easier to digest.
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You just finished a long meeting. The client (or business partner) seems excited about it. You were spot-on with your proposals, got a verbal agreement from them, everyone is happy. But no decision has been made. No official decision, anyway. And you never hear from them again.
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Meeting Room Relationship Nurturing
Or How To Get Good Reports with Good Rapport
We tend to project our own selves onto others - our fears, our wants, our needs, our strong points are reflected back to us through them. This process happens both ways and can be used to your advantage.
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Booking A Meeting Room? Get Your Smalltalk ready!
And Increase Your Chances Of Striking A Good Deal
Almost nobody enjoys meetings. At least not for long or not when extremely important matters are discussed - they always carry the risk of raining down fire and brimstone on a potential deal. You can change that.
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Is Your Performance In The Meeting Room Subpar?
Find out Why And How To Prevent It
“More money will make top-performing people perform even better!” - not really.
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Preparing for difficult negotiations ensures a positive attitude and the best outcome possible. Read on to find out what should happen before the meeting starts.
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Arctic Wolves and Negotiation.
3 things to know when preparing for a meeting
Christmas is around the corner, so we’ll keep this short and sweet.
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Batnaman Wins
How To Win More By Helping Everybody Win
Whenever someone tells you that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”, remind them that those good intentions helped pave a road. Read on to see what adopting a win-win negotiation strategy can do for your business.
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Your Business. Our long-term commitment.
Adding new levels to our room-booking management system
Following the latest relaunch of YArooms and the updated pricing model, we felt that we could do more than offer a state-of-the-art meeting room booking system.
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As many of you probably already know, 9 months ago we have launched the new YArooms web application as a beta with the possibility to opt-in to use it. In the past months the new version matured and was launched as final to all customers almost a month ago.
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Pricing YArooms
the last 3 years and the future
I am coming back with details on the new pricing model, as promised in my last blog post. 3 years ago when we first launched the paid YArooms application. At that time, the application was free for almost a year while it was in beta and we were researching the market.
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Welcome to the new YArooms
The new version gets out of beta
A while back we launched the beta version of YArooms. Its main feature? The complete overhaul of the user interface. By writing this, we officially announce the immediate availability of the new version as final, the launch of this new and beautiful presentation website, and this blog where you will find relevant content for the meeting industry and updates on the YArooms software suite.
