Over the past several weeks, the team at Groover Labs has been hard at work building and installing upgrades to different spaces in the building.

Whiteboards

If you recall from an earlier post, “Rent Our Conference Rooms,” we have six conference rooms and one boardroom available for rent, by the hour, for both members and non-members.

Small conference rooms are $10 for members and $15 for non-members. Large conference rooms are $15/$20. The boardroom is $20/$25.

We’ve seen an uptick in the use of these spaces during the pandemic for groups and teams who need a way to meet safely. Along with our hand-crafted white oak tables, comfortable chairs, HDMI- and streaming-compatible HDTVs, we’ve now added large whiteboards in each room. In addition to the conference rooms and boardroom, we’ve also added whiteboards in the hotseat area and in the classrooms.

Whiteboards are essential tools for collaboration. Jot down ideas, discuss them as a group, erase them, expand them, change them—it’s a fast and easy way to preserve ideas and stay focused.

Apps like OneNote and Evernote do excellent jobs of creating digital whiteboards on devices, but they don’t replace the real thing. At the end of a strategy session, take out your mobile device and snap a picture so you can revisit your great ideas.

Podcast Studio Sound Baffling

We announced at the beginning of the year that we bought Rode microphones and a soundboard to set up in one of our large conference rooms, which now functions as both a meeting space and podcast studio. The team recently found some interesting designs for sound baffling online, so they went to work. The baffling was installed earlier this week, and there’s a distinct reduction in the already-minimal echo when you’re in the room. We’re eager to hear the first podcast in the upgraded room.

As of December 2020, there are more than 1.5 million podcasts and more than 34 million episodes. With so many forced to work from home or outside normal routines, podcasts have become a wonderful way to connect with long-form content that aligns with personal interests.

Approximately 104 million people listen to podcasts in the United States each month, and 68 million say they listen to them weekly. They’re so popular that 93 percent of U.S. listeners say they listen to all or most of each episode they download or stream. You can read more podcasting statistics here.

If you either have a podcast or you’re thinking about starting one, consider recording at Groover Labs. Email contact@grooverlabs.org for details.