Friday, 27 November 2009
I go to two or three conferences a month if I can, it helps to keep your skills honed and it’s useful to know what others are doing in your marketplace – I see it as free training and good coffee. Anyway, this month I went to one that rates as the worst one ever, simply because the seating was awful!
When you’re sitting for nigh on two hours in a room with fifty other delegates with absolutely no air conditioning, the least you expect is for the seating to be comfortable, but it wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, the speaker was really good, but so many people were fidgeting around me that I was distracted to the point that I forgot most of the stuff he was going on about.
The seat I was in was old, tattered and had what appeared to be big sticks projecting through the cloth and short of being some kind of bizarre acupuncture therapy, I really couldn’t see the point of it. It was as if some organiser really didn’t like people in general and had bought the seats from “Torture Equipment R Us” or something.
Anyway, the point is this; if you want people to leave your seminar or conference having understood your talk and without having the urge to bitch about it on a blog, make your conference seating comfortable.
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
You'd think it would be easy to buy a chair these days. The general method of keeping your bum off the ground whilst allowing you to use your computer would seem a well-trodden path and technology surely makes it a doddle to do it right.
You'd be wrong.
There are so many chairs available these days that it's hard to decide which is the best to buy, but rather that simply being an exercise in confusing the public, these chairs are made for very specific reasons and you should choose wisely.
As we storm into the 21st Century, nearly all jobs will these days require sitting at a computer terminal for long periods of time. This can be painful if your chair doesn't support you correctly and there are now regulations in place to ensure you get it right.
However, we've tried to make it as easy as possible to get the right chair for the job and so here's a quick run-down of what to look for:
- Operator seating
A full range of seating especially designed for operators can be found here : Operator seating. Simply find the right seating for the type of job at hand. For example, people sat at the computer all day should consider good lumbar support.
- Executive Seating
If you're after that taste of luxury but also need the flexibility to use the computer (some managers just fake it!), then these seats can do the job. Executive seating doesn't need to be restrictive.
- Conference Seating
The one area where you can get away with the cheaper seating options is in conference seating. You need something that's light, easy to store and isn't too comfortable so that your delegates fall asleep!