When you’re an energy company in Texas, it’s important—and rather challenging—to stay in close communication with your critical team members mining natural resources along the Gulf Coast, Mississippi River and Rocky Mountains.

Denbury Resources tightened its geographic communications gap by including six dedicated video conferencing rooms in its new Plano headquarters.

Video conferencing is becoming standard in corporate projects, says Aaron Logan, project manager for the Dallas branch of AVI-SPL, which handled the integration, but he says Denbury’s goals were “very aggressive” and “ambitious.” That being said, Logan thinks many corporate customers will soon start thinking along these lines.

“Denbury made it unique by opening up multiple sites in one office that will allow access and ease of use to its employees,” he says. “I believe as time goes on, we will see this use of [video conferencing] become more typical for companies. Denbury is essentially ahead of the curve and ready for a world where traveling becomes less of a reality and more of a luxury.”

Photos: 6 Dedicated Video Conferencing Rooms

For Denbury, the priority isn’t to be an early adopter; it’s more about the video conferencing facilities making good business sense, according to its network engineer Steve Shanks. “Our company is widely scattered throughout the southern and northern area of the United States. We find it much easier to have live meetings with groups that involve multiple locations at the same time. This allows us to save on the cost of sending multiple people to remote sites that do not have easy access to an airport.”

Smart business move notwithstanding, Denbury earns some big technology points with the solution in its executive boardroom, a circular room with what Logan describes as a “jumbotron” video conferencing monitor hanging above the roundtable.

Inside the Jumbotron

Among the six dedicated video conferencing rooms recently built at Denbury’s headquarters, the solution in the executive boardroom is the centerpiece—in more ways than one.

In a round room with a circular table, Denbury didn’t want to require team members to turn and focus on a traditional, front-of-the-room display. Enter the jumbotron solution, which Logan says is a custom-built, round structure that holds six monitors, each aimed at the outer portions of the table. The six Sharp LED back-lit LCD LC-40LE700UN TVs are sunk into the structure.

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About the author

Tom LeBlanc - Editor-in-Chief, CI, Tom

Tom has been covering electronics integration since 2003. Prior to being named editor-in-chief of CI, he was senior writer and managing editor of CE Pro. Before that, he wrote for the sports department of the Boston Herald. Migrating to magazines, he was a staff editor for a golf publication and an outdoor sports publication. Follow him on Twitter @leblanctom.

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