Have you ever wondered why some businesses name their meeting rooms? Whether comical or serious, meaningful or historical, the name of a meeting room is often directly related to the cultural resonance of a business, or perhaps even the organisation’s own ethos. A meeting room name can often provide a little bit of insight into its owner, so pay attention next time you’re heading out on your next site visit!
“Companies that name their conference and meeting rooms according to themes are doing so to communicate their values and organisational culture to their employees, customers, clients, and all who enter” says Sarah Brazaitis, an organisational psychologist and senior lecturer at Columbia’s Teachers College.
There are a multitude of ways to come up with a name for a meeting room, but the most common approach is to use a theme, which can cover an array of meeting rooms easily, as most modern offices usually have more than one. Many of Condeco’s clients and partners have used innovative ways to name their meeting rooms, and getting to take a sneaky peek at them is part of the fun of helping integrate our meeting room booking solutions!
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We took a look at some of the more fun and creative ways to incorporate your meeting room into your overall business culture with a significant naming theme – here’s what some of the big names in digital and social have named their meeting rooms:
At Instagram’s California workspace, rooms have different, wacky themes and clever pun names. One example is the Are you Afraid of the Darkroom, which is, as referenced by its moniker, a room specifically used for photographs to process analogy photographs. In true millennial form, fit for Instagram, the name comes from a beloved 90s kid’s TV show.
Instagram’s Californian workspace was designed by Gensler, with the brief to design a space which “feels like a 3D version of the app”. Mission accomplished! Over on the east coast, the New York Instagram offices take their cue from their surroundings, naming conference rooms after traditional New York mainstays, such as Blair Waldorf (aka the iconic millennial character from TV show Gossip Girl) or Dollar Hot Dog, after the classic, well, one dollar NY hot dog!
New Relic
High on the 28th floor of the US Bank Tower in Portland, Oregon, New Relic’s company of developers occupy 19,000 square feet of space. Somewhat fittingly for an office that’s located so high up, looking down over the glistening streets below, New Relic’s meeting rooms are all named after superheroes, with cartoon-esque imagery stencilled on the glass walls that divide each room. It’s an amusing, geeky in-joke for the hoard of tech experts who work there, many of whom are no doubt first in line at every new Marvel release!
Image Source: TechCrunch
BuzzFeed
The bastion of millennial and generation Z digital content, BuzzFeed carry their own signature bright yellow ‘reaction’ buttons through to their meeting rooms; visitors can expect to find themselves greeting BuzzFeed employees in a room named WTF, LOL, OMG or WIN. Whether a true representation of BuzzFeed itself, or more of an ironic nod to the internet generation that spawned it, these meeting rooms surely create absurd little moments when visitors find themselves checking into WTF, and that’s no doubt part of the fun.
Image source: Business Insider
Etsy
Etsy provide a platform for creative types from all over the globe to sell their wares, so it makes complete sense for them to be more inventive than average with their meeting room names. Creating monikers out of a mash-up of two things pretty much everyone on the planet loves – food and music – the pun-based labels of their conferences will raise a chuckle from even the most serious among us: think Fleetwood Mac ‘n’ Cheese, Wu Tang Clams, the Rolling Scones, Johnny Cashews, Pjork, Oreo Speedwagon and Soy Division.
Image source: IFLArchitecture.com
Facebook perhaps thought outside of the box a little more than some of their contemporaries, as their conference rooms are unrelatedly, but still amusingly, named after famous products from infomercials. The Snuggie, Shake Weight and Thighmaster are all represented here, so maybe it’s Facebook’s intention to remind you of those embarrassing late night purchases you’ve made? Come on, we’ve all been there!