Granted, not much good comes out of pandemics or other catastrophes like war. If there is a silver lining at all, it’s that sometimes dire need accelerates the application of technology to fill a void. With so many people forced to work for home for social distancing, teleconferencing technology has proven to be a huge aid in facilitating collaboration and continuing knowledge work without a significant hit to productivity.

If you think about education, it has been particularly hard hit in the past few months. While education has significantly ramped up the use of technology over the past 20 years, much learning and activity still relies on more traditional in-person interaction. In the past few months, schools in St. Louis and across Missouri have been forced to shift to remote learning and scrambled to implement the right processes to manage it.

Fortunately, the technology for teleconferencing systems and remote collaboration is now quite mature and has come down the affordability cost curve dramatically. Facebook recently announced a rethinking of their workforce, where they might allow half of it or more to work remotely from home. In the same vein, schools can think about innovative ways of using teleconferencing to supplement existing learning programs and better respond to extreme situations, whether it's a pandemic or a severe weather event.

Keep reading to learn how.

St. Joseph Catholic Church in Cottleville, MO was recently presented with a difficult dilemma. A large Lightolier dimming system was installed when the church was built in 1999. In recent years, the system had become unreliable due to failures in the controller portion of the system. Unfortunately, the system is out of production and the manufacturer no longer supports it (repairs or parts). Bob Emery, Maintenance Director for this large facility was able to patch the system together for a while, but in February of 2020 a large portion of the system stopped working altogether, leaving the 1500 seat church in the dark. Bob was fully aware that he was going to have to replace the aging system at some point, especially since it was designed for incandescent lighting, not LED. He also knew this was an important and costly endeavor. The church needed time to redesign the system properly and to budget the needed funds. Everyone he spoke with told him he would need to replace the whole system right now or waste resources on a stop gap solution that would be discarded later. He needed an alternative. They found a company that has been serving the technology needs of churches for the past 32 years.

We are fortunate to live in a world of powered conveniences. Things we take for granted, like refrigerators, washing machines, and dryers were a revolution that changed home life decades ago.

Another powered convenience is quietly changing the way homes, stores, restaurants, offices, and other commercial establishments are managed – motorized shades. It may not be the revolution of powered appliances, but with power comes automation. And automation and smart control unleash imaginative new ways of doing things. 

Read on to learn more about how motorized shade installations can benefit homes and commercial properties in St. Louis, MO.

To paraphrase a well-known commercial, what's in your building? Are you running it as efficiently as possible? If you are an owner of commercial property, do your tenants feel the building has the amenities needed? If it's your building, does your staff feel comfortable and safe? Is it an easy place to do business, or is it a challenging environment?

Commercial lighting control and automation can solve many ills in a property. No, it can't answer all of them. But smart control and automation of systems like lighting, HVAC, security, access, and AV systems can go a long way to ensuring people feel comfortable, productive, and safe in their environment.

Keep reading below to see how commercial lighting control and automation adds value to your Chesterfield, MO properties.