Well, I’m just back from InfoComm, and after three days I have almost sorted out the debris. I have unpacked two suitcases full of dirty clothes, two boxes of literature I will never read, and several of the mysteriously popular LED flashing pins. Sometimes I wonder if trade shows are a conspiracy by the airlines […]

Joel speaks with Rick Kamlet of Harman about the company, new products, and their exhibit and demo room program for this year’s show. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

Well, June approaches again, and with it, among other things, comes the InfoComm show. And I don’t mean InfoComm Patagonia or InfoComm New Zealand or whatever they’re up to these days. I mean the original, accept-no-substitutes, convince-the-boss-I-NEED to-go, InfoComm show. Actually, that’s not to disparage InfoComm’s ever-widening pantheon of AV shows around the world. I […]

Last month, we considered the idea that it isn’t just the disciplines of IT and AV that are converging, but that the tools and components of both disciplines are combining in many AV shows or installations. This earned me some criticism about the way I had misused the term “convergence” (much of it from another […]

As some of you will know, I recently attended ISE 2014 in Amsterdam with the rAVe team. We spent a very long week seeing and documenting the entire show, and afterward Gary and I reported on what we thought the major news and themes of the show were. Gary and I (as usual) had somewhat […]

First of all, let me say that this year’s Infocomm Live has been an excellent, worthwhile experience. But the presenter on Social Media, while obviously knowledgeable, really points out, to me, the things that devalue and confuse social media platforms. He gave us instructions like “Be Enchanting” and “Listen Louder”, which like much of social […]

This morning’s presentation by Rick Carlton of the CEB (Corporate Executive Board) was truly excellent and well worth the time spent. His presentation, on “Challenger Selling” has the group still talking half an hour after he left the room. The premise of the presentation turns traditional sales thinking on it’s head. For decades now, most […]

Well, the event sponsors at Digital Projection really did us proud last night. First, they closed Atlanta’s Hard Rock Cafe for the group, and hosted us for an evening of drinks and great food. Then, Mike Levi and DPI’s band performed and totally rocked the crowd, at times throwing frisbees into the audience, (whenever anybody […]

Well, it’s 6pm here at Infocomm Live. As I predicted, it was hard to clear the room at the end of the meeting, so 3 of us missed the main body of the aquarium tour. But, with typical Georgia hospitality, the last three of us were given our very own tour of this incredible facility […]

Well, the first speaker session has finished, and we are taking a half hour coffeebreak! Really, I have to compliment Infocomm on understanding this group. Long breaks allow for all of us to return calls and email, something it is hard to get this group away from. It also allows us to talk to each […]

Infocomm Live 2014 – post 2 Our opening presenter is really quite interesting… Talking about the “Top Gun” experience. Well, looking around this room, I am struck by the real reason I love this event so much. There are few people in the room I don’t know, and none that I can’t learn from(or, in […]

Well, after a frantic week of catchup caused by being in Amsterdam for a week for ISE, I am preparing to go off to Atlanta for the InfoComm Live event. For those of you not familiar with it, InfoComm Live is the association’s annual gathering for management in the Live Events (read “AV Rental and […]

Each year at this time, I am alerted to the coming of spring by that special fragrance that’s in the air, by those sounds that indicate the coming of a new season. In our business, that fragrance is the smell of shrink wrap and packing peanuts, and it harkens the coming of new technologies that […]

I arrived home last night after a whirlwind day of post-show meetings and goodbyes in Amsterdam. Now, with a profound case of jet-lag, I am sitting down with all my notes and recordings to put this year’s show into some perspective. First, however, let me say something about the effort in which I was fortunate […]

An AWESOME day today — the crowd is great, the mix of manufacturers and buyers is strong, and around the new tech exhibits it can be difficult to move. And that’s great for a trade show. Gary and I did a new edition of “THE WEEK” live from the floor, and its being posted today, […]

Well, ISE 2014 is nearing opening tomorrow morning. The rAVe  booth is up, but is the center of a construction area as the stands on either side of us are running late. So, as I sit here writing this, I am being coated in a fine layer of sawdust and can barely hear myself think. […]

We all talk about digital signage systems as if they are the wave of the future, or at the very least as if they are very “now”. To be proven wrong, you need only take a look at the Displaymaker signage system, marketed by Eastman Kodak circa 1988. When I was at Audio Visual Systems, […]

Happy New Year, readers! Last month’s column left our hero (yours truly, since I’m writing this) promising to explore the skill set required for the successful rental and staging technician. It’s quite a list, starting with a firm understanding of how things work in the physical world, and this month moving on to include interpersonal […]

In my last newsletter article, I took on the art of end-of-year predictions.  Predictably, I copped out by predicting that we wouldn’t get any smarter about a lot of things. Today, let me continue my proud tradition of journalistic excellence with another major exposé of a bogus holiday tradition that many of us indulge in […]

As I mentioned in my last column in rAVe’s Rental and Staging e-newsletter, I read a lot of business books but totally embrace the ideas in very few of them. Most of the time, I am very pleased to get just one or two ideas from each one that I can apply to my own […]

Well, another year draws to a close in the rental and staging industry. As I sit here, filling out a box of Christmas cards with comical pictures of Santa holding a MacBook Pro, I am reflecting on what has happened in our industry this year. It has been an interesting year, both in the audiovisual […]

Over the last two issues, we’ve talked about the emerging generation of executive clients, and how the attitudes and expectations of that generation will change the way they make business decisions, and thus (if we are smart) the way we do business. Among these changes, broadly, are the tendency to distribute information more widely and […]

Last month, we talked about the idea that the next generation of client will have changing standards in quality, production values and even the very nature of work and communication. I proposed that these changes would create fundamental differences in the way they made purchase decisions, especially those involving the public communications aspect of what […]

I have always had two ways of defining a professional. The first, and the one I use most often, is that a professional is someone who gets paid for their work. Admittedly, sometimes, in the audiovisual industry, this is a difficult thing to achieve. The second way I have had of defining a professional is […]

From my first days in the industry, I was cautioned against knocking the competition. And, truth to tell, it’s a really bad idea. The CIA would call it blowback, my wife would call it uncouth, and my old-time hippie neighbor Dave would call it bad karma. Whatever, saying nasty things about the competition always, always, […]

Picture this: You’re shopping for a new car. You have a vacation road trip coming up, and you really want new wheels. Your friends have recommended that you look at a couple of cars, at a couple of different dealerships, at a couple of different manufacturers. You approach a salesman at one of the dealerships, […]

Well, InfoComm is over. And I say that with somewhat of a sigh of relief. I spent a lot of the show seated at the podcasting table in the middle of the cacophony that was the rAVe booth, behind a group of overly energetic young people doing some kind of a line dance reminiscent to […]

Big day today – trying to see the show while hosting half a dozen podcasts. Great guests today, Gary, Jennifer Willard from WAVE, Jim Smith from Polycom, and this afternoon a group of attendees from “Down Under” at 2:30. In terms of the show floor, it is packed, much busier than yesterday. Lots of new […]

Been having a great morning at the show. The industry is obviously picking up steam, so I have talked to a lot of friends in the booths who are encouraged by the new products and the level of business. At the same time, InfoComm’s marketing thrust is obviously showing. There are more people here representing […]

OK, this is what I call product confidence. Barco has set up a number of free meeting rooms with large displays, and no way to connect to them except the provided ClickShare systems. I tried it (full disclosure: I DO know ClickShare already), but was also around when new users tried it. And it worked, […]

Great show so far — the crowd on the floor seemed a little light at first, but after many years of staging shows here, I can tell you that that is often illusionary, because the convention center is spread out so far. This place is one enormous barn – I remember the first time I […]

I have discovered a new way to keep my employees from talking to clients in intimidating AV jargon. It’s easy – just send them to open a retirement account. I did this yesterday, and realized that they talk just like we do – and it is an eye-opener. “Good afternoon, Mr. Rollins. I understand you […]