When I first joined the ranks of Milestone one of my coworkers told me that “Every integrator wants to work for a manufacturer when they grow up.” It was funny, and at the time I identified with that statement on some level.  Working for a manufacturer offered a few advantages for sure.  From a sales perspective, […]

All of us in the digital signage market have been preaching the call — and future potential — of interactive signage. Interactivity makes signage more engaging, can be used to “gamify” the information and, in some cases, makes signage more multi-purpose — think about the case where the sign can magically transform into a huddle-room […]

OK, for the last two months I have taken a very tongue-in-cheek look at the idea of artificial intelligence and robotics in the AV industry. I got a number of interesting emails from that column, from a criticism of my “union dues” joke to a number of serious thoughts about what A.I. would do to […]

This is the tweet heard ‘round the AV world — or at least, it should have been: The March 21st tweet from R/GA read: A thousand years from now humans will have shed their physical form and ascended to a higher state of consciousness and conference room AV systems still won’t work. — R/GA (@RGA) […]

In my biweekly blog series, I am highlighting some of the incredible people who work for the Audio Video Industry. In this post, we are profiling Anas Al Kurdi. Here is his brief introduction. Anas Al Kurdi is the owner and CEO of Pixel Solutions, an Audio Visual and Business Solutions Company located in Muscat, Oman. 1. […]

What do you do when you’re in Atlanta? You hang out at Good Word Brewing & Public House with Jarrett Jones, Director of Commercial Engineering at Baker Audio Visual. We talk about bourbon and pick-up trucks as well as how we inspire and train the next generation of AV professionals. (There may be an Easter […]

I recently attended a conference about service management and ITIL. I went expecting to learn a lot about processes, procedures and rules for providing value for a company and I did learn quite a bit about that in the sessions I attended. However, one session in particular stood out to me above all the others, […]

Of all the various issues that generate the most questions from potential and current clients in the HOW markets, creating and managing the musical aspects of a service are definitely at the top of the list. It matters not whether it’s a simple guitar and piano accompaniment to a traditional service or a full-on praise-band […]

It’s a truism that the first casualty of every battle is the plan. One of the realities of building things is that sometimes the plan gets changed. While ideally every eventuality gets considered and decided upon during the design and planning stages, we don’t live in an ideal world we live in this one. Consequently, […]

In my biweekly blog series, I am highlighting some of the incredible people who work for the Audio Video Industry. In this post, we are profiling James Feldstein. Here is his brief introduction. James Feldstein is the president and owner of Audio Den, an  audio, video and home automation equipment company based in Long Island, New […]

A couple months ago, I wrote about the various problems that arise when people choose not to use microphones during large meetings or classes. In particular, I was discussing the negative impacts this choice has on people who have some type of hearing issue or hearing loss. I wrote about my belief that all rooms […]

There’s no doubt that social media is a part of your marketing strategy, but are you measuring more than the so-called ‘vanity metrics’ of likes and impressions? To make your brand’s social media truly successful, your brand’s social accounts must have some personality and they must ‘listen’ even more than they ‘talk.’ When your brand […]

Your business may have the coolest AVL product or service on the market, but amassing more emails in your prospect’s Inbox isn’t helping you sell even one of those great new products. Why? As decision-makers and consumers, we’re inundated and overloaded with information and emails. We’re deluged by data. What we don’t need to know is […]

I had the pleasure of visiting my friends at Mad Systems last week.  It is a company I know quite a bit about, (in large part because I worked there for 4 years), and I was invited to come and take a look at what they’ve been up to lately. They have a history of designing […]

By Graham Gilhooley Senior Creative at 20/20 Productions When it comes to digital signage, it’s easy to get hung up on the latest innovations. But while investing in new technology is certainly important, to really get the most out of digital signage, good design is key. Digital signage lends itself to engaging and captivating displays […]

At the heart of every faith-based organization are two core ideas. To achieve their goals, any such group needs one, a clear vision of what it wants to achieve and two, a specific methodology or mission, which will allow them to reach that goal. Unfortunately, not every group does an equally solid job of putting […]

Have a drink with me and my guest Steffan Crowley at Left Coast Brewing. We’ll learn a little about how to take the CCNA as well as Steffan’s Meme Theory (and we might just sneak some AV in there too.) Check out Left Coast Brewing at https://www.leftcoastbrewing.com Find Steffan’s company Rosendin here: https://www.rosendin.com

I can’t think of two separate specialists on the jobsite whose work is more closely linked than the AV pros and the electricians. They’re so closely linked because even for small installations AV pros need to communicate with the electrician to specify locations and load capacity for the outlets that service their equipment. And with […]

I love writing this annual predictions article. If you’re a regular reader, you already know this but for those that don’t, my Kayye’s Krystal Ball piece is an annual article where I not only tell you what I think is going to happen in the AV market for the upcoming year, but I also go […]

I am fairly involved in the worlds of virtual reality, robotics and artificial intelligence and have a strong interest in how they will alter the future of our industry. Our equipment is already being built in robotic factories, using artificial intelligence. But before we push ahead into a future where our “help” is robotic instead […]

Update: We just heard from Christie, who told us that although it’s true the original Christie MicroTiles are being retired, an all-new version that’s “smaller, brighter and faster to install” will be announced at ISE next week in Amsterdam. Stay tuned for more information! I just received an official notice from Christie Digital, today, that […]

If you’ve been in sales for a long time, you’ll have read a lot of books and articles on selling. And if you keep track of such things, you’ll notice that the majority of the time, the content focuses on cold calling: How to do it, and how to make it work. Conversely, there’s less […]

This year at ISE, AVIXA will present a conference called, “What’s Next In Higher Ed.” AVIXA has presented unique sessions like this for the higher ed attendees of ISE for a couple of years, but this year looks like the best one AVIXA has presented yet. It has several well known educational technologists and will […]

Welcome to Technologist In Bars Talking AV! Come hang out with me and my guest Joe Way at GameCraft Brewing. We’ll have a drink, eat some spicy chicken, play Jenga… and if there’s still time left, maybe we’ll talk about Joe’s role in AV as well as his new book Producing Worship. Check out GameCraft […]

There are 15 halls at ISE 2019 in Amsterdam 5-8 February and show management has worked year after year to try to find a way to help visitors, well, visit. It’s LITERALLY impossible to go to the show and stay all four days and see the entire show floor — impossible In fact, that’s why […]

This holiday season I gifted a small, simple smf useful electronic device that can play music, control your home, integrate to other smart devices very easily, assist you throughout you day and night, and so much more through the power of the internet. It’s offered in a variety of colors, can be bold or blend […]

There’s no doubt in my mind that 2019 will be the year we look back on that the industry transitioned from signal routing and distribution via HDMI and so-called “digital-media” to AV-over-IP. Certainly not the entire industry — just most of it. But buyer, specifier, installer and designer beware. Not all AV-over-IP is the same, […]

I have tried to avoid writing one of these blogs. I resisted the temptation to wrap up my top moments of 2018. I stayed clear of making tech predictions for 2019. I even managed not to comment on others’ top moment lists and predictions. All in all, I was doing pretty well… until yesterday. Yesterday I […]

Lately I’ve spotted what I believe to be either a new audio trend — or perhaps it’s always been this way, and I just wasn’t paying enough attention to notice. More often I’ve seen record players be the music player of choice, or live musical entertainment with actual instruments offering up harmonic vibrations for the […]

We recently had a email thread at my institution discussing whether people should use microphones as a standard at all meetings. The discussion started as a result of people having a hard time hearing during faculty meetings. Interestingly, this discussion took a different direction that previous ones had. It was focused on accessibility and how […]

The scene: Project manager training, major integration firm. Dramatis Persona: A project manager, new to the wonderful world of commercial AV A veteran of the AV industry The Dialog: “I’m worried about this bid we just won. There’s no way we can do all of this.” “Why, what’s wrong? It looked like pretty standard conference […]

For 2019 I thought I’d flip the script on my Selling AV podcast by introducing a new format. In 2019, I’ll be crowdsourcing your AV sales questions and asking what your biggest challenges are. Then I’ll take those questions and answer them Selling AV style via audio in under five minutes. Once the podcast is […]