Volume 10, Issue 11 — June 6, 2019

UCC — Volume 10, Issue 11 — June 6, 2019

June 6, 2019 | Volume: 10 | Issue: 11

Welcome to this edition of rAVe UCC — this is our last issue before next week’s mega-AV show, known as InfoComm. Although Enterprise Connect is the UCC industry’s only dedicated collaboration show, InfoComm will show more UCC products than two Enterprise Connect show floors combined.

So, we are bringing over 35 reporters to the annual mega-AV show, this year in Orlando, that kicks off next week but the news is already pouring in — at a record pace. And, we will continue to publish just the UCC-oriented news in this newsletter (today) and one the coming weeks but, if you’re interested in other segments of meeting rooms — like projectors, monitors, control systems, audio systems, etc., then you’re probably be interested in our dedicated InfoComm Microsite here.

By the way, there is one thing differentiates our coverage from all the other news you will see coming out of Orlando next week — we are the only publication where you can read, listen or WATCH ALL the new product news. Unlike ALL our competition, who only shoot product videos in booths where they are being paid to shoot them, we actually send our reporters to EVERY single booth on the show floor and we shoot videos of everything we see. We expect to shoot over 1,700 videos and, again, they’ll all be posted here over the next week and a half. So, go back often! Oh, and we added a UCC category to our VIDEO SEARCH tool — so, if you want to just see what UCC-oriented products we shoot videos for at InfoComm, just click here and the UCC news will be filtered for you!

This issue has over 20 new UCC-oriented product stories, but the way. But, my favorite story in here is the very first one — the announcement of our 2019 Readers’ Choice Awards. Again, unlike most other AV pubs, we don’t do play-for-play awards. So, these are unsponsored, unpaid and unbiased. I hope you’ll check out the winners! UCC products companies awarded include Logitech, Avocor, Zoom, NEC, Extron and a few others!

Enjoy this issue of rAVe UCC and, if you’re heading to InfoComm, please stop by our booth in the lobby and say hello (and pick up a free t-shirt) and say hello to one our our reporters when you see them on the show floor — they will be working 15-18-hour days next week!

-Gary Kayye

AWARDS

+ Here Are the Winners of the 2019 rAVe Readers’ Choice Awards! [Gary Kayye]

COLUMNS

+ Does Your Touch Panel Spark Joy? [Leonard Suskin]

When it comes time to choose which items to keep or which to discard, Kondo doesn’t tell her clients which items should spark joy; this is a personal journey for each family to choose what they value, the presence of which items gives them happiness. She may be the guide, but the journey is theirs. What can we learn from that? It’s easy to make assumptions based on our biases, based on industry trends, based on our experiences. While we still need to offer choices and still need to share the benefits of our knowledge, there is one truth for any of our projects: It is not about us.

+ Don’t Bring Me Gadgets… Bring Me Data! [Christopher Gillespie]

In the grand pantheon of issues that end users have to solve, there are the widget-focused issues of getting images on screens, and sound where we want it and all that goes along with that. However when looking at my list of problems to be solved, I have two words that always come up: data and metrics. Should you, the integrator, bring me something that gives me data, data that I can’t get from other sources, and it allows me to build metrics that I have never before been able to build… now we're talking. And if that widget that did some cool thing… in six months there will be a better widget and so we may switch. But if the thing you brought me is a data source, and I build applications and API integrations out of it, then guess what? That is one seriously sticky product!