Volume 11, Issue 10.1 — October 3, 2018

RaveEd — Volume 11, Issue 10.1 — October 3, 2018

October 3, 2018 | Volume: 11 | Issue: 10.1

Unfortunately, emergencies — and planning for emergencies — has become the new normal around the world. Between school shootings, earthquakes, hurricanes and, now, Facebook-posted threats, our schools are at risk. But, there are some handy (and affordable) new tech things that can help. And, some of them you might already have on your campus. This week, Bates College’s Scott Tiner talks about a subject we don’t want to have to face but have to plan for. And, there are a few tech tools, below, that will help, too.

SaaS (software as a service) is all the rage in the IT world. But there’s a movement afoot to offer hardware as a service too. Is it ready fro primetime in AV? That’s what Mersive’s Christopher Jaynes talks about in his column in this issue.

And speaking of hardware, if you’re in the NY metro area on October 24th, NEC is having a killer tech show you might want to register for — you can do that here (and it’s free)! In news the entire education world has been awaiting, Extron launched its next generation ShareLink! I use ShareLink in all my classes at the University of North Carolina and love it. The new one is 4K and includes wireless and wired inputs, too. Get all the details by clicking here.

-Gary Kayye

COLUMNS

+ Operating Through an Emergency [Scott Tiner]

Despite their size, colleges need to be prepared for long periods of operations disruption, mostly due to weather. While lives are the most important factor in these events, once the life-threatening part of the weather event is passed, operations need to continue. For education facilities who may be without power or have buildings that are unusable, creative solutions need to be found. Integrators can be the perfect partner in this.

+ Hardware as a Service – AV Is About Services and Not Things [Christopher Jaynes]

Fundamentally, what AV does is bridge the physical and digital worlds through sight and sound, and that’s partly what makes it interesting. But we should really think about the hardware as a socket that allows us to deliver services to the user. Think of an electrical plug deployed in your house that allows the electric company to provide you with a monthly service of power. You really don’t place much value in the socket — but you’re willing to pay the electric company a monthly fee for the service of electrical power.