Volume 13, Issue 14 — July 16, 2020

rAVe ED [Education] — Volume 13, Issue 14

July 16, 2020 | Volume: 13 | Issue: 14

Hello everyone, and happy Thursday! I come bearing more gifts for you in the form of very well-written columns. I want to bring special attention today to the Scott Tiner column, because he talks about the hard-to-swallow pill that is racial diversity in our industry. Not to be captain obvious, but there’s barely any. And that’s messed up! So, he points to a few thoughts on how we can start building up our industry to look like the rest of the world. (Instead of like the inside of a Home Depot.)

OK, hot takes aside, we have another column from Christopher Gillespie in his ITIL/ITSM series, and a blog from GK himself on Zoom’s new Hardware-as-a-Service program! These crazy kids will turn anything into a service these days!

We also have hot-off-the-press news for you because DSE has been postponed to November (everybody do your best surprised face), and product updates from the likes of Extron, Torus Power, AmpliVox and more!

OK, go read our stories now!

— Steph Beckett

COLUMNS

+ We Should Be Promoting Diversity in the AV Industry [Scott Tiner]

On infrequent occasions, I write blogs that do not relate directly to technology or AV. I do this because I feel as though I should stick to the things that I know and have experience with. Yet, there are times when something is so important, I feel like I need to say something. Due to the racial inequalities within the U.S. — which have been highlighted over the past several months — this is one of those times.

+ New Zoom Hardware-as-a-Service Program Will Boost AVaaS; Get Into AVaaS Now! [Gary Kayye]

I’ve been writing about offering AVaaS for over 4 years. Heck, I’ve even done two different webinars about it — and how to do it — for Almo Pro A/V since 2016. Yes, barely any AV integrators are offering it. But, now’s your chance. And, thanks to Zoom’s recent HaaS (Hardware-as-a-Service) announcement yesterday, you have a more straightforward path to success as the end users will understand it better, and you can copy Zoom’s model!

+ Part 3: ITIL, ITSM and AV — The Benefits of Benchmarking [Christopher Gillespie]

Everyone likes to talk about how happy their customers are and how impactful their AV systems are. However, as there are no standard definitions or measurements for “impactful “or any other defining aspects of these systems, we cannot measure customer satisfaction, degree of impact and effectiveness. So, frankly stated: No one has a way of definitively saying that they do a better job than any other firm.