rAVe Home — Volume 16, Issue 23 — December 12, 2019
Latest headlines: Anthony Coppedge on the expectation for AV technology to be effortless and perfect, Lee Distad on estimating time and services during a project, plus news from Crestron, Denon, CEDIA and more
December 12, 2019 | Volume: 16 | Issue: 23
Hiya, #AVtweeps! I’m interested to know if anyone else hangs onto their old tech products (even though they have new ones) just because the products still work? I have a first (or maybe second?) generation Apple TV, and although I’ve since upgraded, I kept my first one as a backup. Well, my roommates mentioned they wished we had an extra digital media player for streaming in our living room, and there I was with the solution! Of course, they made fun of me for hanging onto the dinosaur. But they didn’t complain as much once I plugged that sucker in and it still worked! Anyways, connect with me on LinkedIn and yell at me to get rid of it if you want, but I still probably won’t listen. (I swear I’m not a laggard, though, my newer one is a fourth-gen!) Just try to see eye to eye with me here.
Anyways — today, we have a couple of columns for you as an early holiday gift: Anthony Coppedge writes about the consumer expectation for technology to be perfect and effortless — even though we know it isn’t going to be. Lee Distad writes about estimating time and cost in project management.
In other news, Denon has a new suite of wireless multiroom speakers (we see y’all with the Sonos competition), and we have a list of the keynotes, conferences and workshops at ISE 2020.
Comedian Louis CK once said: "Everything is amazing, and no one is happy." In the neverending quest for the technology that makes everyone happy, no one is happy because the expectation is often that all technology should be perfect by now and that any issues with current technology (or lack thereof) could be fully remedied with new technology. Nevermind the fact that it would take an electron-scanning microscope to notice the intricate details that make much of our AVL technology work, which is mind-blowing if you sit and think about it too long (so don’t). We have become conditioned to somehow expect instant, lag-free, high-resolution, app-controlled goodness at our fingertips.
Calculating and totaling all the inputs that make up an estimate isn’t always easy. The fact is that calculating estimates is just another process, although unlike straight-up technical processes (like terminating lines), estimating is often a mix of both science and art.
