Volume 19, Issue 11 — March 17, 2021

rAVe ProAV Edition — Volume 19, Issue 11

March 17, 2021 | Volume: 19 | Issue: 11

“Nothing happens until someone catches a fish.”

BlogSquad-er Omar Prashad nails the landing this week as he writes about AV business roles and playing to your team’s strengths. Among other thought-starters, he asks: “Why do many integrators want their most valuable people to be responsible for parts of cleaning, butchering, delivering and cooking the fish? Doesn’t it seem counterproductive to take your most valuable, important and critical assets and ask them to do things that are better handled by others?”

Prashad’s analogy is right in line (ha) with the AV industry. Catch (ha) his story here. Sorry for the dad jokes.

Visionary also released a cool case study this week that outlines its work in the Józef Piłsudski Cracovia Municipal Stadium, home to KS Cracovia, one of the oldest Polish football clubs. I couldn’t help but allow my mind to wander to the many hilarities in “Ted Lasso,” a show about a very American (and very Midwestern) middle-aged man hired to coach — for the first time, having never played football — a fictional, professional English football team called AFC Richmond. Even if you’re not a football/soccer fan, the show is straight-up gold; if you haven’t activated it yet, use your free trial of Apple TV+ to watch. I will put money down that you’ll love it.

Also this week, we hear from BlogSquad writers Mark Coxon and Scott Tiner; manufacturers Sharp/NEC, MAXHUB, BrightSign, etc.; distributor Almo Pro A/V; and show association Integrated Systems Europe, the latter of which has made a change to the ISE Show plans for June.

— Leah McCann

COLUMNS

+ Switching on the Edge [Mark Coxon]

Many are predicting work weeks that may look less like the five days in the office with a two-day weekend setup of the past and more like a three, two, two — with three days in an office, two days working at home and a two-day weekend. Remote technologies will be used every day to some capacity. However, calling all the meeting technology “hybrid” falls short of recognizing all the ways the systems can be configured.

+ Who’s Going to Catch the Fish? [Omar Prashad]

I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts a few weeks ago (for my fellow amateur real estate investors out there check out “Bigger Pockets”), and I heard something so profound it stuck with me. “There are those who catch fish and those who rely on those who catch fish.” The simplicity is beautiful, and the analogy is so easily paralleled into every industry, ours specifically.

+ AV Is IT [Scott Tiner]

During End User Day of LAVNCH WEEK 3.0 in February (in partnership with HETMA), I enjoyed listening to end users speak about AV security. It was particularly interesting to me since I had just written a blog on how the SolarWinds hack should serve as a lesson to the AV industry. I was tweeting a few thoughts during the event. In my tweets, I wrote about how AV and IT are the same things. Many of the panelists on the talk had indicated the same thinking. Yet, some of the responses to my tweet surprised me. There are people in our (AV) industry who will still argue that AV and IT are not, indeed, the same thing.