The Tacos of Destiny [They Will Do What We Sell]
By Joel Rollins, CTS-R  My company recently moved within our office building — and in our new offices, the conference room is the very center of the place, and has become the place where my staff and I gather at lunch to engage in audio visual's highest form of art — griping. We regularly gather there to solve all the world's problems over lunch, as we did today. Several of us had gone out to get lunch at a taco truck recently featured on television as one of the ten best in America, and that brought all of us out of our offices to sample their wares.
As usual, most of our discussion of the world, over tacos, revolved around our industry's role in it. One of our staff, a guy with nearly as many years in the industry as I have, brought up the attempts at consolidation that have taken place in the U.S., such as the Caribiner and MCSi debacles. Well, a lot of you know me, and know that the number one rule in dealing with me is “Don’t Get Me Started.” I look at these discussions, which are more critical to our company success than their informality would imply, as time to get to something more important than what we are doing with our business. We use them, together, to get to the why we are doing it.
Since I went through the years of consolidating a number of rental companies into the Southam Audio Visual Group in Canada, I felt qualified to comment on the issue, and expressed that the biggest failure in consolidations — or the biggest failure INSIDE any rental company — is not the failure of systems, organization, management or even planning. It’s the failure to first establish a cohesive company culture.
Let me give an example from personal experience. Several years into the Southam consolidation, when I was the vice president of marketing, we were in the process of being acquired again by another Canadian company, which we welcomed. The company was Adcom Electronics, at the time the nation’s largest distributor of videoconferencing equipment. We were excited by the possibilities, and were holding a sales meeting with our rental and staging salespeople, one of the youngest, most dynamic (read: often uncontrollable) groups of enthusiastic stagers I’ve ever had the privilege of working with. During that meeting, since he had all our salespeople in one place, our new owner came into the meeting by videoconference to announce that we’d be changing to become a large renter of videoconferencing systems.
When he disconnected the call, I looked into the faces of a number of young and enthusiastic salespeople who looked a bit bewildered. While we all agreed that videoconferencing was a big part of our future, we had events to sell, and it was what WE all wanted to do. I turned to them and said, “Remember the power the sales department has in controlling the company’s future. We can announce all the targets in the world, but what the company is going to actually DO is what WE SELL.”
I later became chief operating officer of that company, and was sometimes made to regret the utterance of those words, since the sales staff never forgot them. But they were nevertheless true — and those young men and women (many of whom are still in major sales or executive management positions in the industry) went on to control the destiny of our division, which was later sold to our major competition to help produce what is now one of the most powerful AV companies in the industry.
My point in this rambling?
That buy-in is the most critical part of the plan. That the plan the salespeople and operations people agree on and buy into are the only ones that can make a cohesive organization. That the traditional tug-of-war between Sales and Operations, and between both of them and Management, can only be ended when we understand that people with the brains and talent to be in this difficult industry in the first place don’t execute for a paycheck alone. That they can only be held accountable for a plan when they buy into the content and when they understand and believe in its necessity.
And that therefore, our most important management tool is not the plans or rules we establish, but the overall culture we help THEM establish.
 We all sometimes fail to do this, folks, employees and management — myself included. But we seem to succeed a lot more when we remember that this is the most important part of “planning” we do. And that, in the long run, our number one management tool is the conversation we have over “The Tacos of Destiny.”
rAVe Rental [and Staging] contributor Joel R. Rollins, CTS-R, is General Manager of Everett Hall Associates, Inc. and is well known throughout the professional AV industry for his contributions to industry training and his extensive background in AV rental, staging and installation. Joel can be reached at Joel can be reached at joelrollins@mac.com Back to Top
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Christie Adds New product Line Aimed at Stagers and Entertainment Venues  Christie's entered the stage lighting market in a very creative way via their new Nitro Solutions so-called digital luminaries. The modular series of motorized moving yokes can provide up to 20,000 ANSI lumens of video projection, creating high brightness imagery on any surface from anywhere. With the optional Xenon or LED lighting heads, the system can produce up to 50,000 lumens of lighting. Nitro Solutions can be installed at ground level or rigged to a truss, and are ideal for building projection, architectural lighting and cityscapes, houses of worship, theme parks, and live events such as concerts and theater presentations.
Christie Nitro Solutions offer two motorized yoke options: a dual-arm yoke for larger video projectors ranging from 12,000 to 20,000 ANSI lumens, and a single-arm yoke for projectors ranging from 5,700 to 15,000 ANSI lumens. The modular approach of Christie Nitro Solutions expands the effectiveness of the moving yoke platform by allowing the user to deploy the yoke with either a video projector or light head. Other features include DMX512 control and a quick-lock attachment system for easy set up and take down.
For complete specs, go to: http://info.christiedigital.com/m/378/37651/
Well, this certainly adds some flexibility to the ole’ inventory. I’ll be interested in seeing long-term performance and how it compares to some of the dedicated moving fixtures with video capability, and how lensing and flat fields affect what you’re able to do with them. Certainly it’s a product lots of us have asked them for – now we’ll find out if we knew what we were asking about 😉
–JRR
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Hong Kong-based Lighthouse Claims Made in America  Lighthouse’s recent switch to blue LEDs made by NC-based Cree Research has garnered the claim that they are the one-and-only made in America brand — well, almost. This has the potential to be a huge marketing advantage here in the U.S., where many giant LED screens are used in traditionally American-dominated sports venues like NASCAR, college football, hockey and even lacrosse, as well as staging venues and concerts where acts are specifically supporting host country products to boost the local economies during this downturn. According to Lighthouse, at least 65 percent of Lighthouse product components are sourced from U.S.-based companies such as Cree.
So, what do you think? Is this something your clients will see as a trigger-point? Or, is cost the final factor?
Personally, I’m not sure that there’s actually a video product you can say is made anywhere in particular anymore… and in the staging market, international by nature, I’m not sure it can be a deciding factor. As I’ve said before, while there are some other considerations depending on stagers as individuals, at the root of it we’re a practical industry where performance, longevity and client demands matter a lot more than labels. It’ll probably matter a bit more in installations. We’ll see.
–JRR
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SeaChanger Upgrades Tungsten Profile  SeaChanger says they’ve improved their flagship product, the SeaChanger Tungsten Profile with a flatter field (better balance), 10 percent more light out of the fixture, and a new firmware “bump” feature (using their term) that enables faster color transitions.
The SeaChanger firmware upgrade greatly improves the "snap" transition time, with a full-speed, dual rotation that allows users to choose the shortest path to the color of choice. SeaChanger says that quicker translations are achieved without sacrificing the smooth, transition-free fades and its already virtually silent operation.
To learn more about SeaChanger products, visit the SeaChanger website at www.SeaChangerOnline.com
Well, faster and cleaner color transitions are always in demand among the lighting folk… and any performance improvement to something I already own that is achieved by a firmware or software upgrade is highly desirable.
–JRR
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Click above for more information
Sony's PMW-500 Camcorder Switches to Memory Cards  Shooting b-roll for an upcoming event? Well, Sony’s gone now using totally solid state drive (SSD) for recording with the new PMW-500 full shoulder MPEG422 camcorder that has four hours of FullHD resolution storage. With both MXF for 4:2:2 50Mbps or IT for 4:2:0 35 Mbps recording modes, Sony’s aiming this camera for both in-field and in-studio recording and storage via SSD.
To see all the specs and some videos shot with the new camera, go to: http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/micro-xdcamexsite/?XID=E:pmw500launch_091010_clickhere:xdcamexhome
My last column said it all from my point of view. Tape is dead.
–JRR
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RSN Adds Three New Members  The Rental and Staging Network (RSN), a network of geographically-diverse rental and staging companies with complete event capabilities, announced the addition of three new companies to the organization: Advanced Staging Productions representing Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Central Lighting and Equipment (CLE) based in Des Moines, Iowa and Media Stage, which serves Miami, Florida and the Caribbean.
This brings the total membership of RSN to 14 rental and staging companies located throughout North America, helping to advance the organization’s goal of becoming a nationally available source for rental and staging connectivity to consumers and potential clients.
Are you interested in joining? Go to www.rentalandstaging.net
Looking at their list of members, I realize I know and respect most of them a great deal. Having been through a number of company consolidations in 25 years, from loose associations all the way to watching the Caribiner and MCSi debacles unfold, I’ve always been skeptical… but these are not small players. I’ll be really interested to see the long-term performance, and if this group can achieve the benefits others haven’t been able to.
–JRR
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dnp Relaunches 80" Pull-Up, Portable Screen  Due to ship this month, dnp redesigned its 80” Supernova mobile screen in what they say is an all-new version that’s better and cheaper.
How does it work? Supernova screens use an active optical system that’s seven layers thick and are designed to reflect projected light while absorbing and filtering out ambient light from the room. Hmm, literally reads like every screen spec sheet ever, huh? dnp says they add a neutral black tint to the screen material that results in deeper blacks, which again, sounds very familiar.
Anyway, if you want to read more about it, go to: http://www.dnp-screens.com/DNP08/Products/Front-projection/Portable-screens/dnp-Supernova-Mobile.aspx
Of course, Da-Lite has this type of screen too: http://www.da-lite.com/products/product.php?cID=19&pID=92
And, Draper: http://www.draperinc.com/ProjectionScreens/portable_pullup.asp
I love the pull-ups over tripods just for their appearance… and this is dnp rounding out a line. I’ll be interested to see how a seven-layer screen performs long-term in a pull-up case.
–JRR
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Sanyo's New 3800-Lumen WXGA Projector  If you’ve been looking for an inexpensive, bright widescreen LCD for rental apps, Sanyo’s just dropped one on the market with interesting specs. There’s a new generation of WXGA (1280×800) resolution projectors hitting the market that are bright and cheaper than 4:3 projection. The 3LCD WXGA-resolution PLC-WXU700 — already shipping — is specified at 3800 lumens, is spec’d to have 85 percent uniformity and is only 31dBA. And, at only seven pounds, it’s definitely an app-purpose rental box!
To see all the specs, go to: http://us.sanyo.com:80/Projectors-by-Market-Education-Classroom/PLC-WXU700A
Sanyo adds another desirable box to what is already one of the broadest-based projection lines in the world. I’m not a great fan of WXGA – but at the size, weight and price this one will find it’s niche too, I think.
–JRR
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Need a 3D Pattern Generator? We Found One at SpectraCal -0910.jpg) Dubbed the AVFoundry VideoForge, SpectraCal has launched an HDMI test pattern generator designed for 3D applications. The VideoForge provides the HDMI video signals for testing, calibrating and servicing video displays, including 3D displays (HDMI 1.4) at resolutions up to 1600×1200. Features include RGB 4:4:4, YCbCr 4:4:4, or YCbCr 4:2:2 color output, 24/30/36-bit output, 3D or 2D PNG or JPEG test images from an SD card output and 3D Left Eye/Right Eye Gating control.
For complete details, go to: http://www.spectracal.com/VideoForge.html
Great to see the 3D market I love so much maturing – and having spent a lot of time getting 3D images right, from projection to flat panel displays down to VR headsets, this is a tool I can use.
–JRR
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Christie Debuts 8,000 Lumen 1080p DLP Projector  Yesterday, Christie launched the new leader in pro-grade single-chip 1080p projectors in the form of the DHD800. The native 1920×1080 is a 1-chip DLP using TI's BrilliantColor 10-bit image processing and, in a first for a 1-chip DLP at this price, Christie has empowered it with four-sided image blending and color matching.
Replacing the DHD700, Christie is aiming it for both large venue HD meeting room applications since it has a series of lenses for both long-throw and short-throw applications and is specified at 7500:1 contrast ratio. Although not totally a GreenAV product, it does only use 23 watts of power in standby.
Here are all the specs and details: http://www.christiedigital.com/AMEN/Products/ChristieDHD800.htm
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rAVe [Publications] has been around since 2003, when we launched our original newsletter, rAVe ProAV Edition. rAVe HomeAV Edition, co-published with CEDIA, launched in February, 2004. rAVe Rental [and Staging] launched in November 2007. rAVe Ed [Education] launched in May 2008. rAVe DS [Digital Signage] was launched in January of 2009.
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