Being responsible for business development in a geographical area five times larger than the UK is a privilege that gives me a macro-view of trends in my channel. One thing I’ve noticed is that my dealers who are experiencing growth (not just with me, but overall) are capitalizing on new and often unconventional opportunities. In […]

One of my old mentors in big box retail liked to say to us “retail is easy: you’re selling stuff to people!” As far as he was concerned, anything and everything from operations to merchandising needed to address that core principle, otherwise it just got in the way. Yet retailers often forget that. The worst […]

If there’s any one trend that residential AV integrators need to come to grips with, it’s the fact that what’s driving the business today isn’t hardware, it’s content. Time was you could tell a great AV system on sight not just by the quality of the gear, but the number of source devices involved. At […]

Way back in the olden days there was a big box retailer that my employer had a long-standing and fierce rivalry with. It was very Sharks vs Jets. Anyway, that rival retailer understood the power of language: that both what you say and how you say it matters. They spent a large sum of money […]

One of the constant issues in AV retail that requires diligence is theft and fraud. In past blog posts I’ve talked about employees behaving badly, but theft and fraud from the outside is also a problem. Working in a high-end AV shop, as part of the client-building process I always walked the client to the […]

In order to differentiate themselves from the big box stores on the one side and the trunk-slammers on the other AV pros set themselves up as systems specialists. They present themselves to clients as consultants who will deliver a complete solution. People who just want to watch TV can go to a big box store […]

  It just occurred to me this weekend that the AVR in my media room system, a Sony STR-DA30ES recently celebrated its sixteenth birthday. If it was a child, it would have just gotten its driver’s license. In AV terms, that’s practically ancient. I no longer have any of the other gear that I had from […]

Up to this point I’ve used my Strange ReTales blog posts as a forum to share strange stories of the embarrassing behavior of the people I’ve worked alongside. One group who so far have been spared have been the people I’ve worked for. That hardly seems fair, so now seems like a good time to […]

Last year I wrote a blog post entitled This Is Why LinkedIn Sucks, the title of which tells you everything you need to know about my sentiments at the time. I don’t really do New Years’ Resolutions but lately I’ve decided to make an honest effort to take LinkedIn more seriously. I feel like I […]

If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, then the road to progress is paved with technologies that never lived up to their hype. For every technology or product category that changed the industry, the world, or both, there’s always one or more losers; they were marketed just as hard, with tons of […]

In the work world, one way or another, everyone has to eat what they kill. Strip away the hunting metaphor, and what that really means is that you have to be productive in order to be valued. There’s a saying in self-help that “if you want to be liked, you have to be likeable.” The […]

It’s neither nice nor fair but today we live in a world where once a week or so the All Seeing Eye of the Internet plucks someone from obscurity and social media commentators publicly castigate them for some poor behavior or socially unacceptable gaffe. It’s not quite the Two Minute Hate from Orwell’s 1984, but […]

Speaking broadly, there are two kinds of residential AV companies: There are the ones that have been in business for a decade or more, and there are the new companies, just started, most of whom fold in their first three years. With the latter group, eventually the company reaches the point where there are dozens, […]

It’s now been many years since I’ve had to do inventory. That’s one of the advantages to working twelve hundred kilometers away from our head office and warehouse. Earlier in my various careers I wasn’t so lucky. Inventory, whether conducted annually or more often is one of those tasks that is critical for a business, […]

Not long ago, I received a phone call, out of the blue, from a friend who owns a distributor for Hi-Fi and automation system brands. The reason for the call was even more unexpected. My friend was calling for what I would call a retroactive reference check on a dealer that I know, both personally […]

To say that I get a lot of product pitches in my Inbox is, if anything, a grave understatement. I get hundreds of them a week. Most of them end up getting deleted without a second glance. The rare one, perhaps once ever few thousand gets a second glance, then a third, and gets as […]

. Years ago someone said something to me that has stuck with me to this day: The way you dress indicates the respect you have for other people. I firmly believe that you need to dress appropriately, and project a positive image. One B2B business I used to know had a full-length mirror in the […]

Perhaps the biggest story to come out of CES 2014 was the announcement of the Steam Boxes. Within hours of the initial press coverage, I was getting messages via social media from gamer friends who were, um, excited, to put it mildly. If you’re even half a gamer (or your kids are), you’re already aware […]

In my various career paths I’ve been fortunate to work with a large number of great people. Conversely, I’ve worked with people who are less than great. Although, and equally fortunately, there have been far fewer of them than the great people. I’m no stranger to employee dishonesty. I’ve uncovered enough of it and most […]

For the entirety of my various careers I’ve been inordinately keen on solutions in the form of small pieces: widgets, adapters and assorted doo-dads. Often my keenness for such pieces has been greater than my love of large, shiny, expensive flagship products, or even complete systems as a whole; with me showing more love for […]

Back in October of last year I wrote a blog post entitled Network Broadcast Apps: Very Different Experiences wherein I played compare and contrast between the iPad apps of two of Canada’s major broadcasters, CTV and Global. Since then, enough has transpired to merit revisiting the subject. First things first, the good news. Shortly after […]

Just the other week I replaced the hard drive in my laptop, which I alluded to in my previous blog post. I paid $69 on Amazon for a 500Gb hard drive. In that same week browsing Amazon I saw a price I could not resist and paid $119 for a 3Tb external hard drive. Three […]

So, a couple of weeks ago the hard drive on my laptop failed. I have to admit, that by hardware failure standards, it was the most polite one I’ve ever encountered: my laptop’s diagnostic app let me know that the C drive was failing, and was going to tank any day now. I know, right? […]

There are those who say that the greatest curse is remembering. Occasionally, I’ll go back into the archive on my hard drives of AV articles I’ve written in years past and browse. And I cringe when I read stories and editorials I wrote where, with the perspective of time, I can see that I was […]

I make no secret of the fact that I love tools. I read something recently that resonated. It was a post that said “having the right gear, and using it properly is everything: with the right gear you can go to Mars or the Moon.” For sure, having the right tool for the job can […]

If pressed, I’d have to say that my two favorite tools in my toolbox are my multimeter and my SPL meter. The multimeter is a favorite because, as it’s name implies, it’s versatility allows you to measure everything electrical that needs measuring: voltage, amperage and wattage. Conversely, unlike the versatility of the multimeter, the SPL […]

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there often seems to be an inverse correlation between how brilliant a tech is and whether you should ever let him anywhere near customers. Not all the time, perhaps, but definitely much of the time. Looking back, I can think of numerous examples of people I’ve worked with […]

Extended warranties are commonplace with CE and computer retailers, as well as in the IT industry. However, they are less prevalent in the AV integration channel. That’s changed somewhat over time: Back in the day it was something often suggested in CEDIA courses I attended, but ten years ago the practice of AV company maintenance […]

I’m not going to go into a lengthy exposition of the importance of communications skills and effective communication when it comes to management. I was going to, but decided it would detract from my core goal here, which is to tell a funny story. Some backstory: at my old work our boss, the company President […]

If you’re not a licensed electrician you won’t be working on high voltage wiring on a job site, but if you’re an AV Pro odds are that you’re working near them on a regular basis. The current in a 120- or 220-volt circuit can kill you, and even the much lower power of 24v and […]

  It just came to my attention that right now Food Network is celebrating their 20th Anniversary. Food Network has always held a special place in my heart, and not just because I love fine cuisine. Back in the late 90s/early 2000s when broadcast TV was 480i NTSC I frequently referenced Food Network as an […]

Here are some things that have crossed my mind in the last couple of days. ●It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to learn that Apple selected Apple TV’s plastic cabinet to be resistant to the silicone gel used to attach IR emitters. ●Hey, PR guy whom I’ve never met, never spoken with, and who […]