Well it’s trade show season and the press releases are starting to pour in. Before you head onto the InfoComm ’22 floor, it’s a good idea to polish your armor to best avoid being hit with a poison arrow of misinformation. If you missed my first post on “deceptive specs” you should check it out […]
Trade show season is back. ISE is going on in Barcelona as I type, and Infocomm 2022 in Las Vegas is just 25 days away. This means that manufacturers, integrators and *gasp* end users are all converging to explore new partnerships and help people bridge the analog-to-digital gaps that have been isolated during the great […]
It is May 2022 and we are about 1 month away from #Infocomm22 in Las Vegas. I’m excited to see the show back in a big way, and I know there is a lot of pent up excitement for a return to glory. With that, there will be a lot of manufacturers on the floor […]
If there’s one topic that has been totally exhausted and “overthunk” in the last year, it’s the post-COVID return to work. I don’t say that because it’s unimportant; I say that because most of the pieces we see written try to draw some new one-size-fits-all conclusion to what the… gulp… “new normal” will, or should, […]
I had the opportunity to attend the Almo E4 event in Anaheim, California, earlier today. If you’ve ever been to an Almo event, you know that rAVe founder Gary Kayye usually kicks off the day with a thought-provoking keynote, and this E4 was no different. I won’t give away the whole talk, as Almo still […]
There’s a very popular ride at a theme park here in California that has an infamous history. The ride technology itself is based on a motion platform coupled with a screen. Riders enter, sit down and buckle up. Then the screen comes alive by mimicking a windshield as the video plays, creating a high-speed adventure. […]
You have most likely run across one of these pictures posted on social media, showing a high-end corporate campus or university with an engineered walkway through a large expanse of grass that is marred by a dirt trail worn through the landscape as a shortcut. It’s just as likely that you’ve seen these in real […]
We live in a world of endless online meetings. Want to make yours stand out? Add a hands-on component. Now, how do you do that? Listen to this Selling AV episode to find out. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS
One of the most eye-opening statistics of the last couple of years is that even though our time in meetings has increased (in some places literally doubled) and worker productivity is slightly up, collaboration time is actually down. As technology people, this may seem counterintuitive. If people are in more meetings and using platforms like […]
Have you ever seen one of those charts that shows Apple AirPods revenue as measured against other tech companies? If not, I’ve included one here: It’s amazing that AirPods do more revenue as a single product than companies like Adobe, Nvidia, AMD and Spotify do in their total revenues. Expand that figure out to all […]
If you’re an AV Professional, should you know the math behind your system designs? Does the math really matter? Find out on this episode of #SellingAV! Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS
In 2012 I did a job for the U.S. Navy. I was invited to a site walk to upgrade what they called their “Adaptive Planning rooms.” These were the rooms the Navy would use to model potential operations. One team would use the first room and assume the role of the protagonists (us) and the […]
As salespeople, we are always eager to tell the story of how we help customers. It’s not a bad story to tell, but perhaps it’s better to start with learning a little about the person on the other side. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS
As we navigate the reasons to get together in person, collaboration seems to be one of the main terms used as to why we still need physical spaces. We’ve seen a multitude of solutions pop up in this arena, typically consisting of a screen, cameras, microphone, speakers and screen sharing software. Some systems take this […]
It’s tempting to use slides as a crutch and read them like a script to the audience (or even have them read along). However, this is a bad idea for several reasons. Get my two tips on better presentations in this episode. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS
There’s a ton of chatter about Work from Home (WFH), Work From Anywhere (WFA) and Hybrid/Remote work environments these days. The emphasis on remote work is not misplaced, and companies are grappling with their go-forward strategies in these areas. Many integrators put together little guides for WFH products that include better webcams, microphones and ring […]
We had our first major return to trade shows this year in Orlando. It was a victory for AVIXA in that over 7,300 attendees and about 280 exhibitors showed up in person for the event. For those of us who couldn’t make it this year, social media brought us a lot of images from the […]
There’s a lot of debate about the return to the office, the hybrid work week and the potential hub and spoke layout of the future. To be honest, I’m not sure every company needs an office, but I know for certain that if you are keeping a real estate footprint at all, you should be […]
Dateline 10/29/21 Orlando, Florida Phenomenal Industries, known for announcing innovative products at Infocomm like OpenOffice 247365 in 2019 and ShareChair in 2018, has announced a NEW cross-platform soft conferencing product for InfoComm21. We at rAVe caught up with AVPhenom, president of Phenomenal Industries, who arrived at the show a couple of days late after an […]
If you’re in AV, you are most likely facing supply chains problems as you read this. I have had people reaching out and asking if I knew where they could find a multitude of products, ranging from DSPs with Dante ports to LCD displays to Level 3 Network switches to Video over IP products. A […]
Lately, there’s a lot of focus on the sales technique of “challenging” customers and their business decisions. I’m all for challenging assumptions, but the way you do it makes all the difference. So tune in to hear my thoughts on what to say … and what not to. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: […]
I haven’t written a technical piece in a while, but I’ve been moderating AVIXA ‘s Control Room Power Hour series of webinars, and a subject that has come up a lot is the use of projection in data visualization environments. Projectors are still viable in these types of rooms. With the advent of laser projection, […]
If you frequent LinkedIn or YouTube and you’re into audiovisual tech, you’ve likely seen the videos of the signs on a street corner with a lion jumping out, a spaceship landing or a Jeep spinning brodies where the subjects of the video seem to escape the edges of the screen and break the fourth wall. […]
A few years ago, a group of AV professionals were discussing our industry and the culture that we’ve inherited — some of it is good and others, well, they leave a lot to be desired. So, to create change, we headed to LinkedIn and created a group to isolate several places we thought AV could […]
Technology is an essential part of every company and employees’ workflow, and given the events of the last 18 months, it has become more important than ever. Technology is only as good as its adoption, however. You can provide people with amazing tools, but if they are unused or underutilized at their minimum capacity, the […]
It’s good to have an idea of your goal for a meeting, but — of course — you don’t want your meeting to be overly scripted. Learn how to keep EQ in the equation for achieving your desired outcome. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS
As someone who has been in AV for years and spent the time to get all of my AV certifications through AVIXA (CTS-D and CTS-I), I appreciate tools that help with designing systems. Through my years in AV, I’ve been blessed to work with some amazing engineers that developed their own calculators and spreadsheets for […]
A few months back, I wrote a piece on the 3 environments integrators should be offering to their customers. One of those 3 environments is the studio. In the piece, I stated, “Whether producing marketing content like podcasts and unboxing videos, teaching hybrid classes, doing worldwide company events or introducing new products and services to […]
It’s Merger and Acquisition season again, and if you didn’t see it, Diversified just brought HB Communications into its fold and staked its claim as the world’s largest AV integration firm. In 2019, AVI-SPL and Whitlock became one as well, making it the previous heavyweight champ. These two titans have been battling it out for […]
We spend way too much time upfront combating the consumerization of AV. This week I address how to capitalize on momentum of consumer tech experiences to lead into your professional AV sale. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS
I just finished watching Loki, a Marvel-inspired series on Disney+. For those that haven’t seen it, I won’t include any spoilers here, just that the show revolves around a concept called “the sacred timeline.” This refers to the way we see the world and all of the potential opportunities the timeline had to branch, creating […]
I am actively engaged in the online AV community on Twitter. This weekend, a chat called #AVintheAM challenged integrators to discuss and explore how sports broadcasting as a vertical could yield some fruit on the local and K-12 level. There were a lot of ideas on the viability and profitability of systems and projects […]
