On Christmas day in 2016 there was an invasion. Over 1.2 million people awoke to find ornately wrapped boxes from loved ones or “Santa” that contained gifts nearly 62 million Americans longed to receive: Drones. Drone sales in the US hit over 2.5 million in 2016, nearly doubling sales of the unmanned aircraft in 2015. […]
It’s fun to be a part of the tech industry, but it’s also interesting sometimes to take a step back and look at it from afar. I took the opportunity to do that a couple days ago with respect to all the attention Alexa and Amazon Echo have been getting ever since the Crestron compatibility […]
All the biggest stories of 2016 in the AV integration space had to do with acquisition. The latest round of which relayed that Samsung bought Harman Group, AVI-SPL bought Anderson AV, and Compass Group bought Waveguide. Well the AV prognosticators are already out in force predicting the future and they see more of this consolidation […]
As AV sales people we hear a lot of sales advice and tactics. But what happens when those tactics meet reality? In this Selling AV, I talk about a time I went against my gut to deploy a tactic I paid good money to learn and what happened as a result. Podcast: Play in new […]
I’m sure we’ve all heard the term “Fake it ’til you make it.” It’s typically used to relay the mindset that people should act as if they are successful even if they aren’t yet, and that perception and attitude will eventually become a reality. Lately however, it seems this attitude has found its way into […]
A couple years ago I posted about getting my CTS certification. I think I was on an endorphin high at the InfoComm 2014 show, because I even threw down a challenge hours later to see who wanted to pursue the elusive dual certification: CTS-D and CTS-I. The excitement died down a little, and not only did […]
It’s always interesting to hear people’s take on the future of technology. There seems to be a fanaticism built around Moore’s Law, the Turing Test, and the ability of computers to become “conscious.” It usually ends in a theory of technology not unlike the rise of Skynet’s machines in the Terminator movies. If you’re not […]
The biggest news of the year as far as AV acquisitions go is definitely the purchase of Harman by Samsung. In the commercial AV space, there aren’t many deals that start with a “B” as in billion, let alone $8 billion. Harman does over $7 billion in annual revenue and is also sitting on a […]
Play along if you will. . . You go to a restaurant. You order a hamburger. You are given a hamburger. The hamburger is good. You leave. Are you impressed? Are you brimming with joy, thinking“Wow. . .I got what I paid for!” ? Of course not. The idea that satisfied customers are a positive […]
We’ve all heard that “Content is King” but how do we as an industry take that from a cool phrase to a revenue generating opportunity? On this episode of Kings of Content, I talk with Timo Korpela of Idean about design thinking and bridging the UX gap as well as how integrators can increase the […]
Not every customer is for you, (although they may think that they are). Find out when it may be time to fire yourself to avoid a bad fit. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS
I have the opportunity to work with an amazing group of integrators here in Southern California. Their expertise vary widely, their company cultures can run the gamut, and they range in size from a handful to hundreds of employees. I also worked on the integration side of AV from 2002 to 2012, and those three […]
In the AV world, referrals are like gold. This week on Selling AV we discuss why asking for referrals to everyone will actually yield referrals to no one. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS
It seems like we have been discussing the changing landscape of AV for years. We have all seen the shift toward consolidated components, hardware that is easier to connect and configure, direct sales and marketing by some manufacturers to end users or other trades like electricians, and shrinking margins on the golden calf that used […]
If you have heard some of the gurus of storytelling out there declare the elevator pitch dead, I am here to respectfully disagree. Listen to this Selling AV to find out how to effectively use an elevator pitch in the storytelling economy. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS
I admit it. I’ve been trolled. Typically when someone trolls you for a response on social media it means it’s time to take a deep breath and just move on. Convincing someone you don’t know to move away from a point of view they already hold rarely if never happens. It’s a futile effort. But […]
I may be late to the party on this topic but I wanted to give my thoughts on a discussion started by CEDIA’s Vin Bruno when he stated that perhaps it was time we stopped calling ourselves “integrators” and started calling ourselves “technologists.” There have been several takes on this to date. Some like the […]
After I wrote The Cost of Late Adoption last month, I received quite a few comments, Tweets and DMs around the topic. Gary Kayye even did a Rants and Raves on the topic, drawing parallels to the book Crossing the Chasm, one that I have to sheepishly admit that I’ve never read. To tell the […]
If you are a student of technology adoption, you’ve most likely seen this curve. Image via Wikipedia It’s the Technology Adoption curve and it reveals how people adopt technology over time. Looking at the curve as an integrator, you may use this curve to justify a delayed […]
If you’ve been in AV for more than a short time, you’ve most likely heard people in the industry talk about the Good Ol’ Boys network. It doesn’t carry a very kind connotation and has been used to describe activities in the industry that range from sexism to favoritism to nepotism. I think there has […]
For the first time since I saw Brian Solis talk at Customer Engagement Technology World, I was excited about a keynote before a trade show. InfoComm hit a home run in my eyes getting Stephen Dubner, co-author of books like Freakonomics and Think Like a Freak (my personal favorite of his). Making things even more […]
How much is a 55″ touchscreen? If you take a look around online you’ll find everything from single and dual touch screens starting at about $2,000 and going to high end multi-touch units like those from MultiTaction at $20,000. Add a great mount, a PC or media player and installation and you might get up to […]
Well another InfoComm has come and gone, and another Las Vegas record was set this year with over 38,000 attendees at the 2016 show. By attendance alone, you’d have to agree that the show is as healthy as ever. The InfoComm show is an amazing place to connect with industry peers, showcase new products to […]
I am proud to announce that given my writing on the subject of resolutions that span from UHD, 4K and beyond, I have been chosen to demonstrate an exclusive new technology on the InfoComm16 floor. We all know that the real advantages of UHD, 4K, and 8K will come to fruition as we continue to add […]
If you look at the world of AV today, one thing is clear. People are going big. Whether it’s direct view LED, a large video wall, new Sony LED modules, Prysm walls, Christie Microtiles, or good old fashioned large format projection, bigger is better if you want to get someone’s attention. Look around the audio […]
InfoComm is the year’s biggest commercial AV event. As a manufacturer or manufacturer’s rep spending big bucks for space on the floor, the best thing you can do is be quiet. Listen to the Selling AV to find out why. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS
If you are looking for a good source of information and body of research on all things business and technology, arguably there is not a better resource than Gartner. It is definitely worth a few minutes to go to their technology page once a week and browse or even to sign up for their email alerts and […]
Oh the wonderful world of cross platform, mobile device, unified communications! Don’t get me wrong, video conferencing and content sharing are an AMAZING tool for businesses to communicate and collaborate remotely…when they work. The problem is, sometimes they don’t, or they work in a less than ideal fashion. Take my conference call this AM for […]
You haven’t been reading or listening to much industry news or chatter if you haven’t seen and heard discussion around the idea of getting more young people into the AV industry. It’s an effort that both InfoComm and the NSCA seem to be heavily involved in. There have been various outreach events at schools and […]
I’m sure most of the people reading this have heard of NVIDIA, the company known for making amazing graphics cards and GPUs for PCs. If you’re a gamer, I’m sure you may have even pined over a GeForce or Quadro card to enhance your graphics performance or run multiple displays. So with gaming being a […]
I always thought I was going to be a veterinarian. As such, in college I studied Zoology. It’s a far cry from where I ended up here in technology for sure. Somehow though, things always seem to come full circle. Just like Biology, technology is punctuated by bursts of evolution. First macro, then micro, and […]
We’ve all heard the saying that in a digital world, content is king. Some still stand by that saying and in the face of a never ending avalanche of content out there, others have started modifying it to include variations like relevant content is king or context is king. I don’t disagree with any of […]
