I was visiting a co-worker’s office recently and was surprised by their technology setup. They had a single monitor as an external display for their laptop. They used the mic, speakers and camera on their laptop (which is off to the side) for Zoom calls. I began to wonder how this person could possibly be […]

Over the past several years, software has become a significant source of revenue in the AV industry. The approach to providing software can vary widely amongst different vendors. Some “give” their software away since it only works with their equipment. Of course, we all know we are paying for that software when we buy the […]

Late August to early September is the time when students flood back onto college campuses, many of them bringing with them their shiny new sneakers and their brand-new backpacks. They have had a summer filled with fun (hopefully) and are ready to dive into another year of learning. For the tech managers in higher education, […]

In the IT world the phrase “technical debt” is a well-known phrase and it is used effectively to describe problems and why they are so difficult (expensive) to fix. The term first came about in 1992 and was coined by Ward Cunningham. Cunningham was particularly referring to software coding, and that is a common way […]

On July 4, The Sphere lit up on the Vegas Strip for the first time, and the buzz about it went viral. I doubt there is a single person in the AV/IT industry who has not seen or heard about the Sphere, but even if you have it is worth taking a few minutes and […]

AI is one of the most consequential and fast-moving technologies we have seen in years. The speed of change and drastic impact of that change will cause people to react quickly, go with the crowd and make poor decisions about how the technologies will be used in their businesses. No one, not even higher ed […]

In this blog, I have often written about listening to your customers. Usually, I focus on designing and selling products and solutions, to be sure they are what the customer needs, not what we want to sell them or think they need. Today I am writing about customer service when it comes to repair, maintenance […]

Sustainability has been a hot topic in the AV world over the past few years. Many manufacturers have expanded and touted their sustainability efforts, and customers are pushing for sustainable options. The sustainability of companies involves everything from their policies and practices at their headquarters and offices to the products they sell and end up […]

In a recent recording of The EdTech Podcast, I was talking about my last blog on the importance of AI in AV and what the future may hold. The host of the podcast, Erin Maher-Moran, added “and think about what this will do for troubleshooting and maintenance.” It was not surprising that Erin had thought […]

As I sit down to write this blog, InfoComm is only a few weeks away. I am very excited to see the energy, excitement and turnout at InfoComm 2023, which I expect to be the first back-to-normal InfoComm in three years. Coincidentally, for those of us in higher education, this time of the year is […]

In April, my wife and I took a vacation trip to Florida. On our way back we had a layover in New Jersey — but our first plane was delayed and we now only had an hour and a half. So, when we landed, we were in a rush to get to our new gate, […]

We often use terms like “culture” when talking about companies, and often associate this with whether a place is a good place to work or not. To really understand culture and how it affects the workplace we first need to understand the definition of culture. Culture is the shared values, attitudes and behaviors that define […]

During the pandemic, there was a decent amount of discussion about the future of trade shows. Predictably, these theories ranged from “they would go fully virtual” to “they spring right back and be just as big as before.” I think that those who predicted a spring back to the “old days” were closer to the […]

March is women’s month in the United States, and I am happy to see consistent messaging and support for it in the professional AV industry. AVIXA has regular posts on social media highlighting women in AV, and many other industry publications, including this one, do the same. A couple of months ago, a group of […]

In January I wrote about the emergence of ChatGPT and how it is causing waves across the country. I wrote about my belief that ChatGPT, in particular, was going to have a major effect on how we teach students. ChatGPT has allowed people to expand their thinking of what computing can actually do. Previously, we […]

Over the past several weeks, people much smarter and more creative than I have made predictions on what 2023 will bring to the AV world. These are always fun to read and keep score of throughout the year. Rather than make predictions, I tend to think about what the important issues will be throughout the […]

For years, I have been the poster child for standards in classrooms. I have made this argument for a very long time at my school and through talks and at conferences. The arguments for standardization are powerful and plentiful. The ability for staff to only need to be focused on a certain family of products […]

Over the past several months, ChatGPT has taken the techie world by storm. We have all seen bits on social media of “I asked ChatGPT to tell me about XYZ, And here is what it said.”  This is followed by the amazingly accurate and human responses they get. If you have not tried it yet, […]

Tis the season and technology managers are seeing green. They are dreaming of purchases arriving in boxes. Red lights are everywhere! Yes, it is the holiday season, but that is not what I am referencing. In higher education, it is also budget season. The vast majority of higher education institutions have a fiscal year that […]

Perhaps it is due to the recent mid-term elections in the United States, but it seems to me that political discussion, references and opinions have entered more and more into our professional lives. A Fortune magazine article recently detailed the ban that Meta has put in place on the discussion of “sensitive” topics at work. […]

A recent online discussion hit a familiar theme in AV. How do we attract people to this field? Many of the same questions and suggestions that have been discussed over the years came back up. Do credentials matter? Does credentialing help attract people? Should there be a track in a community college or trade school […]

In higher education, we spend a lot of time thinking about the technology that goes into classrooms. In my blog from last month, I wrote about what the perfect classroom would look like. I focused on technology and how technology can make our classrooms work better. Yet — everyone who works as a technology manager […]

I recently had a position open on my team, and decided that we were going to make recruiting a diverse talent pool a priority. As many have discussed over the years, IT tends to be a very homogenous area (high percentage of white men). This homogeneity leads to groupthink, customers not feeling like they are […]

I was recently recording a podcast with a group of fellow technology managers in higher ed. A question came up that I have not thought of in quite a while: What does the ideal classroom look like? Often when we ask questions like this we limit ourselves to the current technology that we know exists, […]

It is no secret to the AV world that most companies have dealt with incredible supply chain issues in the past 18 months. We hear horror stories of companies changing ship dates from weeks, to months to even years. It is not uncommon today to hear of 18 -24-month ship dates. For some reason, much […]

In mid-August, Gary Kayye shared an advertisement from Aurora on his LinkedIn page. In the advertisement, Aurora took on Crestron’s well-known stock issue directly. You can read more about the various reactions in Steph Beckett’s blog post here. The comments are interesting as a real-life experiment regarding what works with advertising — or what doesn’t. […]

In technology, we often use terms like innovation and disruption. Yet, in our industry, I have been thinking lately about the lack of true innovation over the past few years. I have to think that some of this has to do with the pandemic, after all it is hard to innovate when you are simply […]

Last month I wrote about cybersecurity in schools and what steps we can take to prevent attacks from happening. I wrote in the blog that there are many things we can do to harden our security and to make our institutions less of a soft target. Yet, as I pointed out in that piece, chances […]

I love it when I read something that really gets me thinking. This is what happened with Mark Coxon’s recent article “Saving the Office Park.” It is a short but worthwhile read. In it, Mark suggests that instead of finding circumstantial reasons (to keep the cafeteria employed) to have people back in the office, or […]

In December 2021, Lincoln College in rural Illinois suffered a devastating ransomware attack. The attack shut down all systems, including those for recruitment, retention and fundraising. While the college had preexisting fiscal problems due to the pandemic, this ransomware attack proved to be too much for the college to navigate. In the spring of 2022, […]

rAVe [PUBS] and many other industry publications have written recently about the great work of the AVIXA Women’s Council and its partnership with Rosie Riveters. Since this has been written about in many places, I won’t rewrite everything here. There are a few points I would like to make, however. First, it is fantastic to […]

I wrote an entire article for this month about security and severe consequences of not following security protocols and keeping up to date on security. The blog was about cybersecurity, and then the heartbreaking events of Robb Elementary School forced me to put that blog aside and write about a different type of security. In […]