By Brooke Erickson, Senior Director, Learning and MarketingPSA Security Network For many AV integrators, the scope of work has already started to change. What used to be conversations centered around experience, communication and environment are now expanding into infrastructure, data and system intelligence. Projects are becoming more connected. Expectations are becoming more complex. And the […]

If you’ve been following rAVe’s LAVNCH WEEKs, you know they deliver a lot of value in a short amount of time. Gary and Steph put a great deal of work into curating content relevant to the industry as a whole, and I’ve been honored to contribute to the content at past events. I am NOT […]

At the risk of making this column political, I’ll remind readers that everything is political. No, I’m not talking about national or global events. I’m talking about your relationships with your vendors and your clients. In the movie “Jerry Maguire,” Tom Cruise’s mentor, legendary sports agent Dicky Fox, says, “The key to this business is […]

By Nick MuirSpectralink Since the COVID-19 pandemic, most large organizations have invested heavily in modern unified communications platforms such as Microsoft Teams. So it seems curious that many of their most critical people — frontline employees in healthcare, manufacturing, retail and beyond — are often left buffering, dealing with dropped calls. This creates significant risk […]

For years now, there have been obituaries written for brick-and-mortar retail. From the fall of Blockbuster and Toys“R”Us to the struggles of electronics giants and malls, it seemed that everyone believed these superstructures, once the purveyors of new and exciting products, would lie dormant and become fossils of an economy of the past. However, despite […]

By Frazer Couzens, Director of Business Development, Global Strategic Alliances HP Poly The modern meeting room is often described as a video problem. The assumption is that better cameras, clearer images or newer devices will solve the challenges organizations experience in hybrid meetings. The reality is more complicated than that. The modern meeting room is […]

The AV industry’s flagship virtual event is quickly approaching. LAVNCH WEEK 13 takes place from April 7-9. Join us virtually and receive critical insights from industry leaders on the big changes shaping AV’s future: stricter security requirements, smarter collaboration systems and ongoing advances in professional AV technology. Across all three days, you’ll gain focused insights, […]

I’ve been coordinating and hosting industry networking events in Manhattan after work hours for 24 years now. Next year is the 25th anniversary, which is both mildly terrifying and also kind of wonderful — mostly because it means these gatherings have stayed useful for a quarter-century in an industry that reinvents itself every five minutes. […]

One of the most important characteristics you need to succeed in business is enthusiasm. You need enthusiasm for your work, for your team, for your products and even for your clients. The difference between people who are enthusiastic about what they do and people who are just phoning it in is apparent to all of […]

By Bill ThrasherAV-Tech Media Solutions In many enterprises, AV is something that just happens. A space gets built. A system gets installed. Someone answers support calls. And because there’s no single home for all that responsibility, AV ends up as a loose collection of projects that are reactive by design. That used to work when […]

By Adam Merlino Vice President and General Manager, Asia Pacific, ADI Global Distribution Whole-home automation and control have evolved from a basic command layer into the central experience through which people engage with technology in homes, workplaces and public spaces. As systems grow more sophisticated, value increasingly depends on how intuitive, responsive and adaptive that […]

By Stefan Knauf Division Manager, Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V., Industrial Automation The European Union’s Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) is set to redefine cybersecurity requirements for products with digital components, making cyber resilience a formal requirement for CE marking. Regulation (EU) 2024/2847, published Nov. 20, 2024, requires manufacturers, importers and distributors to implement cybersecurity measures throughout […]

“Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush.” These words of wisdom come from Robert Fulghum’s 1986 book: “All I Really Need to Know […]

I unfortunately did NOT make it to Barcelona this year, and to be completely honest … I had major FOMO. I’ve only been to ISE once, in 2023, and missing the last two years didn’t bother me much. But this year, for some reason, missing it hit different. There was a lot of buzz around […]

The old saying goes, “The devil is in the details.” Except that’s not always true. Sometimes the devil is in the lack of details. Recently, I loaned a demo portable LED projector to a dealer client for evaluation. They liked it, but they had one complaint — and it was a big one: They couldn’t […]

The Emerging Blended “Standard” for Stand-Alone Room Cameras ISE wrapped up a little over a week ago, and I’m not going to bore you with a full recap — the rAVe crew already did a terrific job blanketing every hall and booth. What has stuck with me since getting home is a camera pattern that […]

Day Two at ISE 2026 was good. Not quite as chaotic as Day One — but that’s how it always goes. These middle days are when the bulk of my meetings land, and I spend most of the time fighting for my life trying to make sure everything gets done. (It rarely all gets done.) […]

What a start to ISE 2026. After recounting our rAVe travel chaos to anyone who would listen, we finally made it to Barcelona — and immediately jumped in. We landed Monday, tested rAVe [TV] tech during setup and then I sprinted straight into events. It would’ve been four, but I accidentally got stuck at Spotify […]

ISE 2026 is rapidly approaching, flights are being booked, stands designed and products finalized. This scramble can make the weeks leading up to Barcelona a blur, and it’s easy to get lost in the sheer size and number of exhibits at ISE. This is where we step in. At rAVe [PUBS], we’ve compiled a short […]

Last week, Sony and TCL announced a strategic partnership focused on home entertainment manufacturing and operations. Since then, speculation has spread faster than facts. Let’s start with something simple: Sony remains one of the strongest names in display technology because of its video processing and scaling — not because of who physically builds the panels. […]

In any given channel I service, my dealers are more similar than they are different. Similar business models mean they all face similar challenges. As a result, when I talk with clients, the same topics come up repeatedly. One that’s surfaced a lot lately is recruiting and hiring — and the headaches that come with […]

By Frank WeishauptCEO, Owl Labs In 2025, the return-to-office debate continued to shape corporate boardrooms and employee sentiment alike. Companies from JPMorgan Chase to Instagram issued five-day RTO directives, with some, including Amazon, even tying office attendance to career advancement. This trend is likely to persist into 2026 as businesses push for a “return to […]

By Jonathan GudaiAdOmni Co-Founder and CEO For a decade, “digital marketing” meant chasing consumers onto smaller and smaller screens. That era is ending. The real transformation isn’t happening in apps or browsers. It’s happening where algorithms meet asphalt. Where creators show up on the largest screens in the home. After years of infrastructure buildout and […]

Early in my career, one of the sales trainers at a new job said something that stuck with me. He said, “The customer will buy when you’ve demonstrated that you’re meeting all their requirements, and when they’re ready to spend the money.” This was in the context of selling TVs and stereos in retail, where […]

By: Steve KaminskyChannel Manager at Resi Media Christmas Eve services offer churches a unique opportunity to connect with their communities, drawing in many attendees who may not attend regularly. While the service itself is a powerful moment, continuing that momentum and engaging first-time visitors in the weeks that follow is critical to building lasting relationships. […]

Hands up if you haven’t heard the axiom, “You have to spend money to make money.” Yeah. That’s what I thought. Without belaboring the point, getting a return on investment requires making an investment in the first place. Which brings me to what I actually want to talk about: the decision-making process behind sending product […]

In one of the last LAVNCH events of the year, Steph Beckett met with security and AV professionals to explore the implications of this interesting convergence between the two industries. Security in AV: Practical Paths to Added Revenue In the first panel of the day, sponsored by ADI Snap One, Steph Beckett joined Scott Tiner […]

By Scott Freshman Visionary The AV industry has changed substantially over the past decade as software-defined systems, networked media distribution and IP-based architectures have reshaped expectations for design and deployment. Today, integrators assemble systems from multiple manufacturers to create scalable environments tailored to each application. As a result, the ability for products to work together […]

By Misty Chalk BrightSign The signage market is projected to reach nearly $100 billion over the next decade, with digital signage leading that growth. Demand for dynamic content, flexibility, interactivity and engaging experiences is reshaping how organizations think about signage. What was once a static information tool has evolved into a dynamic platform that can […]

THIS IS A PROMOTED POST We’ve been talking about “digital transformation” in AV for, what, a decade now? Maybe longer? And let’s be honest, most of it has been marketing fluff. A few cloud dashboards here, a firmware manager there, and every booth claiming they’re “IoT-ready.” But here’s the truth: We haven’t actually transformed anything […]

It’s the final day of LAVNCH WEEK 12 — rAVe’s virtual event series that combines thought leadership, education and the latest AV news The day’s theme: ProAV. While seemingly a very broad topic, Steph Beckett and Gary Kayye helped cover everything from microLED to AV project management. This is your recap, but if you’d like […]

One phrase you’ll hear from me if you hang around long enough is “the wheel turns.” In a recent post, I talked about how deals you thought were stone-cold dead sometimes lurch back to life when you least expect it. Maybe writing that piece manifested the next round of surprises — who knows. The universe […]