Large Format Video Experiences

Last week I was at NAB for the first time and to be honest I never knew the show had gotten that big.  Every hall was full.  I happened to be in the hall that had a lot of post-production and video equipment, as well as screens and media servers, etc. One of my colleagues […]

Large Format Video Experiences

Heartbleed: What You Should Know About a Heartless Cyber-Menace

If you’ve recently heard of the bug called “Heartbleed,” you may be somewhat familiar with what is being considered one of the most critical Internet vulnerabilities in history. The bug, which has set the worldwide web ablaze, is a serious flaw in OpenSSL, designed to provide communication security and privacy over the Internet. It compromises web security allowing attackers […]

Heartbleed: What You Should Know About a Heartless Cyber-Menace

Fantastic!

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 […]

Fantastic!

Disruptive Forces in AV/IT — Part 1: Blue Jeans

OK, here we go with the first in a series on numerous participants in the new market of disruptive technologies. The groundwork has been laid in the prologue that was published late last week, you may want to first refer back to that if you haven’t read it yet to get set up for the […]

Disruptive Forces in AV/IT — Part 1: Blue Jeans

Why I Like InfoComm’s New APEx Program

I actually heard about InfoComm’s new APEx program about three weeks before InfoComm announced it formally. I attended an InfoComm roundtable event in Irvine, Calif. where Duffy Wilbert , SVP of member services, described how the organization intended to raise the bar on customer experience and thought leadership. Duffy related that InfoComm had come to […]

Why I Like InfoComm’s New APEx Program

Strange ReTales: Theft And Fraud

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 […]

Strange ReTales: Theft And Fraud

A Visit With Savant

Discussion of some project details recently brought me to the Savant Systems showroom in lower Manhattan. In addition to the matter at hand, I was treated to a showroom tour as well as a discussion on their offerings, the overall Savant ecosystem, and where they hope to be in the future. The demo space is […]

A Visit With Savant

Disruptive Forces in AV/IT – The Series

The interview — the power of the spoken word, the real sense of expression and feeling when one gives you direct response to something that you’ve been thinking and/or wondering about. In blogs previous to the last two that I’ve done on the title subject of AV/IT be they cloud, BYOD or cybersecurity, it was […]

Disruptive Forces in AV/IT – The Series

The Point of Diminishing Returns

How many products have matured to a point where the Nth-degree improvement is now only noticed by a fraction of only the most sophisticated users? I’d submit that we’re long past the days of “good enough” for the kind of products coming out in the audio, video, lighting market. The pinnacle of perfection is within […]

The Point of Diminishing Returns

An April Fool’s Post: Forget Nest, Google Acquires AMC

In a true move of AV/IT convergence, Google has acquired AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc for $8.6 Billion Dollars. Google has been matching Apple point for point with their mobile OS Android, the Google Play Store, ChromeCast, Nest and Google Nexus tablets. It seems they are now trying to round out the content and media creation ends […]

An April Fool’s Post: Forget Nest, Google Acquires AMC

Why I Never Blog About My Products

I have to be reading a book of some type constantly.  Sometimes, when I don’t have a new one, I pick up an older one and revisit it.  I did that this week with a book by Dan Arielly called “Predictably Irrational“.  As it is subtitled, the book talks about “The Hidden Forces That Shape […]

Why I Never Blog About My Products

In Praise Of Well-Built Equipment

  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 […]

In Praise Of Well-Built Equipment

Satya Nadella – A Big Step Into Some Very Big Shoes

Apple’s Steve Jobs. Virgin Atlantic’s Richard Branson. Tesla Motor’s Elon Musk. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. And yes, Microsoft’s Bill Gates. All can be summed up in one word — influencers. Just what is an influencer? Even though the word itself doesn’t appear in WikiPedia or any online dictionaries, in an overview of the […]

Satya Nadella – A Big Step Into Some Very Big Shoes

What Would You do With 39% Market Share? Epson Shakes Things Up!

I saw Sara’s story on Epson’s 39% marketshare as well as listened to Gary’s almost daily Rants and Raves episode on the subject and felt uniquely qualified to make a couple comments on the subject given some recent experiences. I have had the opportunity to do a couple events with Epson in both Portland and San […]

What Would You do With 39% Market Share? Epson Shakes Things Up!

With Sincerity and Gratitude

New year, new company, new blog post…wow, I am on a roll.  It has been a while since I have submitted a blog for rAVe. The past three months have been a crazy ride. I probably should have written about the feeling of leaving a company I have been at for nine years — more […]

With Sincerity and Gratitude

Technical Merit Vs. Practical Application

As is often times the case, I saw some social media and blogging that inspired me to chime in with this post.  I saw a video where a fellow AVTweep stood up and made the statement that “We are custom AV integrators, and we’re proud of what our systems are able to do for our clients’ […]

Technical Merit Vs. Practical Application

Strange ReTales: Bosses Behaving Badly

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 […]

Strange ReTales: Bosses Behaving Badly

Looking and Seeing – The World through AV Eyes

Before my AV career I did a few other things, including telephony and the unparalleled horrors of residential cable installations. One interesting thing about these three fields is each has lead me to a greater focus on parts of our world the rest of us take for granted and fail to notice. If you drive […]

Looking and Seeing – The World through AV Eyes

Editor for a Day! AVPhenom Challenges rAVe Columnist

I have been following a series of posts by Matt Cooper of rAVe called Gaming the AV Industry.  I have read each post so far, and have commented on a couple of them in the past, (in fact Matt asked me to comment on one of them, knowing I may take exception to some of […]

Editor for a Day!  AVPhenom Challenges rAVe Columnist

The Coolest Uses of AV Aboard the Disney Dream

Even though it is absolutely miserable and freezing and cold and icy here in North Carolina, I am still dreaming of the warm sun and sandy beaches of the Bahamas that my family and I experienced a few weeks ago when we went on a short vacation. My husband, daughter Lilly, and I went on […]

The Coolest Uses of AV Aboard the Disney Dream

500 Million Smart Home Sensors to be Installed by 2018 — But Not By Us!

A new study by ABI Research forecasts that over 500 billion smart sensors will be integrated into homes by the end of 2018. Half a billion. This is good and bad news for the HomeAV community. As the home automation world becomes less of an art and more of a science, it also becomes commoditized. […]

500 Million Smart Home Sensors to be Installed by 2018 — But Not By Us!

LinkedIn Redux

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 […]

LinkedIn Redux

Gaming the Industry: What’s In a Game?

Last column, I went over some basic types of gamers based on preferred hardware. Beyond that, it’s worth understanding gaming genres, as it can relate to some particular accessory sales and furniture placement. I’m also going to paint in some broad strokes to keep this article from taking 18 years to read. But, rest assured, […]

Gaming the Industry: What’s In a Game?

Apple, AV and a Whole New Perspective

As someone who has regularly blogged on AV/IT, cloud and mobility/BYOD, it was my recent blog interview article which brought a whole new angle on blogging for me, opening up a new door where I plan on making it a regular theme as I identify AV companies across the world in this format. I’d like […]

Apple, AV and a Whole New Perspective

Career Limiting Decisions: Justifying Your Existence

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 […]

Career Limiting Decisions: Justifying Your Existence

Immersive Art: Ten Thousand Waves

In my mind, art and science play a similar role — predicting and often guiding new technical directions that will eventually make their way into the mainstream. This is why I was so excited to see the new immersive film installation Ten Thousand Waves at MOMA. This exhibit, and others like it, highlight why projectors […]

Immersive Art: Ten Thousand Waves

Integrator vs. Facilitator

By Matthew Thompson Integrated Commercial Design There have been many statements made comparing and contrasting the IT industry and the AV industry. The main reasoning has been the collective technical industry acknowledgement that something needs to change, particularly in the AV industry. For AV integrators, the change has meant the call for IT competency in […]

Integrator vs. Facilitator

Are You Leveraging Technology As Part of Your Business Strategy?

You’re in the technology business, so it follows that you should be leveraging the latest technology as part of your business strategy. But are you? From creating a styled, personalized brand via social media or exploring user-generated stories as the new customer testimonial, your brand needs to be highly engaged in the digital landscape. This […]

Are You Leveraging Technology As Part of Your Business Strategy?

Career Limiting Decisions: Shooting From The Lip

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 […]

Career Limiting Decisions: Shooting From The Lip

On Language, Juggling, Lunchtime in the Park, AV, and Networks

Quite a few years ago I earned the CTS (Certified Technical Specialist) certification from InfoComm. Last year I began studying to take the ICND1 (Interconnected Network Devices) in pursuit of my first-ever Cisco certification. Last week I started learning to throw a juggling pattern called a 4,4,1. What do these three seemingly disparate items have […]

On Language, Juggling, Lunchtime in the Park, AV, and Networks

Gaming Taxonomy: What Type of Gamer Is Your Client?

In my last article I got pretty specific with theater customizations that not every theater gaming client would need. This month I’ll dial it back in a and give a broader field guide to identify the particular genus and species of your gamer client. This will give you an edge on design recommendations, as well […]

Gaming Taxonomy: What Type of Gamer Is Your Client?

The Importance of Being First

If you have read anything that I have written on innovation over the last several years, you already know that I am very critical at times of things that I deem to be results of “me too” thinking. Every few years we see some truly innovative or new ideas. For years in between however we […]

The Importance of Being First