Required disclaimer: This represents the opinion and experience of me personally and does not represent any specific policy, law or official guidance. Concerns over the federal government sequestration and AV funding versus IT funding raise an interesting equality discussion.

Working, commuting and living in the Washington, DC area, a person can find it difficult to escape the topic of sequestration. I’ve debated with myself whether to spend time talking about it here, and my conclusion is to avoid the details and specifics of sequestration cuts since this ultimately ends up being a political debate, which is not the purpose of this article. I do think there’s value in focusing on technology budgets and concern over funding priorities as the industry still continues to converge AV and IT groups into one organizational unit.

Tighter budgets mean more scrutiny in reviewing and assessing needs and wants. This is a fairly simple process when you consider AV and IT being separate and funding them each separately. However, now with AV and IT being bundled into one organizational unit, how are organizations defining what is an AV priority or an IT priority?

There doesn’t seem to be a simple answer, which in my opinion is core issue for our industry.  How will the demands on AV such as video teleconferencing and digital signage stand up to IT projects such as unified communications or cloud computing? Granted, cost models exist for all these type topics, but I don’t believe these models can survive under the new budget climate that the government is in. Is there AV and IT equality within the converged industry?

Defining moments is exactly where AV/IT convergence is headed. Is the technology in White House Situation Room AV equipment or IT equipment? Is the United States Senate Recording Studio AV equipment or IT equipment? There are a number of questions that need to be addressed and discussions with executives and budget folks, and technologists need to be energized with education on the importance of AV/IT systems as equally critical to our industries infrastructure.

While it’s still early in operating with these severe spending cuts, my experience thus far indicates that people believe AV equipment is just eye appealing “stuff” we really don’t need.  Therefore, folks who understand the importance of AV need to take a leadership role in educating executives who are making these critical budget decisions.

We as professionals in the technology world have been managing projects and integrating technology in ways that make us much more valuable than simple project managers. What will you do next to enrich the AV industry to help further AV/IT equality in a new budget climate that could last for years? I believe it is up to us.

Don Palmer has 15 years in Civilian Federal service, during all of which he’s been involved with AV- and IT-related project management, including aspects of budget and procurement. Prior to joining the federal government, Don worked in telecommunications and network communications with a large outsourcing call center. Reach him at palm1004@gmail.com