Congratulations to our entire AV industry on an incredible week of launching new products, generating new sales, and catching up with old friends and new ones atInfoComm12!! How fantastic is it for InfoComm International and our industry attendance was up with 34,268 converging on Las Vegas.  WAY TO GO everyone!!! Read rAVe [Publications] editor Sara Abrons’ article for all the attendance stats here.

At some level or another, each and everyone one of us has been contributing to the work it takes for an organization to be ready for this time of the year and has been laboring for months in preparation.  Anyone already planning for InfoComm13?! And, how are your feet liking you right about now?! It’s kind of funny to think there are 34K of us out there probably walking around with one some type of Band-Aid on or another.

InfoComm12 was an incredible and historic week for the Women in AV!! CONGRATULATIONS to all of the ladies for everything you achieved!! As women and an industry, we continue to knock out the “first of” in so many ways it brings tears of joy to me eyes just thinking about everything we did. It was the first InfoComm we attended as an bona-fide organization — we honored our first mentoring award winner; we had our first reception and luncheon with an expert panel; our group organized raising money for a local women’s charity for the first time; AND we had our first Tweetup at the Drunk Unkles concert. And, heading into the show, we launched our WAVE website, http://www.womeninav.com. Am I missing anything?!?

Simply put, it was an entire week of fulfilling our group’s mission — Women in AV establishes a multifaceted approach to educating, supporting, encouraging and inspiring women in the audiovisual industry through collaboration, research, mentoring and networking opportunities. The Women in AV Group will promote the growth and performance of women by empowering women to feel recognized, respected, productive, and important to the AV industry.

The most important thing for me is that we did this together. All of us — women AND men in AV made enormous efforts all week to support, recognize, and inspire the women in our industry to believe in ourselves and follow our dreams!! It’s overwhelming to know what amazing individuals make up our industry and the kindest, most generous, and motivating people I’ve ever met.

Just as you were spending months preparing your company for InfoComm12, there are a few people and groups who have been doing the same for the Women in AV. I feel honored and humbled to be able to be able to work each of these people and I can’t express enough my most heart-felt thank you and gratitude to the group of people who have given so much time and energy to our group’s success.  You remember all the firsts I mentioned above? The Women in AV would not have been able to achieve any of those had it not been for:

rAVe [Publications] – rAVe has been our biggest advocate from the time I started WAVE last year. Founder Gary Kayye has done more for our group than any other individual or organization in our industry. Second to him, rAVePubs’s Editor-In-Chief Sara Abrons has supported every initiative we undertook and is truly the person who brings it all together for every blog, podcast, video, Tweetup and any other idea we come up with for promoting WAVE. At InfoComm12, the rAVe team taped our events, let me keep up with WAVE work at their booth, and co-hosted and sponsored our Tweetup contest during the Drunk Unkles Charity concert. I can’t thank you both and your team enough for everything you do to encourage and support our efforts for women in AV. Check out my interview with Gary about how you can get involved with WAVE! And, find all the best InfoComm12 news coverage with video, blogs, and podcasts at rAVe’s InfoComm12 OnDemand portal.

InfoComm International (InfoComm) – InfoComm as an organization and its staff have also supported WAVE from its earliest stages. They have produced several webinars for us and during InfoComm12 they sponsored our first ever WAVE luncheon and expert panel on the topic of mentoring — including our very first WAVE webinar in October 2011, which had over 200 attendees, one of the largest InfoComm webinars in history!! Betsy Jaffe, Cheryl Reagan, Duffy Wilbert, Melissa Taggert, Keith Myers and so many otherInfoComm staff have spent countless hours arranging and supporting everything we’ve done together. All my thanks to the InfoComm Board of Directors for your support and providing all the resources needed to make our WAVE luncheon a sold-out success!

And, my special thank you to InfoComm Executive Director/CEO Dr. Randall Lemke for providing the open remarks for ourInfoComm Women in AV luncheon. We were honored and thrilled for him join us for our event. Dr. Lemke has been such an important influence on our entire industry and to me personally with his leadership and passion for our industry. It was a privilege to hear Dr.Lemke’s remarks that he is happy to see WAVE as one of the initiatives that is just starting as he is planning for retirement. Randy has been a mentor to me throughout my career, as he has so many of us in the industry. He is the type of man we all look up and have the deepest respect for his brilliance as a professional and more importantly, as a the finest of gentlemen. We will miss you Randy and thank you for everything you have done for our industry and us.  I hope we make you proud in our future efforts.

NSCA – NSCA has been supporting the Women in AV for years before anyone else even had the thought. They have sponsored anInfoComm NSCA Women in AV reception for at least three years with the support of FSR Inc. and Executive Director Chuck Wilson is a huge advocate of supporting women in the electronics industry.   For months and during InfoComm12, Chuck and Katie Chism, Cathy Mrosko and Barbara Snitker have been planning, supporting, and putting together the resources so 50+ of us ladies and gentlemen could come together and celebrate each other! And, of course all our thanks to the Drunk Unkles and rAVe [Publications] for supporting and hosting our Women in AV Tweetup.  These are are amazing industry veterans let along awesome musicians. There’s a saying we all are wanna-be rock stars.  Well, the Drunk Unkles actually could leave us all behind in their success. Thank you SteveEmspak from SMW for your support of the Women in AV joining your cause! We’re so honored and proud you would let us join your concert!! And, thank you rAVe for sponsoring and co-hosting Tweetup contest and our winner!!

All our congratulations, AVI-SPL’s Alexis LaBroi was the deserving recipient of our first 2012 Women in AV award. She is an amazing woman in our profession and you can learn all about her amazing accomplishments here.

None of this would be possible without our Women in AV Planning Board. These ladies have been working daily, weekly to get us all here! Please help me in congratulating and thanking Cory Schaeffer, Jan Sandri, Kelly Perkins and Laureen Jones. These ladies exemplify all that I look up to and am so honored to be part of their team. I may have founded this group, but, we would not be who we are if were not for each and every one of these ladies and all they’ve been doing since we started. These are the finest Women in AV and I’m honored to call them my friends.

And, guess what!?  Apparently, when Sinbad asked what was cool at InfoComm12 at his comedy show, someone yelled out Women in AV!  How cool is that? That tells me people know we’re here to help, and, heck that’s pretty cool!!

Join us for our one anniversary on Saturday, June 23, 2012  on Twitter at @WomeninAV. Of course we don’t have a plan! aren’t we all doing this for the first time?