I’ve worked for Gary for a long time — 16 years or so now, by far the longest of anyone else at rAVe. But the person who’s been there the second longest is our accountant, Kelly Johnson, who has been with Gary and me at rAVe for 12 years. She died Monday from complications of […]
Like many of you, we’ve decided to keep THE rAVe Agency’s physical offices closed at least through the end of the summer, but I think it’s unlikely that we will actually gather our team together, physically, fall. In fact, nearly every business will face the significant hurdle of dealing with people who are creeped out […]
We are excited to announce the winners of our ninth annual 2020 Readers’ Choice Awards. Our awards are different from ANY other industry awards, and the stats speak for themselves: We had more than 205,000 votes for the final awards! Nominations for the awards came SOLELY from you — the AV community. We don’t charge […]
I spend some time on Twitter, and yesterday I noticed a lot of online chatter happening around a panel rAVe put together for LAVNCH WEEK 2.0. Kudos to the staff at rAVe for curating the speakers, because to my knowledge, the people on the panel and the groups they represent had never been assembled together […]
Mike Tyson once said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” This quote is reasonably relevant today, as we have all taken a beating from COVID-19. Most successful firms had developed strategies years ago and have been consistently and successfully following them. However, what we’ve experienced the past several months — […]
We’ve counted up the 26,000+ nominations for our annual rAVe Readers’ Choice Awards, and here are your finalists! But your work here is not done, readers — we need to determine the winners. That’s where you come in. You can submit your votes and secure your picks by using the box below. There are only […]
We weren’t sure whether to continue with the Readers’ Choice Awards this year. To be honest, with COVID-19 affecting so many different aspects of our work and our lives, it didn’t seem like the right time. That’s when it hit us. We began giving out these awards as a way to let our audience tell […]
As with many events in the world right now, Almo Professional A/V canceled its E4 Experience(s) that was supposed to happen this spring. Instead, the distributor held an totally online version — calling it the E4 Evolution or E4v. I wrote a sneak preview about it a couple of weeks ago. But in case you […]
The producers of CEDIA EXPO, Emerald Expositions, have just sent out an announcement that the 2020 show, scheduled for September 8-12 in Denver, Colorado, will be canceled for this year. This is due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, in particular the fact that the Colorado Convention Center, the location of CEDIA EXPO 2020, has been […]
By Rakesh Kumar Mangal, CTS-D, CTS-I, EAVA I am writing this article to collectively respond to various questions and queries I receive on LinkedIn and various other platforms related to AVIXA CTS Certifications. Before starting any further, you should create a login on the AVIXA website if you have not done so already. How did I […]
In 1966, architect Cedric Price famously said, “Technology is the answer, but what was the question?” Could we be living in a time where this statement was ever more true than today? Take a stroll through LinkedIn and you will see a plethora of technology posts, all proclaiming that the solution to your problems is […]
By Adam Cox Futuresource Consulting It is not an exaggeration to say that the world as we know it will be forever changed once we emerge from the all-engulfing COVID-19, with one of the major shifts being how we choose to work effectively in the workplace moving forward. Ultimately, collaboration technology is at the center […]
By Julian Philips SVP Global Workplace Solutions at AVI-SPL The seminal but often hastily misunderstood work by Dr. Richard Dawkins, “The Selfish Gene” argues that it is humble genes and not organisms, let alone species that dictate evolutionary progress, and that we as human beings are merely vassals as genes seek their own immortality. Scientists […]
On Wednesday, I watched Zoom’s 45-minute “Get The Latest Product News From Zoom” webinar. When I received the lead, I figured it would be related to Zoom 5.0, the latest upgrade to Zoom and the result of its 90-day security-enhancement plan. By the way, a quick plug: Earlier on, this same day, rAVe had a […]
I was shaking in my boots (with excitement) to hear from Zoom for our LAVNCH WEEK UCC Day keynote. Zoom has been in the news a lot recently, but a lot of us think the UCC platform has done a fantastic job of responding to criticism about its security measures, then directly addressing them with […]
For day two of our first-ever LAVNCH WEEK — created and launched by rAVe in partnership with Zoom — we were particularly excited to have a full day of content specifically positioned around a huge market in our industry: digital signage. So, naturally, we found an expert on DS trends and forecasting to kick off the […]
By James Kirby Futuresource Consulting Through its research in recent years, Futuresource has identified the install audio markets as a key opportunity for brands across the professional audio industry, ranging from large system touring vendors, through to business music brands and conferencing microphone suppliers. However, as with many professional audio segments and other areas of […]
The ProAV Panel of LAVNCH WEEK yesterday covered something that’s been on many of our minds. The title of the talk will give it away: “AV Careers, Workforce Development and Pivoting Your Products and Services.” In other words, how can you, and your business, pivot in this “new normal” and keep your head above water? […]
In the greater context of AV systems and design, Mark Coxon asked in his Tech Talk presentation for LAVNCH WEEK today, “Why do we bother with all this stuff?” There’s no ONE answer to using audio and video to tell a good story. So how do we do it? Turns out a lot of the […]
“Artificial intelligence is already at work changing you”: a provoking idea, direct from our second LAVNCH WEEK ProAV Day keynote presenter, William Ammerman — author of McGraw-Hill’s “The Invisible Brand: Marketing in the Age of Automation, Big Data, and Machine Learning.” Ammerman’s keynote today for ProAV Day of LAVNCH WEEK, “AI and the Voice User […]
Today in history marks the first-ever day of LAVNCH WEEK, the industry’s first virtual launch event — proudly created and successfully launched by rAVe in partnership with Zoom. Kicking off the day with the very first session of the week was AVIXA CEO David Labuskes. Who better to kick off LAVNCH WEEK than Dave Labuskes? […]
P.T. Barnum is credited for saying,”There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” You may have heard other variations of this old saying, such as “There’s no such thing as bad press.” Does this apply to recent headlines about Zoom? If you have lost track, I will do my best to summarize and put it all […]
Hello, everyone. I’m back with another video — giving you a preview of what you can expect from LAVNCH WEEK. Yes, I’ve gotten slightly better at explaining what it is since my last video (emphasis on slightly). LAVNCH is a special platform we at rAVe have built to host a variety of things: new product […]
The AV industry doesn’t quit, even when the world slows down. So when 2020’s biggest AV trade shows started to release their postponement and cancellation announcements one by one, starting as early as February, it was time to expedite the release of a new platform, called LAVNCH — something rAVe has been working for more […]
Hello, readers! On April 15, I hosted a webinar with Almo Pro A/V and Steve Milley from Panasonic (this company plays a huge part in the esports and gaming market). And, as promised, I’m including written versions of each webinar, so you don’t miss out on the content — even when the webinar fills up […]
Today Verizon announced that it will acquire BlueJeans, a cloud-based enterprise videoconferencing and event platform, pending regulatory approval. The transaction will combine BlueJeans’ meeting platform with Verizon’s UCaaS business immediately, according to the news release, and will be deeply integrated with Verizon’s 5G product roadmap. Here’s what rAVe founder Gary Kayye had to say: “The […]
2020 will long be remembered as the year that the world changed. We are living through times that are unprecedented and hopefully, will not be experienced again for a very long time. As all of us adjust to this new reality that likely includes becoming a remote worker (and in many cases a home teacher), […]
My oldest daughter is extremely smart. She is artistic, creative and is an amazing writer. She does very well in school; however, her one challenge has always been math. She usually starts slow and then builds steam toward the end of the year. As parents, we always reinforce that the thing that matters most is […]
In the current climate of where we are as an industry — it’s easy to say that things look bleak. Budgets are being slashed to smithereens; programs are being canceled or “postponed until further notice.” Teams are being cut down to a fraction of their original size, and to top it all off, we’re all […]
THE rAVe Agency, rAVe [PUBS] and Zoom are collaborating on a one-of-a-kind virtual event. If you receive our newsletter or follow us on social media, you’ve likely heard about it. LAVNCH WEEK (pronounced “launch” week) is a five-day virtual event focused exclusively on AV education through high-level keynotes, interactive discussion panels and new product launches. […]
AVIXA has been publishing a monthly ProAV Business Index since mid-2016, gauging sales and employment indicators for the ProAV industry. The index is calculated from a monthly survey that tracks trends. Two diffusion indexes are created using the data, the AV Sales Index (AVI-S) and AV Employment Index (AVI-E). This month’s AV Sales Index (AVI-S) […]
With everything that is going on around us, we are seeing plenty on the news and about folks having to work remotely. Over the coming weeks and months, we will see quite a bit about how we’re not keeping up and that business continuity is failing. Based on what I am observing first-hand from my […]
