“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 […]
By Graham Cooke Futuresource Consulting Last week, Samsung Displays (DID) announced that it is to end production of LCD video wall displays on July 31, 2020. As one of the largest panel providers in the industry, Samsung DID’s decision to exit LCD video wall panel production has generated shockwaves, but it also presents significant opportunities […]
Last week, I wrote a column that basically asserted that things had changed. Well, things have changed since then, too. In that time, many parts of the country have gone from “social distancing” to full lockdown, including my own state. So the message from my last column, which was essentially to get out there and […]
AVIXA sent out an announcement this morning announcing that InfoComm 2020, originally planned to be held at the Las Vegas Convention Center June 13-19, 2020, has been canceled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Show organizers said it had remained optimistic that the show could go on, and was monitoring recommendations from the WHO […]
So, unless you’ve been under a rock, you’ve seen hundreds of posts about remote work, video conferencing and collaboration in the last few days. The craziness of today’s events has forced companies to adopt video conferencing and remote collaboration solutions on a scale that we haven’t seen. Some think that this bodes well for the […]
If you’re like me, you’ve seen a slew of articles about “opportunities” for the AV industry during the current pandemic. Most of these are marketing pieces, meant to promote a manufacturer’s products or to promote services by addressing the fear, uncertainty and doubt that is part of the current Zeitgeist. Work form home solutions and […]
By this time next week, a new ad campaign and PSA initiative, “We Are the Countervirus,” could be running on nearly every major digital out-of-home (DOOH) network — encompassing hundreds of thousands of screens across the world. The Digital Place Based Advertising Association (DPAA), in collaboration with independent ad agency Madwell, launched the brightly branded […]
We announced earlier this month that Digital Signage Expo, originally scheduled for March 31-April 3, 2020 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, would be postponed to the fall due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak and limitations on domestic and international travel. Show organizers announced today that the show has officially been rescheduled for September 15-18, […]
Whether your firm has joined the chorus touting “AI” or is more conservatively accurate in the programming of “machine learning,” there’s a non-stop buzz in the industry around the advancements of computing power and advanced algorithms used to analyze dizzying amounts of data from an ever-expanding networked technology install base. Either way, an opportunity for […]
This story has been updated to add a letter sent to NEC Display partners and customers. Below is the official press release from NEC Display today. Before you read it, here are my thoughts: Unlike nearly every merger in our industry’s history, this is a new display company that will be made up of two […]
We’ve received many COVID-19 press releases — most of them self-serving. This one is NOT. Kudos to VuWall for offering this up. You don’t even have to have a VuWall system to use it (and it even works on a PC). VuWall is looking to partner with those who are on the front lines working […]
By Katye McGregor Bennett KMB Communications Focus on what CAN be done at a time like this, when the world slows and all are in a similar position. Things that you never have time for, that get de-prioritized because other, more pressing issues take the lead. Here are five things you can do to stay […]
A couple of months ago, I wrote an article that talked about protecting your staff from the current epidemic. A lot has changed. Obviously, the virus becoming a worldwide pandemic has thrown the industry into a tailspin. As an industry, we have spent a lot of time in the tailspin condition, as we are an […]
The Integrate expo that takes place each August in Australia, which was set to take place August 19-21 this year in Sydney, has been postponed, said show organizers in an announcement today. They are still planning to have a show in 2020 in Sydney and plan to have details on when and where within the […]
I was honored to be the only member of the AV press invited to cover the live, global (it was streamed live from Seattle, Washington, New York City, Amsterdam and Madrid) streaming video launch of the Sharp WCD (Windows Collaboration Display) last week. Although those in attendance, live, saw it as a technical marvel (connecting […]
I am sitting here in my kitchen table writing this. Like many of you who traveled last week, I am in a self-quarantine to protect the world from my potentially having the new coronavirus, sadly known as COVID-19 (sad as COVID used to only refer to that Tempe-based AV manufacturer known for the once-famous EXPiX […]
AVIXA CEO Dave Labuskes sent the following letter out to the AV industry today. My thoughts are below his letter. A Letter to the AV Industry I , as many of you, continue to watch the news on a moment-by-moment basis. As we are making decisions that affect our travel, business and family, I want […]
Digital Signage Expo, originally scheduled to be held in Las Vegas March 31 – April 3, 2020, has been postponed until later in the year, likely September, and also still in Las Vegas. This announcement seemed inevitable, perhaps overdue, particularly this week with the WHO declaring the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic, the Trump administration announcement […]
The show organizers of Enterprise Connect, the communications and collaborations show originally scheduled to be held later this month in Orlando, told exhibitors today that the show has been rescheduled for August 3-6, 2020, and will now take place at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. This is due to the travel restrictions and uncertainty […]
Marlin Equity Partners is merging videoconferencing provider Lifesize and Serenova, a contact center-as-a-service (CCaaS) provider. Marlin Equity Partners, a global investment firm with over $6.7 billion of capital under management, is the financial sponsor of the merger and will continue to invest and support the growth of the combined business to address the $60 billion […]
