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The Signs of Revolution and Disruption

As we move closer to InfoComm 2015, the terms that many of us heard (and used as well) last year are already dominating conversation again. If you’re not considering yourself revolutionary and even disruptive at this point heading into the show, maybe it’s time to start spending longer hours in the meeting room figuring out how to be. In fact, a recent conversation I had with a press and PR representative for a major industry manufacturer, when discussing certain technologies I’ll be looking at during the show as well as the blog I will be writing (my top ten disruptives), in terms of the one he pinpointed by another manufacturer he represented, his statement was not about the solution, it was about the client. According to him, they are the most disruptive one that he has. Yes, a client.

Prior to Enterprise Connect in March, I communicated with numerous press and PR representatives for the companies I had scheduled interviews with and their e-mailed communications and press releases prior to the show had certain common threads including how revolutionary their clients’ solutions were and just how they were disrupting the markets. As evidenced by those companies that I met with, the executives that I interviewed and the solutions that I was shown, revolution and disruption seemed to no doubt be a part of their fabric. As a matter of fact, it may soon be worthwhile for companies to invest in a search for a Chief Disruption Officer.

change ahead 2

I believe I’ve used this term before, about a year ago when my first writings on industry disruption and innovation appeared in rAVe. Here it is, as defined in Wikipedia:

Disruptive innovation is an innovation that helps create a new market and value network, and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network (over a few years or decades), displacing an earlier technology. The term is used in business and technology literature to describe innovations that improve a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically first by designing for a different set of consumers in a new market and later by lowering prices in the existing market.

There are those in certain industry markets, including AV, who are defining and redefining technologies and solutions adding their own mark and brand to this definition. And why not – disruption is there to be continuously… disrupted. If not, then any company in any realm of technology dares to end up in a state of technical complacency rather than great technical innovation where they must continuously appeal to their own market partners as well as the prized end user. The effort devoted to being that entity which continues to research, develop and provide solutions to revolutionize, and even disrupt the market as well as the competition (and even their own company itself as some have claimed) pays off immeasurably, keeping them most times in that rewarding market-lead position.

Innovation exit 1

Marketing is as much a key to success as is the technology development itself. I have gotten to know many marketing professionals in my time and I have to say that what they do on a day-in-day-out basis drives efforts toward market leadership just as much any other component of the business. In fact I wrote a blog last year, Collaboration Marketing Pros: Part 1 – Three Who Manage the Efforts, highlighting three of those who handle marketing for known UCC industry companies. Many who are handling marketing for companies in UCC as well as other AV tech markets that I know continuously drive these targeted efforts, and when visiting these exhibitors at the show you can tell who has commanded efforts to boost their companies’ solutions as revolutionary and highly strategic in certain ways when compared to others.

Beyond what’s proven though, can something be revolutionary or disruptive represented just in a statement? It seems that marketing and even upwards of C-level executives in some cases will tend to spread tech related terminology around in ways they believe their targeted public will immediately latch on to. They’ll go out to post on social media outlets to deliver that message, along with others in sales, engineering and more – in essence, every member of the company has the capability to drive their solutions into the market, disrupting the once-common practices of marketing itself. And let’s of course not forget sales at all, the front-line in the whole process. Practices there, as well as their tools have become somewhat revolutionary as well as disruptive in themselves.

Marketing strategy signs

While certain tech solutions do continue to exist in less-varying form and function and still tend to thrive, for most there is hardly room for convention as the world of technology around them evolves at a highly rapid pace. When considering UCC, digital signage, audio solutions, system control, mobility/BYOD and more, those that will be attending the show will be witnessing the revolution and disruption being carried on in the markets by those that are the leaders, challengers, strong up-comers and new entrants as well. As a matter of fact, this year InfoComm has devoted a technology pavilion as an Innovations Showcase, designed to see exciting technology solutions from new exhibitors, giving a targeted focus to those that have never been on the InfoComm show floor.

I look forward to visiting with many exhibitors at the show, as well as writing my next Top Ten Disruptive solutions article from InfoComm 2015. Here is last year’s.

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