The science of meetings is fascinating. How do we best communicate with one another when we find ourselves sitting across from each other in a conference room? How do we solve problems, build confidence in one another, share? It’s an interesting area of our lives to explore — particularly because the workday is composed of […]
As part of my quest to better understand the UC/AV space – I’ve been reading a lot of research reports. This week I put two reports together to realize something pretty interesting: The professional video cable market is predicted to reach revenues of $2 billion by 2024. If you sell cable to the enterprise – […]
I participated in a unified communications panel at InfoComm about three years ago. It was a great panel with representation from companies like Cisco, Polycom, and (the now defunct) Tely Labs. I was the oddball of the bunch; promising the audience that a focus on software to improve proximate meetings was needed at least as […]
One of my readers recently pointed out that universities are leading the charge when it comes to understanding the social impact of the technologies we build. I know this same reader was in the audience when I began to talk about how important privacy, security, and analytics will be as part of a “Future Workspace […]
I was fortunate enough to cross paths with the senior editor of a well-respected technology magazine while I was over in London last week. It was a far-ranging discussion, but on the flight back, I continued to think about the question he’d put to me regarding software that enables collaboration when we are together and […]
My readers will know that I tend to focus on topics related to collaboration, user-interaction, and generally building products that help us work together. You may be surprised to learn that a significant amount of my time is spent thinking about security. As devices become increasingly attached to our enterprise networks – those same devices must be […]
I spent part of the weekend with some friends who are in the early stages of a new startup. While we don’t always talk shop, it’s inevitable that someone will open up about their latest challenges. The conversation we had ended up being interesting enough that I wanted to cover the topic with my readers. […]
Productivity and engagement, collaboration, team cohesion – these are all topics that are important to a company’s success. These topics have come into focus as corporate enterprises look to adapt their culture to the ever-increasing millennial demographic. I’ve met with several Fortune 100 companies who understand that rigid company hierarchy, top-down management, and traditional meeting-driven culture […]
You may have noticed it has been a while since my last post. I’ve been busy holding onto my proverbial hat as the collaboration market has gone from rapid growth to full explosion. I’ve been spending my time trying to understand how technology-based collaboration should evolve as our customers envision the future of their workplaces. […]
A friend who works at a large content streaming company recently gave me a glimpse at a study that focused on the role of television in the household and wow – the results were quite shocking. I would argue the results will have significant impact on how displays are used in the enterprise as well […]
Probably like any other founder/CTO in a startup, my day consists of a huge variety of things — meeting with technology partners, going to on-site visits with customers, designing products, engineering, speaking at events… the list goes on. I’ve discovered that one of my “hidden” jobs is at least as important as these other things […]
The world of audiovisual technology and software has been an exciting place to be over the past several years. Anyone who has seen the transition from analog to digital, to IP-based everything, and now to software can attest to that. It’s been both volatile (anyone remember Tweeter? How about Kodak?) and profitable for the right […]
Wireless displays are one of the more exciting frontiers of technology. As little as three years ago, most of the world’s displays could only be accessed through a traditional video cable. Video transport standards and cables + adapters meant that the use-case model for displays hadn’t changed since the Xerox Star of the mid-1970s. One […]
Many AV resellers and integrators find themselves deploying suites of new technologies to support education. Traditional AV gear like flat panels and speakers are being augmented with learning management software, lecture capture and wireless collaboration systems. If you look at operational spending in education (where technology and AV is tracked) there has been a 26 […]
I know it’s been a while since my last post but I just got back from an Alpine climbing expedition in the Canadian Rockies. I would like to cover something I had plenty of time to think about while stuck in a tent on a glacier waiting for the weather to clear. It’s a topic […]
I was on the phone last night with a colleague (who prefers to remain nameless) from the computer networking world. He’s both a scientist and an engineer I respect, so when the conversation turned to the future of wireless media and the wireless network in general, I grabbed a pen. We discussed the implications of […]
Editor’s note: This column was printed just prior to InfoComm 2015 this year, but we thought you’d still find it interesting. See all of rAVe’s InfoComm 2015 coverage here. OK – InfoComm is just around the corner. Along with ISE, it’s the largest audiovisual tradeshow of the year. Anything related to display systems, room control, […]
I was in Manhattan last week and was asked to tour a space that represents the future of a Fortune-50 company. An entire floor in their downtown headquarters had been built to create a more open, collaborative, and technology supported workspace that they will begin to roll out worldwide this year. It was both beautiful […]
I have to admit that I’ve finally got involved in the start-up device craze and got hold of a device that measures and reports statistics related to my sleeping patterns. Congratulations to me — I now know that I sleep only 5-6 hours a night. Admittedly, I bought the device during our push to bring […]
I spent part of the morning untangling the mess of cables that slowly appears under my desk as I travel, unplug and plug my laptop, bring demo gear on the road, and re-plug the various devices that are part of my day. Modern office spaces have changed over the past several decades from the hyper-simple […]
Happy New Year! Technology gets off to a quick start at the CES show every year, and there is always plenty of marketing hype around “must have” personal technology toys. But the show can also be a bellwether for enterprise software, collaboration, and media tech that will impact the AV industry in the coming year. […]
I often take a look at where major grant funding is being spent as a way to keep tabs on major technology trends over the next five to 10 years. After all, when NSF or DARPA puts millions of dollars of taxpayers money to work, it’s a bit like watching the Vegas line for college […]
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics will go to the three inventors of the blue LED (light-emitting diode). If you work in the AV space, then you already know the importance that the LED has on display technology in general. But you may not realize how the […]
I was on the road with an AV reseller/partner recently who asked me what companies (excluding my own) I think are the most exciting in the AV space. My answer surprised her — NanoSys and 3M (she’d never heard of NanoSys and still viewed 3M through the lens of their legacy line of projectors). So […]
I’m sitting in a midtown hotel lobby in New York surrounded by what I call a technology inversion. What’s that? Well, in general, the evolution of technology follows fairly predictable patterns. Large problems are given attention by large institutions (governments, academic communities, corporate research labs) and their solutions are then productized. These products are then […]
In today’s new global economic state, many companies are looking to improve their bottom line through efficiency gains, productivity tools, and collaboration as opposed to more traditional models of market growth. Large companies are now seriously re-thinking just about everything in their business processes. In the quest to make a workspace more productive, almost nothing […]
Software always eats hardware. What do I mean by that? Just that expensive and proprietary hardware evolves into software running on commodity platforms. This phenomenon is now happening with increasing speed in AV — and it’s a great opportunity for AV resellers. It’s a chance to leverage software for ease of use, deeper integration of […]
A new study finally sheds light on how important proximate collaboration can be. Those of us in the technology and software space all know about the now apocryphal story of a defiant Marisa Mayer ending the long-standing work from home policy at Yahoo in an attempt to create a more vibrant culture. Of course, Marisa […]
Here’s a look back in case you missed these news stories this week including: Almo Pro A/V’s new digital signage content creation services, the latest gaming column from Matt Cooper, Extron does BYOD via LinkLicense, Digital Signage Poised to Change the Restaurant Industry and more. Enjoy! And, if you think we missed something, let us […]
In my mind, art and science play a similar role — predicting and often guiding new technical directions that will eventually make their way into the mainstream. This is why I was so excited to see the new immersive film installation Ten Thousand Waves at MOMA. This exhibit, and others like it, highlight why projectors […]
I recently had an interesting conversation with someone in the product design space at a university that I wanted to share — and get your thoughts about. He asked, “You used to be a professor — should my students take computer science even if they don’t want to be programmers?” My answer probably won’t surprise […]
Recent research has discovered a new approach to Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLED) that may reduce or eliminate the need for the rare (and costly) metals needed to manufacture OLED displays. Thanks to collaborative research at Regensburg, University of Bonn, University of Utah, and MIT — the cost and impact of OLED displays will be […]
