As some of you will know, a few years ago I moved home to Connecticut, the state that I was born in. However, I moved to the southern part of the state, about 75 miles from the town that I was raised in. And it wasn’t until recently that I made the trip to drive […]

Recently, a rep from a firm that we work with fairly frequently asked me to name the most important tool in my toolkit. I believe he was expecting me to name the Leatherman I constantly carry on my belt, since (among other things) he reps a line of multi-tools that are supposedly more sophisticated than […]

Well, February has come around again and I am in the process of preparing for rAVe’s annual odyssey to the ISE show in sunny Amsterdam. As with any trip of this length (especially overseas), I begin with the technology items that I need to take with me for my podcasts, my videography, and my photography, […]

Last month, we looked at the ways that a rental and staging company can use videoconferencing and collaboration technology to maintain better contact with clients, and to better support shows in the field during planning and direction. This month, I thought we would take a look at how these technologies can be employed when the […]

For all you regular reader of rAVe news out there, you may not realize this, but once a month we publish rAVe Rental [and Staging] an email newsletter packed with opinionated news and product stories about the ProAV industry, with a special focus on the rental and staging market. The most recent edition, Volume 9, Issue 11 includes the most recent […]

Last month, we talked about the growth of remote meeting, videoconferencing, collaboration and support applications, especially in the installation portion of our industry. One of the things that I asserted in that column was that it was time that these applications came into general use in the rental and staging portion of our industry. I […]

Over the last few years, a revolution in teamwork and technical support has taken place in the installation portion of our industry. Once network ports began appearing on the equipment that we sold, remote administration, remote monitoring and remote support all became possible, but it really has taken a couple of years to convince clients […]

Well, fall is upon us, and along with it comes the fall meeting season. For those of you in the rental and staging portion of the industry, this is a time of year when clients who have been away for the summer suddenly call in a panic to book a meeting for tomorrow (if you […]

This weekend, I was involved in a long conversation with a couple of colleagues from the industry. At one point during the discussion, I was asked what my favorite new technology announcement was. And I think that both of my colleagues were surprised that I did not mention some new piece of AV equipment. My […]

Last month, we talked about the changes in trade shows that have come in the digital age, most notably the way we register people for shows now, and the way we tracked their information within the show and afterward. For many years, this has been based around a magstripe card which you allowed employees to […]

This month, we will be finishing up a three-part series on the art of troubleshooting in AV. Over the last two months, we have been examining the troubleshooting process, how it has changed, and what we can do to make the process more efficient in the future. For those of you who missed the first […]

Last month, we began talking about the highest form of art when it comes to audiovisual systems: troubleshooting. In that article, I began to make the point that the use of a logical troubleshooting methodology began in your head, rather than by swapping equipment or blind experimentation. I don’t think many people had an argument […]

“The difference between Stupidity and Genius is that Genius has limits.” – Albert  Einstein This month, I open with a favorite quote. And this is not just because I get paid by the word. If that were true, I would’ve used a much longer quote. I do it because I am lazy. Now, I am […]

Another week has come and gone and it is finally Friday or Friyay and it is time for the Weekly Wrap-Up! Every week we give you five or so top stories from the week that you can’t miss. This week’s wrap-up features the latest Crew Call column, 100 things about the AV industry, the the […]

Last month, we talked about the idea that the big voice in marketing and product success is now the small voice, the collective voice, and largely as established by social media. I gave many readers to think that I was in favor of the voice of the masses being the loudest voice. Not necessarily. A […]

I have often reflected, both in this column and elsewhere, on the cyclical nature of our business. Here we are in January, first month of the year, and some of those cycles are due to begin again. I’ve always thought of this process as an annual cycle, beginning in January and ending right after the […]

Last month, we talked about rental companies that grew out of audiovisual sales companies. As I pointed out, there are a number of differences between the personnel and equipment required for rental and those required for sales and demonstrations. There is, of course, another kind of specialized rental company which in the industry we refer […]

Well, time for another article that makes me feel old. Believe me, I don’t do this on purpose. I usually do it because one of the young(er) people who works for me asks a question that prompts me to wax philosophical. I try to pretend that this makes me feel like an elder statesman, when […]

In western society, some of the most frequently told jokes revolve around the three most common lies in circulation. They follow a number of patterns, many of which I will not go into in a column that winds up in general circulation. I have, however, defined the three biggest lies as told in AV. The […]

It’s Friday and time for the Weekly Wrap-Up. Here are some of the top stories we think deserve a second look from this week. Joel Rollins’ latest Crew Call column about opportunities to change the way large meetings work, blogger Lee Distad writes about how to talk to customers effectively, Sara Abrons published a blog […]

Well, here it is — July. This is the time of year when I have to stop, catch my breath and regroup with my team. The “tradeshow season” really is finished with InfoComm, after having started (at least for me) in February with ISE in Amsterdam. So not only have I been on the road […]

Well, I’m just back from InfoComm, and after three days I have almost sorted out the debris. I have unpacked two suitcases full of dirty clothes, two boxes of literature I will never read, and several of the mysteriously popular LED flashing pins. Sometimes I wonder if trade shows are a conspiracy by the airlines […]

Last month, we considered the idea that it isn’t just the disciplines of IT and AV that are converging, but that the tools and components of both disciplines are combining in many AV shows or installations. This earned me some criticism about the way I had misused the term “convergence” (much of it from another […]

As some of you will know, I recently attended ISE 2014 in Amsterdam with the rAVe team. We spent a very long week seeing and documenting the entire show, and afterward Gary and I reported on what we thought the major news and themes of the show were. Gary and I (as usual) had somewhat […]

Each year at this time, I am alerted to the coming of spring by that special fragrance that’s in the air, by those sounds that indicate the coming of a new season. In our business, that fragrance is the smell of shrink wrap and packing peanuts, and it harkens the coming of new technologies that […]

Happy New Year, readers! Last month’s column left our hero (yours truly, since I’m writing this) promising to explore the skill set required for the successful rental and staging technician. It’s quite a list, starting with a firm understanding of how things work in the physical world, and this month moving on to include interpersonal […]

Well, another year draws to a close in the rental and staging industry. As I sit here, filling out a box of Christmas cards with comical pictures of Santa holding a MacBook Pro, I am reflecting on what has happened in our industry this year. It has been an interesting year, both in the audiovisual […]

Over the last two issues, we’ve talked about the emerging generation of executive clients, and how the attitudes and expectations of that generation will change the way they make business decisions, and thus (if we are smart) the way we do business. Among these changes, broadly, are the tendency to distribute information more widely and […]

Last month, we talked about the idea that the next generation of client will have changing standards in quality, production values and even the very nature of work and communication. I proposed that these changes would create fundamental differences in the way they made purchase decisions, especially those involving the public communications aspect of what […]

I have always had two ways of defining a professional. The first, and the one I use most often, is that a professional is someone who gets paid for their work. Admittedly, sometimes, in the audiovisual industry, this is a difficult thing to achieve. The second way I have had of defining a professional is […]

In last month’s Crew Call, I cataloged (from first-hand experience) the many things that we do to shoot ourselves in the foot when we demonstrate technology. Bill Sharer and I have also spent the last two weeks on our podcast, THE WEEK, discussing first what we do wrong and second, how to do it right. […]

Picture this: You’re shopping for a new car. You have a vacation road trip coming up, and you really want new wheels. Your friends have recommended that you look at a couple of cars, at a couple of different dealerships, at a couple of different manufacturers. You approach a salesman at one of the dealerships, […]