Wedemark, Germany — Sennheiser, the first choice for advanced audio technology that makes collaboration and learning easier, is thrilled to announce that its TeamConnect Ceiling Medium (TCC M) microphone has been honored with the iF Design Award, a globally recognized symbol of design excellence. This accolade is a testament to Sennheiser’s commitment to excellence and […]

As integrators, at the bare minimum, we are value added resellers of AV equipment. We make AV systems more valuable than the sum of their parts through expertise in installation, maintenance, and long term support of technology. However as prices decrease, all-in-one products replace multiple SKUs, and systems come preconfigured out of the box, that […]

Disclaimer: This is NOT a technology post. If you are looking for a post on AI cameras or the latest and greatest all-in-one sound bar, you should click the back button and surf the rest of the rAVe site. However, if you’re looking for a post on innovation, keep reading. For all the corporate real […]

I’m a huge fan of authors who write about behavioral economics and human behavior. My shelves are full of books by Geoff Colvin, Dan Ariely, Daniel Kahneman, Chip and Dan Heath, Barry Schwartz, Stephen J. Dubner and Steven Levitt, and Malcolm Gladwell. The latest book I read by Gladwell was “The Bomber Mafia,” Gladwell’s effort […]

I’ve written a lot about innovation over the years and if you’ve read any of my blogs on the subject, you know I’m pretty skeptical about the use of the term most of the time. A lot of people use “innovation” to describe iterative improvements over time, and I’ve come to terms with the fact […]

In technology, we often use terms like innovation and disruption. Yet, in our industry, I have been thinking lately about the lack of true innovation over the past few years. I have to think that some of this has to do with the pandemic, after all it is hard to innovate when you are simply […]

We had our first major return to trade shows this year in Orlando. It was a victory for AVIXA in that over 7,300 attendees and about 280 exhibitors showed up in person for the event. For those of us who couldn’t make it this year, social media brought us a lot of images from the […]

It’s report card time and my youngest just brought home her marks from the first trimester of sixth grade. I’ve been blessed with three children that are self-motivated and have an appetite for learning and a drive to excel, so report card time has never been stressful for anyone in my house. They usually bring […]

In the last month, I’ve had the opportunity to listen and learn a lot about the modern workplace and the principles behind its design. The philosophy goes well beyond the phrase “open” and really capitalizes on the idea of activity based working and creating spaces that allow for independent work, team collaboration, large team meetings, […]

Church AV needs are wide and varied, but one of thing they all have in common when it comes to technology: Church AV tech needs a greater focus on innovation than new inventions. Innovation Over Invention Perhaps my favorite example of a firm that gets innovation and obsesses over it is IDEO, a firm that […]

InfoComm 2018 is a month behind us, and over the last few weeks, people have been writing about the trends they saw at the show. We’ve seen blogs discussing increasing end-user attendance as well as several people’s lists of their favorite products or the ones they saw to be the most innovative or disruptive. There […]

I’m sure we’ve all heard the term “Fake it ’til you make it.”  It’s typically used to relay the mindset that people should act as if they are successful even if they aren’t yet, and that perception and attitude will eventually become a reality.  Lately however, it seems this attitude has found its way into […]

After I wrote The Cost of Late Adoption last month, I received quite a few comments, Tweets and DMs around the topic. Gary Kayye even did a Rants and Raves on the topic, drawing parallels to the book Crossing the Chasm, one that I have to sheepishly admit that I’ve never read. To tell the […]

I always thought I was going to be a veterinarian.  As such, in college I studied Zoology.  It’s a far cry from where I ended up here in technology for sure.  Somehow though, things always seem to come full circle. Just like Biology, technology is punctuated by bursts of evolution.  First macro, then micro, and […]

Back in 2002, I wrote a widely-publicized article about all churches needing to make the move to 16:9 aspect ratio widescreen. Nearly 15 years later, it turns out I was right — well, almost right. I saw dimly into the future of church video technology and was ahead of the curve in predicting the future of […]

Have you ever been abducted by an alien? No? Well, me neither, but I think we’ve all heard the tales. One night, while out in the woods, a light shines from above. Someone looks up to be blinded by the light and instantly levitates off of the ground and is pulled into the ship, where […]

Here is the definition of digital: Digital describes electronic technology that generates, stores, and processes data in terms of two states: positive and non-positive. Positive is expressed or represented by the number 1 and non-positive by the number 0. Thus, data transmitted or stored with digital technology is expressed as a string of 0’s and […]

(An earlier version of this post appeared in SMART’s Next Level Collaboration blog.) Occasionally, I come to grips with the fact that I’m in my mid-forties… especially when I look at how far technology has come since I was a child. Every once in a while, something comes up with my kids, and it makes me feel […]

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 […]

There’s a blight that affects every last segment and channel in the industry. It’s so prevalent, so part of the background that, like the sky, you take it for granted and stop really noticing it unless you step back and refocus your perception. It’s a blight that’s holding the entire industry back, regardless of which […]

I had an interaction the other day with someone else in the AV industry who was looking to collaborate on a blog.  This person was looking for some AV Industry folks to help provide content on a subject that I actually know quite a bit about and was eager to assist with.  I connected and […]

Has your company made the equivalent of a better mousetrap? Check your mousetrap. Innovation is everywhere, with new products launched with greater frequency than the trade shows where they’re promoted. Yet, I have two questions for you: Are you making just making better products or are you doing a better job at positioning them? Are […]

What’s more important: building a better mousetrap or simply solving the problem of mice in the house? Your answer depends on your perspective. The people living in the house simply want to not have mice in their home. The people selling the mousetrap want you to buy their newer, better mousetrap. So, who’s correct? If […]

How many products have matured to a point where the Nth-degree improvement is now only noticed by a fraction of only the most sophisticated users? I’d submit that we’re long past the days of “good enough” for the kind of products coming out in the audio, video, lighting market. The pinnacle of perfection is within […]

If you have read anything that I have written on innovation over the last several years, you already know that I am very critical at times of things that I deem to be results of “me too” thinking. Every few years we see some truly innovative or new ideas. For years in between however we […]

So this is a retread from my own blog, but I wanted to see if a wider audience drew some comments. . . I was reading an article on the Tucker Tuesday Blog about Magical Thinking and it inspired me to think a little about his question of whether an AV System that lives outside of […]

So I’m getting ready to make the trek from Orange County California to Orange County Florida for InfoComm 2013 and I am developing my plan of attack for the floor.  With 1000 exhibitors, a plan is a must.  However, a good plan must have the end in mind, so I need to know what I […]