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The Sacred Timeline

the sacred timelineI just finished watching Loki, a Marvel-inspired series on Disney+. For those that haven’t seen it, I won’t include any spoilers here, just that the show revolves around a concept called “the sacred timeline.” This refers to the way we see the world and all of the potential opportunities the timeline had to branch, creating a multiverse of alternate realities. I often feel like we have a “sacred timeline” in AV, and we accept that some companies were predestined to have the roles they do today, but what if …

What if Harman had leveraged all of their AVB knowledge from the auto industry and exploded into the AV market with the first full-blown AV-over-IP ecosystem?

What if integrators had decided that instead of focusing only on installation and products, they chose to invest in content creation and video production to serve the whole corporate meeting and video production workflow?

What if manufacturers had introduced a subscription model for their hardware enabling AV as a service in a way that allowed companies to flexibly pay for resources based on usage?

What if companies like Poly or Cisco had built out their own teleconferencing spaces in urban centers to support remote meetings for companies (without brick and mortar in every city)? What if they did this with a highly distributed workforce, a sort of “WeConference” model?

What if malls had used data collection from apps to curate adventures, explorations and experiences on a monthly or quarterly basis to deliver highly customized, place-based consumer attractions?

What if Kramer had added Kramer Control to every VIA device, creating a built-in way to control things in the room and displacing the need for third-party control?

What if DaLite had switched gears and created screens made of OLED instead of vinyl to create self-lit, large-format canvases that hang neatly on walls or descend magically from ceilings?

What if Toys “R” Us had become the leading esports arena provider?

What if …

There are so many scenarios that are world-changing. Missed opportunities abound. The number of branches that could have been on our timeline are countless. For many of these, the window has closed. For others, it may still be cracked or wide open. What if your business capitalized on one?

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