For an industry that leads in so many ways, the Audio/Video/Lighting manufacturers still have a lot to learn when it comes to reaching targeted prospects and clients. The dissonance from engineering to marketing is jarring. I have identified “Three Mistakes AVL Manufacturers Are Making” in this month’s Trends article, hoping to help re-frame the conversations being had near the top of the decision-making chain in product creation firms far and wide. Perhaps you’ll recognize your own organization within one — or more — of these mistakes and help bring clarity and course-correction into focus.

For this month’s Future article, I share a radical concept: Make your firmware and software hackable. That’s right — invite hackers to come and innovate with your products. Sounds crazy? The hunger in product utilization is for less of the inane and more of the creatively insane, so climb on board the crazy train.

More so than with my usual articles, what I share applies to all vertical markets, not only the church space. I hope what I share makes you think, makes someone mad at how I toss aside conventional wisdom, and generates conversations that force an honest evaluation of what is to a movement towards what could be.

Change will cost something. Irrelevance will cost even more. Or, as General Eric Shinseki, former chief of staff for the U.S. Army said: “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”

Is irrelevance an option for your firm?