“So, how did it go?” It’s a simple question, but how you answer tells me which path you’d take at the fork in the road. Are you walking towards perfection or excellence?

Working in the live events sector of the audiovisual industry, we manage the technical elements of a production. But we are also in the business of managing expectations. More often than not, our clients expect flawless execution.

I know that my team delivers near-perfect shows most of the time. But a standard of perfection? That is paralyzing.

Chasing perfection steals joy during the process. In my job, there is nothing I love more than being on headset calling cues for my team of technicians. The energy is exhilarating. I’m also aware of the fact that any number of things can, and may, go wrong during a live production. But if that’s where I focused my energy during an event, I would be a nervous wreck! It would rob me of the laughter, fun, and dedication that I experience with my team every time we are on a job site together.

Perfection limits possibilities. If my primary goal was to deliver perfection, why would I ever try something new? “This is the way we’ve always done it, so we will keep doing it that way,” would be something I said on a daily basis. But where’s the growth opportunity in that?

Rather than seeking perfection, I strive for excellence. I work diligently to give my clients the best experience and the best of me.

How do I handle myself in times of imperfection? If I were to get stressed, allow negativity to take over, or begin to shut down in order to cope with whatever is going wrong, that would undoubtedly transfer to my clients as well.

In moments of “imperfection,” I intentionally speak positivity into the situation. I reassure my clients—and my team—that whatever is happening is fixable. We work quickly to resolve the issue and find a solution, and we do it with respect. We don’t let it deter us from having a great rest of the show. Because that’s the thing with live events, the show must go on.

I put my people and the big picture before this nebulous idea of perfection. I know that, in order to move forward, I need to act the way I want to feel. But I also know that my clients, and my team, take their cues from me. If I’m negative or frustrated, how can I expect them to act any differently? But if I’m able to keep going, there is a chance they may be able to shake it off and do the same. That is choosing excellence over perfection.

The first time I noticed that I was moving away from the confines of perfection, I was sitting in a large exhibit hall with four projectors showing content on screens in a room filled with 2,000 people. Suddenly, one of those projectors failed, and I sent my best technicians to troubleshoot the issue. At the same time, I continued to call the show and ease my client’s concerns.

Now, I knew the other three projectors were more than enough for the attendees to view the program, but I needed to reassure my client of that as well. I was able to come off my headset, get an update from my technician, and tell my client that, unfortunately, there was nothing we could do to get the projector back up and running before the conclusion of her event. I also told her that it was necessary to pause any further discussion because I needed to get back on the headset to ensure a successful remainder of the show.

I always want my clients to have confidence in me and my team, and a great way to continue to show your trustworthiness is to roll with the punches and deliver a product you can be proud of.

I used to feel that if I couldn’t do something perfectly, I didn’t want to do it at all. That is a fast track to a life of disappointment and missed opportunity—I was robbing myself of the joy of new experiences.

If I’m too scared to serve in the role of “show caller” because every cue may not be perfect, I’m robbing myself of the joy of the live events experience. I would also be robbing my clients and team members of what it’s like to be around me when I’m at my best. I’m an enthusiastic person who loves to celebrate and encourage others. But if all I did in my job was sit behind my computer, I am robbing those around me of that experience.

I’ve changed my vocabulary. I don’t strive for perfection; I strive for excellence. Excellence allows for mistakes, learning, and even failure—that’s another word that should be eliminated from the dictionary. But, I’m pacing myself—taking on one word at a time.

You probably know by now that one of the chief benefits of bringing AV devices onto the network is the data and analytics you can glean from them—and that when it comes to streamlining your real estate costs, this data can be invaluable. Knowing precisely how your space and the technology within it are used offers the potential for tremendous cost savings. But where do you start?

“Room scheduling systems are quickly becoming the way to efficiently manage the modern workspace and meeting culture of the enterprise customer,” said Joe da Silva, director of product marketing at Extron. The company’s TLS - TouchLink Scheduling panels display room availability and schedules, while providing the information needed to closely analyze room usage, activity patterns, and occupancy trends across the organization. “Each Extron scheduling panel stores information about room usage and the meeting data, which may be retrieved from all panels for analysis,” da Silva said. “It is easy to measure and visualize activity patterns by using analytics tools like Microsoft PowerBI to generate interactive reports and insights.”

In addition, Extron GVE (GlobalViewerEnterprise) software gives users the ability to manage AV devices across an organization. “Every Extron product generates a lot of date and the reporting tools inside of GVE allow informed decisions about inventory and maintenance plans,” da Silva continued. “Tech support personnel can view live information about the devices installed in every space. GVE allows organizations to identify usage trends, maximize system uptime, calculate energy usage, and maintain inventory lists for all spaces. Technicians may also manage their GVE environment by using the iGVE mobile App, available for the Apple iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch devices.

As an industry leader, Crestron has been providing businesses with data analytics tools for more than a decade, according to Nic Milani, the company’s executive director of commercial product marketing. Its web-based tools like Crestron Fusion and XiO Cloud are designed to collect data and generate reports to help organizations optimize investments in people, spaces, and technology.

“Having access to information such as room utilization, occupancy, and device usage enables better decision making and guarantees the technology supports how people work within the organization,” Milani said. “Beyond the data, it is critical for the system to also have intelligence. Crestron Room Scheduling integrates seamlessly with these data tools to provide employees with a more intuitive and efficient workspace. With the ability to recognize when employees do not show up to their meetings and instantly return the space back into inventory provides everyone in the office access to an updated list of meeting spaces at any time.”

Better utilization of space, more productivity, and less frustration. That’s a win-win-win.

Recently, I had a chance to run the Bruckelaufe 1/2 marathon in Frankenmuth, MI—it was my fifth time. Aside from the beautiful fall Michigan countryside, Bronner's year-round Christmas store and Zehnder's world famous fried chicken, Frankenmuth is a small central Michigan town that feels almost stuck in time. It's Michigan's little Bavaria.

What makes this race awesome are the number of small and large bridges you cross...this year was particularly challenging as it rained the entire time. Aside from the fact that my training wasn't where it should have been, the race proved a challenging reminder on why these events are called, "races," in the first place. Whether racing against your self or others, there is much to be learned in the Bruckelaufe.

This year, I tried to take pics of as many bridges as I could...till my phone stopped taking pictures due to the rain. As I reviewed my pics, I was struck with the leadership lessons from the bridges. Let me share a few...

Beware of Slippery Surfaces

I don't care what running shoe you wear, you have to watch out for those slippery surfaces. They don't always look as nasty as they can actually be. And when you hit it, get ready for the dance. Worse yet, rolled ankles, broken wrists. You get the idea.

When building the culture of your organization, do your bridges have slippery surfaces? Are there indications of hazardous footings? Your culture bridges won't always be perfect, but noticing when there's danger shows your insight and EQ as a leader. It's a powerful leadership trait to keep the safety and needs of your people first and foremost.

Work Zone Begins

In the mass of moving people, I was distracted by the crowd, but I saw the sign: Work Zone Begins. I was around mile number five—and this is about the time you realize you are actually running a race.

Leadership development is work. Great leaders don't win popularity contests. In fact, in Good to Great, Jim Collins makes the strong case that the best leaders don't have overly strong personalities but are the more humble, supportive, and focused ones. If you subscribe to the Gary Vaynerchuk approach you'll hear the words, "hard work," repeated an infinite number of times.

You can't expect to be a great leader—or have a great leadership-centric culture—if you aren't willing to put in the work. Your people will sniff it out fast. Dis-ingenuity and lack of authenticity become obvious quickly.

The Splash Zone

Splash! The rules of slippery surfaces also applies, but the reminder I'm shooting for here relates more to the notion of contact points...where the rubber meets the road.

In a leadership context, contact points are everywhere. I've heard this effectively taught as a leadership shadow. What kind of shadow do your words and actions cast? In leadership, there isn't room or sympathy for the excuse that what you said or did isn't want you intended to say or do. The reality is, it all counts. The splash down effect is unmistakable and undeniable. Another way for saying, "it is what it is."

Splash zones are good for leaders. They give you immediate feedback on the type of shadow you are casting. Good leaders recognize it and learn from it. They don't waste time trying to explain it. The take every opportunity to become more self aware and improve the quality of their team touch points.

The Unexpected Left-Hand Turn

This is as it sounds...a bridge you might miss if you aren't paying attention. Somewhere around mile nine, I found a hidden gem—a large creek right before a surprising left-hand turn. The creek is a distraction. You actually need to stop and take it all in.

Unexpected bridges and full left turns are to be expected in your leadership experience. The symptoms of this bridge usually present themselves when your not expecting it. And when the road turns, be ready to go with it. You could try to carve a new road, and sometimes you should. But I like to think of this concept as learning to meet your team and culture where they are versus you think they are. You'll cover much more ground acknowledging current realities than making up new ones. Plus, if you approach this right, you'll create the opportunity with your team to carve new roads.

Challenging Paths Emerge Brightly

The leadership journey isn't easy. It can and should be challenging. When undertaken for good intentions, it can be tremendously rewarding. It's never about you, it's always about the desire to help others. Helping others capture a vision after experiencing adversity underscores how one emerges brightly. With spectacular results.

Great leaders inspire their people at every stage of the journey. They help them cut through difficulty, not miss what matters, and see a glorious end they might not currently see! Thank you to the great leaders that have inspired me. Maybe you can see a bit of you somewhere in the bridge race! May your paths be challenging your your bridges emerge brightly!

Workplace meetings have undergone a physical and cultural transformation during the past five years, both in terms of their location and the technology used to facilitate them. Modern working habits and technological advancements have contributed to the rise of the meeting room as a high-growth vertical for audio visual, unified communications and collaboration technologies. Further to this, employees are increasingly meeting in other areas of the office with major implications for the vendors involved in these markets.

The development of modern technologies serving to increase teamwork—and businesses pursuing top-down policies to create collaboration-focused spaces—are fundamentally altering the modern workplace. This evolution is exposed in the Futuresource 2018 Corporate Meeting Room End User Report.

Want to learn more about collaboration? Free webinar: bit.ly/AVcollab

One key area of change relates to the physical makeup of meeting rooms. Here, the number of large meeting spaces has decreased during the past two years, predominantly due to the macro trend toward smaller, faster, more flexible meetings. Typically, large meeting rooms are being repurposed for smaller meeting spaces and, with over a quarter of companies looking to add additional meeting rooms over the next three years, the overall total addressable market of meeting rooms is expected to surge. Businesses are very keen to promote top-down policies that utilize space more efficiently and promote smaller, more collaborative sessions among workers.

Manufacturers have also been quick to respond to these changes, producing a raft of collaboration technologies designed for smaller meeting room and huddle spaces that are already seeing good traction in the market.

Another clear indication that the traditional meeting is undergoing fundamental change is the type and variety of products that are now being used in these spaces. This development is most evident when we look at meeting room budgets, which have grown increasingly diversified across product categories. While the meeting traditionally was the mainstay of telephone and display technologies, we are now seeing that as the size of a meeting room grows, there is a significant increase in spending on goods other than displays, such as audio, collaboration devices and control products. The distribution of budgets is highest in large meeting rooms, where over 60 percent of funds are spent outside of display technologies. This diversification is not only evidence of the growing importance of a wider set of technologies but also the increasing complexity of the meeting room market.

Read the 2018 Integration Guide to Collaboration.

Demographic change and budget diversification are not the only significant changes happening to the meeting, with employee habits and practices also undergoing a cultural transformation. With more employees working from home, and the increased ability to work in multiple locations geographically or in different areas within an office, workers are now much more flexible with where they are working and who they are working with. Employers have been keen to develop more informal meeting spaces in step with these modern flexible working habits and, with 20 percent of meetings now being held in locations such as kitchens/eating areas, breakouts rooms and receptions/foyers, it is no surprise that 43 percent of companies surveyed as part of this research state they are investing in dedicated technology for these spaces.

With dramatic changes happening in the corporate meeting room, technology providers are meticulously following the evolving demands of the modern workplace and how employees work with one another. This market presents both an exciting opportunity for growth but ample room for failure and, with culturally diverse variations in how employees work with one another, Futuresource’s Corporate End User Study provides the most comprehensive guide to the corporate meeting room and the nuances of this rapidly evolving marketplace.

Anthony Brennan is a research analyst at Futuresource Consulting.

The concept of an intelligent building involves an approach that is not unfamiliar to the AV integration industry. AV designers, integrators, consultants, and programmers have been in the business of making disparate equipment talk together and act as one cohesive unit for some time.

Similar to other integration projects, before attempting to provide a solution for an intelligent building, it is critical to define the need and determine the value that will be provided to the user, technology manager, and owner. Is the intent to be provide a more seamless user experience? Is energy management an initiative? Is cost savings a driving force? Is eliminating redundancy and providing efficiency of operation key?

An intelligent building is only successful when the client truly identifies the benefit, is an advocate for the solution, and is fully involved in seeing the project through to completion.

One of the key elements in uniting the disparate systems involved delivering an intelligent building is the communication between all the parties involved in implementing the various building management subsystems. Whether it is HVAC, lighting, shading, card access readers, security cameras, public signage, life safety, or room reservation software, each system has its own sensors, controls, programming, and application. In addition, each is typically set up to operate in an isolated manner without awareness of adjacent systems, with which they could communicate. The ability for systems to interact starts with the understanding that there is a need to exchange information, defining what information is important to share, and specifying how the communication will take place. Some systems or devices can communicate directly through a common protocol, whereas others may require special software called “middleware” that acts as a translator. This is where it is critical to have a client advocate or a building control consultant involved to ensure that each of the subsystems is set up or programmed to communicate with the others either directly, with the use of middle-ware, or through a third-party control system.

Once the need for communication is established, the next step is to define the “control points” and feedback required from each system. Like other programmable devices, subsystems of a building are custom configured using programming tools supported by each specific manufacturer. Although systems may have APIs or be compatible with a standard building control protocol like BACnet, there is still a need to understand the specific data points or “programming hooks” that are set up for external control. These requirements should be spelled out upfront and clearly communicated prior to the setup of each subsystem and should be derived from the goals of the user, technology manager, and owner. Like any AV integration project, without a mechanism to define the solution and establish expectations upfront, the likelihood of a successful implementation and satisfied client will be slim.

Another consideration when connecting subsystems that typically operate independently is the need to ensure they work cooperatively, avoiding malfunction, inefficiency, and downtime. A management plan and control solution that define priorities and provide conflict resolution should be set up to ensure subsystems are working in harmony and not overriding each other. One way of doing this would be with a centralized control processor that is programmed to establish the rules that dictate the operation of the subsystems.

AV’S ROLE IN INTELLIGENT BUILDING DESIGN

AV control systems are well suited to serve as the management piece that provides the operating guidelines for intelligent buildings. The AV control system has the advantage of being in close touch to the user. AV control systems not only capture user intent through direct interaction, they also monitor the usage of rooms, are aware of the application being used in the room, and can provide insightful information on the users’ needs at a given time. For example, if the AV system is being used for a presentation, it is likely that the HVAC should be set to a preset room temperature, lighting should be dim, shades should be down, and the room should be reserved for use in the scheduling system. Alternately, when AV systems are not in use, the HVAC should go to an unoccupied preset, lighting should be off, shades should be adjusted based on time of year (down during the summer and up during the winter), and the room should be available for booking or possibly secured if it is after hours.

The last consideration for an intelligent building should be a comprehensive dashboard to monitor the status of all systems and manage their interactivity from location. A single piece of software that can provide operator controls for manual override, adjustment of settings, and modification of thresholds as well as collection, processing, and display of data is a critical component of a successful implementation. This software should not be limited to any one type of system or application. It should unify the building controls, AV controls, and other devices on the network that contribute to the intelligent building solution.

Although building management systems have existed for a long time without interaction with AV systems, and AV systems can operate without the benefit of building management systems, it is their interaction that contributes to intelligent buildings that achieve goals, enhance value, and provide a superior user experience.

Steve Greenblatt, CTS, is president and founder of Control Concepts, a provider of specialized software and services for the audio-visual industry.

The ongoing drive for ever-higher resolutions has been a familiar story in the world of video acquisition for many years. But, after IBC 2018, talking about the practical application of 8K is no longer taboo.

Japan’s state broadcaster, NHK, has long been the driving force behind 8K. Manufacturers have been committed to developing an ecosystem of products that can support the 8K broadcast standard, ‘Super Hi-Vision’, in time for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. However, with many other broadcasters still occupied with upgrading their portfolio of HD channels and the limited availability of 4K content, meaningful use of 8K technology in the wider industry can seem distant.

Shortly before IBC, 8K held a notable presence at IFA 2018 in Berlin, as Samsung, Sharp, LG, TCL and Toshiba all dedicated space at the convention to showcase 8K consumer displays. Samsung and LG incorporated spectacular reveals of their 8K TV sets into their press conferences, while Sharp emphasized their development of an 8K ecosystem, which includes both their display and the 8C-B60A camcorder, which has already begun shipping in Japan and China. The continued focus on higher-resolutions by TV manufacturers at the show indicates that it won’t be long until they begin their attempts to drive 8K into the home, as they did with 4K.

Though adoption of 4K in broadcasting has been slower than was first anticipated, 4K acquisition has been accessible for several years. 2017 was a particularly significant year for 4K adoption in the camcorder market, as it truly became mainstream. Cost effective 1” sensor camcorders brought 4K to the lower-end of the market, as sub $5,000 fixed lens camcorders have fueled a 9% point annual increase in the worldwide market share of 4K capable camcorders sold by Sony, Panasonic, Canon and JVC, to account for a total of 32% of worldwide camcorder volumes.

The accessibility of 4K acquisition has allowed workflows to mature and, with this, has come a greater awareness of the benefits of over sampling (acquiring video footage at a higher resolution than is necessary for the final output). It has been proven and accepted that recording video at a higher resolution and down-sampling the footage for final delivery will result in an improvement in video quality. The flexibility of having a larger canvas of pixels to work with also enables more creative options in post-production, from digital zooms and cropping in and recomposing shots to improving the accuracy of digital stabilization and VFX tasks.

The use of 8K in live broadcasting may be very limited for the foreseeable future on a global basis, but the benefits of 8K acquisition are already apparent due to the proven use-cases of oversampling. There is an obvious use for 8K acquisition at prestige events and in select cinematic instances to begin preparing a library of 8K content, but 8K is not just about future-proofing. The same learnings made from using 4K acquisition to create HD content can be applied with 8K, but to an even greater degree - especially in the case of using 8K for HD formats. Capturing 7680 x 4320 pixels to create a 1920 x 1080 image may sound like complete overkill, but it’s precisely that factor of 8K being 16 times bigger than HD that makes oversampling 8K footage a more perceptible step-up than 4K. 8K cameras will not immediately replace 4K or even HD cameras, but their enhanced capabilities for oversampling allow them to be used in a completely new way.

At IBC 2018, Panasonic demonstrated a new camera that will be available next year that uses 8K acquisition as a tool to facilitate more efficient HD capture. Panasonic are calling this technique in use, “region of interest” or ROI. ROI allows up to four independent HD crops to be taken from a single 8K source camera (for instance, creating wide, mid and close shots simultaneously of a scene). In a practical application, this can reduce the number of cameras needed on a production, as multiple shots can be captured by a single camera operator. Sony’s UHC-8300 8K studio camera also enables a similar kind of flexibility, as it can simultaneously output 8K, 4K and HD signals. This facilitates more flexible workflows - for example, live feeds in 4K and HD could be sent to a video switcher for use in live coverage, while the 8K signal is taken directly to a recorder for archival purposes.

As the adoption of the 4K UHD formats grows, there will be a greater need for 8K where instances of oversampling for 4K content is necessary. The reason that 8K will gain ground in acquisition in the immediate future is due to the new possibilities that it creates in production. 8K cameras will begin to see growth primarily through their use in mixed resolution production environments, deployed among an array of HD and/or 4K cameras.

IBC marked a significant step forward in the eventual adoption of 8K. Though its use as a broadcast format will remain niche, the potential it has to enable new techniques in acquisition are abundant. With NHK set to start broadcasting their 8K content in December this year, the acceptance of 8K is already well under way.

Chris Evans is an analyst specializing in broadcasting and professional video equipment at Futuresource Consulting.

The unmistakable scent of autumn wafts in on a sharp breeze as the batter steps up to the plate. Running out of outs in a winner-take-all postseason game, the star slugger digs in with his team trailing and the bases loaded. It’s now or never. The jacket-clad throngs fall to an anxious hush as the pitcher rears back and lets go of a blistering fastball. The batter swings. It’s a line drive up the middle! You leap up out of your seat to cheer…

But it’s caught by the shortstop, ending the inning and the rally. He was standing at the exact spot where the ball was hit, on the opposite side of second base from where you’d normally find him—a calculated position based on the tendencies of the specific batter. He barely had to move to make the play.

Much maligned by traditionalists of the game, defensive shifts are the epitome of the scientific transformation of baseball that has been rapidly accelerating over the past few years. Though analytics have been at the forefront of the game since the dawn of the Moneyball era in the early 2000s, developments in recent years have enabled it to permeate the sport to an almost unfathomable degree.

Implemented in the 2015 Major League Baseball season, Statcast is an empiricist’s fantasy come to life. It tracks everything that happens on the field—every detail about every pitch, hit, and play. A sophisticated combination of a radar system called TrackMan and an optical system called TRACAB gives precise feedback on things like the velocity, break, and spin rate of pitches, the speed, angle, and distance of batted balls, and the positioning and movement of every player on the field.

Whereas managers and front offices once only had rudimentary statistics like batting average with which to make decisions, all 30 MLB teams now employ full-time analytics departments manned by PhD data scientists, each with its own proprietary system for breaking down the terabytes of raw data served up by Statcast each season—and turning it into reports that tell managers, among many other things, exactly where to position their shortstop for each batter.

Much like baseball, businesses are demanding data like never before, and the AV industry is uniquely positioned to provide it. In the October issue's features, we examine the state of the industry in fulfilling this demand. While we don’t have TRACAB data to analyze the efficiency of an employee’s route from the break room to a meeting, systems under the purview of the technology manager like room scheduling and AV control systems paint a detailed picture of how a facility and its technology are being used. Even better, new platforms are making it such that this utilization data is immediately presentable. Enterprises can harness this insight to save money on real estate and technology, and use it to attract better talent.

And unlike baseball, there’s nothing romantic about old, inefficient ways of doing business—no traditionalists standing in the way of a new, smarter game.

When it comes to the importance of taking your sales team mobile, the numbers speak for themselves. Did you know that outside sales reps are now spending 89 percent of their time selling remotely? And it’s no wonder they do—studies show that mobile customer relationship management (CRM) tools can increase productivity by nearly 15 percent.

Mobile CRM technology can certainly work magic...but not without a magician at the helm. After all, implementing a mobile sales strategy is no easy task. It requires planning, proper execution, and the right mobile sales tools.

Growing your business through mobile sales can be as challenging as it is lucrative. To ensure your sales team is taking the right approach, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Does your mobile sales tool put the right information in front of your sales team?

Chances are, you’re counting on your mobile CRM to bring in more revenue for your small business. And statistically speaking, the odds are in your favor. According to this study, 65 percent of companies with mobile CRM reached their sales quotas. Conversely, just 22 percent of companies without mobile CRM reached the same goal.

A good salesperson knows her mobile CRM is valuable in the field—but only if the right information is readily accessible. Your mobile sales tool should include your CRM’s most important and relevant customer information so that sales professionals can easily access important data while on the go.

Conversely, avoid mobile CRM solutions that attempt to squeeze your entire customer database and functionality into your CRM’s mobile application. It will be too large and cumbersome for out-of-office employees to navigate and they’ll use it sparingly to avoid the hassle.

2. Is your team trained on how to use the mobile sales tools they have?

The best mobile sales tools are intuitive and easy to maneuver, but your sales team could always benefit from training to master your business’s mobile CRM.

Ensure your employees are up-to-speed on how to use your mobile sales tools, and encourage them to report any bugs or issues that are making it difficult to use. You might also consider hosting a seminar or question-and-answer session to address any lingering concerns—studies show that sales training leads to bolstered sales and a higher employee retention rate. Sales professionals should be aware of their mobile CRM’s key features, and be comfortable with navigating the system.

Additionally, your mobile CRM system should be well designed, and include applications that help sales pros quickly and easily retrieve the information they need to make a sale.

If your sales tool is too complicated to use, you’ll be paying for a product that’s more valuable in theory than in actual practice.

3. Is this the right tool for your size business?

If your sales force is small, you’re in a great position when it comes to mobile sales tools. Your business has the option to choose from CRM solutions that are tailor-made for a company your size, and that can support your specific needs.

Small businesses are significantly better positioned for success by selecting a customized solution to suit a small (but mighty!) sales team, rather than trying to use the same CRM as your enterprise competitors.

Remember: the needs of small sales teams can differ greatly from the sales armies of corporate giants, and your mobile sales strategy and technology should reflect those differences.

4. Is the tech you’re using right for your space?

When companies are marketing to consumers or professionals within a specific industry, their mobile sales needs are as unique as the verticals they’re targeting.

When researching your mobile CRM options, ensure the one you choose is a good match for your vertical. While some tech tools are designed to be flexible to meet the requirements of a specific industry, others aren’t nearly as malleable. And while some might be small business-minded, they could still lack the features your sales team needs to be successful in the field.

Identify the key information and technology your sales team requires to be successful and make sure the CRM solution you choose will work for the space your business is targeting.

5. How about third party integrations?

When shopping for a sales and CRM tool, look for one that aligns well with a variety of third-party solutions. The integrations you seek should be ones that benefit your business and team while they’re making sales outside the office.

Sales professionals should not have to struggle trying to navigate and toggle between several apps and tools on their mobile device. That’s why it’s important to ensure your mobile CRM tool is complimented with the right integrations to give your team the edge it needs to make the sales in the field your small business is relying on to grow and thrive.

The definition of a sales professional’s “office” is more fluid today than ever before. They could be striking deals from their home, a customer’s place of business—or even poolside on a sunny day. Statistics indicate that an increasing number of Americans are working remotely, and sales professionals are at the forefront of this trend.

Make sure your sales team is equipped with the tools it needs to succeed—whether it be at the company’s headquarters, or on the go.

There are many important aspects you must keep in mind when beginning a major digital media installation. Hours are spent analyzing the best products to use and the right content management system to install, but the most important element has always been the user experience (UX).

Every element that goes into the install is chosen with that in mind. Will this placement be best to engage with the end user or consumer? Will this content grab the consumer’s attention? How can the user engage directly with the technology? With advancements in UX happening rapidly, it’s hard to keep up with all the different trends.

This Thursday—September 27—I will be discussing this exact topic at the SCN Think Tank in Jersey City. Here's a sneak preview of some of the trends you can expect to hear more about later this week.

Finding the right balance between content and technology can be tricky. A digital display is nothing without the right content to show off the display’s quality and engage with the user. So much focus is now being placed on creating the right content to fit the digital display network. A great example of this is at Westfield World Trade Center on the 4mm LED display in the East/West Concourse. The display measures 280 feet and visitors walk along aside it as they travel throughout the complex. At times you can see cars traveling down the canvas or people walking alongside the viewers, utilizing the canvases length to its advantage.

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are constant buzz words you hear throughout the industry. This technology is still more of a spectacle than part of the UX , but slowly you’ll start to see more and more instances of it as the tech improves. One day, you may be able to swipe up to visually browse plates of food you are interested in on a menu before you order or sit in a car you want to purchase and test drive it without ever visiting the lot.

Responsiveness is now expected of most technology. Everyone has a device in their pocket that allows them to do anything imaginable with the click of a few buttons. This same type of responsiveness is now becoming expected of digital signage technology. We see this successfully deployed in a variety of settings, like shopping malls and fast food restaurants, and I think the possibilities are continuing to grow. The key with this type of technology is speed. Without it, engagement is loss and distrust in the technology is something that is hard to overcome.

Want to continue the discussion on UX?

Don't miss the "What's Next for the UX?" discussion on September 27 at Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, NJ.

Register for free using code "SCNGuest" at https://www.scnthinktank.com.

Quick Bio

Name: Malik Khan

Position: Senior Vice President, Operations

Company: ANC

Overtime: Khan will appear on the “What’s Next for the UX?” panel at the SCN Think Tank in Jersey City, NJ.

With retailers, venues, and teams constantly looking for new ways to engage with consumers and fans and bring them into their spaces, you’ll often hear the word “experiential” brought up in discussions with clients and advertisers. This is usually followed by references to “immersive” and “interactive”, but many integrators are left wondering what that really means. What qualifies as experiential? What’s the difference between delivering an immersive project or an interactive one? What really works? I’ll let the marketers argue over that last question, but I can explain the rest.

In the simplest terms, an experiential project is one that leaves a strong, lasting impression when the person leaves the space. Now this may be a product they’re being reminded of or a graphic or piece of art that inspires them as they continue on their day. None the less, the technology has made an impact. Terms like interactive and immersive can sound obvious, but are they? For today’s purposes, let’s say interactive should require individuals actually be able to—for lack of a better term—interact with the finished product (though even that has a broad definition). Immersive doesn’t mean you have to build an escape room, and the two aren’t mutually exclusive either.

The key difference between the two is that immersion should make the person feel like they’re a part of the project through content, placement, or technology. It should feel continuous and engaging, and as though the time they’re in or around the project is unique to that space. Interactive should make the person feel like they contributed in the finished project, whether physically through sensors, digitally through an app, personally through social media, or generically—sometimes even without them knowing it.

Technologically speaking, interactive technology is probably the most evolved of the two. In the industry, we’ve had the ability to use sensors and cameras even before the Kinect sensor came out almost a decade ago; even Bluetooth beacons and Wi-Fi capabilities for interactive applications have been around for a few years.

Each of these types of experiential projects have their own pros and cons. While there are a lot of examples of each, the limitations on the project usually dictate which is best to use. For example, beacons can be impractical in large spaces and cameras have limitations on distance depending on the types of lenses being used and the amount of recognition you need.

Immersion technology is a more recent trend and is most often thought of as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). But it can also be a combination of technology and content that gives the viewer the sense of continuation. One example of this can be found at Pier 17 at Seaport District in New York City, where the viewer can stand in the center of the atrium, look up and feel that they’re in the graphic. Another example is the SalesForce Lobby in San Francisco, where you can close your eyes and almost feel the mist coming off the waterfalls in the content.

In my experience, the best experiential projects are ones that deliver a little of both organic interaction and immersion, where the viewers put out the least amount of effort to engage (or don’t even know how they are), but feel like they’re a part of the install. It is an art form—one that sometimes includes a lot of technology and money—to accomplish this tastefully on a large scale, like in a transit center or public space. This level of commitment to experiential projects can often carry a hefty price tag for the client, but the impact it makes on the viewer is one that will be well worth the investment for years to come.

With the recent release of AR Development Kits by Apple and Google, there has been a flood of companies interested in getting involved in this market on both the hardware and software side. New products and integrations are coming out regularly that can make a successful experiential project more achievable for those willing to try—I say try because I would never call these projects easy, even with all of the new technology and techniques available.

One thing is for certain, we can expect the boundaries to continue to expand for these types of projects and the rest of us will hopefully be able to take part in the experience.

A dozen or so fortunate journalists, customers, and collaborators were privy to a captivating demonstration of Meyer Sound’s Spatial Sound at the Agnes Varis & Karl Leichtman Studio, part of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City.

The demo was led by Steve Ellison, Meyer Sound’s director, spatial sound, who showed how the company’s SpaceMap algorithm can manipulate live sound on the fly—creating a unique soundscape that can manipulated a number of ways.

The studio had many of Meyer’s recently introduced UP-4slim UltraCompact installation loudspeakers hung around the room, forming an oval around the attendees, and eight Ashby-8C installation loudspeakers overhead. There were also floor-mounted lower lateral UP4s placed around the room in a rectangle, and microphones hanging at various points for the Constellation system.

Using a touchpad with an easy-to-follow GUI for control, Ellison started the demo by playing a track of rhythmic clapping—two people clapping in unison, one on each track. By moving his finger across the touchpad, he could perform three-dimensional panning of the tracks—placing the sounds anywhere he wanted, moving them along the speakers as they traveled. More than left-right, the sounds went forward and backward, fading the clapping on one side, while amplifying the other. Effortlessly, he moved them all around the space.

That was impressive, but he took things to a whole other level when he brought in musician Eric Dahlman—a friend of his he has known “since he was zero” (their parents were friends before Ellison was born). Dahlman started blowing air through his trumpet into a microphone, and used pedals for delay and looping. From there it was fed into Meyer’s SpaceMap-enabled D-Mitri audio platform, which gave Ellison the ability to begin moving the sound around the room—forward and back, side to side, back to side. Dahlman continued adding sounds—bells, trumpet—that Ellison would place in the room and move it at odds with the breathing sound.

The result was a unique immersive experience that put the mixer in as much a creative position as the performer, or, as Ellison put it, “creating an instrument with a room.”

SpaceMap is not new—Ellison mentioned that it dates back to 1993 — and it has been used in many theaters and sound spaces; notably the deeply immersive Broadway production of Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812. But the reason for yesterday’s demo was to illustrate Meyer’s intention about expanding SpaceMap back to where it was originally conceived—live music performance.

The recent Moogfest showed some of SpaceMap’s potential with the creation of a unique soundscape at the new A3, an advanced spatial sound environment inside the Durham Armory created as a collaborative effort by Moogfest, Meyer Sound, and Virginia Tech’s Institute for Creativity, Arts and Technology (ICAT). Aprovided a large-scale, multi-dimensional spatial sound environment for performances by Shabazz Palaces, Suzanne Ciani, Mouse on Mars, and Waajeed, among others.

The A3 system comprised a total of 51 Meyer Sound loudspeakers, with the main LEOPARD line arrays augmented by 22 surround and overhead speakers for total audience immersion. As in the NYC demo, a D-Mitri handled the SpaceMap chores.

The demo definitely left the attendees wanting to hear more. It will be interesting to report on how the creative audio community incorporates Spatial Sound into their live shows.

Do you smell that? The smell of bonfires and pumpkin spice lattes are in the air. Fall is officially here and I am loving it. Autumn has always been my favorite season. Hoodies, hot chocolate, my birthday, and long walks on blustery days? Sign me up.

I am basking in my joy for fall. But then, the unthinkable happened, my friend told me she hated fall. I stopped dead in my tracks and I wish someone had recorded my reaction. What—who hates fall?!? I can honestly say I had never heard that before in my life. She spends an inordinate amount of time raking up leaves and cleaning them from her pool. “My dog thinks a team of navy seals is descending on my house every time an acorn plinks on the roof; there’s months of barking,” was her direct quote.

So…hmmmm…something that I loved and gave me so much joy was hated by someone else. And with good reason. I probably wouldn’t enjoy fall as much if it created a lot of extra work for me and made my beloved dog go mad.

It’s just like an AV install. One user may love the newest widget in the conference room; she finds it intuitive and appreciates that particular technology. The next user despises that very same widget; he thinks it’s difficult to operate and doesn’t like the way it connects with other devices in the room. One technology, two very different experiences, with the installer stuck somewhere in the middle.

Experiences are based on opinions and feelings—not facts. How do you create a positive experience without living in someone else’s head? Truthfully, I don’t know, and it’s probably not even possible. It’s an age-old conundrum that I’m certainly not going to solve in this letter. It’s something we’ll all have to ruminate on and come up with an answer. Until we do, I’m stuck in the middle with you.

How many times has one of your customers approached you with an issue or a problem? Often, we find ourselves threatened or at least uncomfortable when a customer approaches us with a complaint or some other form of problem. Our lack of comfort can be exacerbated if the customer is temperamental or distressed in some way.

In spite of this, I have found that how you handle these types of situations can have a significant impact on the strength of your customer relationships. Stated somewhat differently, customer problems are opportunities in disguise. Allow me to explain this in more detail.

When I conduct focus groups or individual interviews with highly loyal customers across a broad spectrum of different industries (retail, restaurants, medical devices, chemicals, etc.), I consistently find that what creates loyalty is the absence of perceived risk. When I speak with a client’s truly loyal customers, I find they are completely confident that every time they deal with our client they will have a great experience, and—in those rare cases when they do not—they have absolutely no doubt the company will take whatever steps are necessary to immediately rectify the situation.

When I speak with customers who do not consider themselves loyal to a client, I get a completely different impression. These customers speak about inconsistency—sometimes they have a very good experience, other times they do not. “You never know what you are going to get,” is a comment we hear often.

These conversations with customers highlight a key point. Loyalty does not come by “delighting” them or “exceeding their expectations.” Rather, it comes by on a 24/7 basis. In this context, problem resolution is really an opportunity in disguise—a way to build trust with your customers when inconsistency of execution inevitably raises its ugly head.

The tendency in this country over the last 10 to 15 years has been to regard customer service as a cost center. What do profit-maximizing companies do with cost centers? They try everything they can to reduce their costs. This has become increasingly easy to do with the substantial reductions in the cost of communications that have occurred over this time period.

What I have argued here is that far from being a cost center, customer service is actually a profit center. Customers whose problems are satisfactorily resolved subsequently spend more than those who did not have a problem and quantumly more than those whose problems are not properly handled.

Here is another way to think about this. Virtually everyone I know has a Nordstrom’s story. The story is never “I bought this red tie at Nordstrom’s and when I went to my meeting everyone liked it.” Far from it, actually. The typical person’s Nordstrom’s story involves some sort of purchase issue and how Nordstrom’s was able to quickly and effectively handle their particular problem for them.

The choice is yours. What kind of stories do you want your customers telling about you?

By the Numbers

Let me illustrate this with some analysis we did a few years ago for an internet retailer. I surveyed approximately 1000 respondents who had placed an order with our client in January 2014. I then divided these respondents into three separate groups:

1. Those who reported no problem with their purchase.

2. Those who had a problem with their purchase that was resolved to their satisfaction when they first reported it to our client.

3. Those that had a problem that was not resolved to their satisfaction when they first reported it to our client.

For each group of customers, I monitored their subsequent purchases from our client over the next three months. So, what did I find out?

Those customers (as a group) who did not experience a problem spent on average about $100 with our client in the following three-month period. Those customers who experienced a problem and did not have a satisfactory experience with customer service when they reported it did not just sit around and moan. They substantially reduced their expenditures to an average of $20 over the subsequent three months—an 80-percent reduction. Interestingly, those customers in the third group, those whose problem was handled satisfactorily by customer service, actually spent $106 over the same subsequent period—six percent more than the customers who did not have a problem at all (and 430 percent more than the customers whose problems were not resolved satisfactorily).

Without giving away the secret to the sauce, I wanted to highlight (and basically give mad props) to Conference Technologies (CTI) for creating a really kick-arse audiovisual internship program. Developed five years ago by CTI’s leadership team, CTI University currently hosts 12 interns across four different locations with the intent to grow each summer.

For ten weeks, students are immersed into the daily mix of the integration business—everything from creating proposals and quotes to purchasing and design work to actually completing a real-world integration project.

Each intern is flown into the St. Louis headquarters for a few days of employee onboarding—the same treatment any other employee would receive. What follows is several weeks of in-the-field and office work. Everything from getting into the field (and yes, they have to have OSHA-approved footwear) to actually meeting with internal customers and going through the sales and discovery process. By the end of the 10-week internship, interns are handing over working conference rooms—monitors, audio, codecs, touch panels, lighting, everything.

“CTI is very proud of our internship program and the teams of people who help carry this vision out,” explains Cathy Kelly, chief business and strategy officer, CTI. “It is much more than a summer work program, but rather a way of building, teaching, and mentoring the next generation of AV/IT professionals.”

I got the opportunity to speak with these interns at the end of those ten weeks and what they said was not only interesting, but also surprising.

Cody, Matt, Kaitlyn, and Katlyn connected with me over video this week from St. Louis, Kansas City, and Des Moines. All four are college students working towards a degree in technology.

I asked them to explain the internship program and each experience varied a bit based on location, staff, and “how slammed” they were. For example, the St. Louis office had a larger staff, hence more on-premises help and guidance. In Kansas City, the technicians and programmers were always in the field, so in-person help was a little harder to come by.

The Des Moines office was consistently collaborating with the Omaha office to help test equipment. “It was cool because we could reach out to the other office interns before having to reach out to employees,” explained Kaitlyn, “making it a more comfortable environment.”

By the end of the internship, both Kaitlyn and Kaitlyn decided they were more interested in sales as a career path versus installation, design, or programming. “I love working with the hardware components and the videoconferencing technology,” explained Kaitlyn. “I could definitely see myself working at CTI in the future.”

On the other hand, Cody and Matt don’t think they’ll stick with the audiovisual industry. Cody, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering said, “I had a vague idea of what the AV industry was but had no idea how in-depth it went, how much work was involved. I’d like to try a few things before committing to an industry.”

Matt, a senior mechanical engineering, added, “It’s very different than mechanical engineering—not a lot of crossover—so I probably won’t go into AV.” Post-graduation Matt plans on applying for jobs at manufacturing companies.

At the end of the day, all of the students greatly appreciated the opportunity to intern at CTI. The central consensus was that CTI is a great company with an even better culture.

With end users accessing video on more and more devices, institutions must ensure that their video stream is available on as many platforms as possible with a uniform level of quality. To attain that parity, institutions need to manage a number of variables from production to delivery.

There are several factors that influence quality. First, the level of video quality required is going to vary from device to device and between facilities. For example, there’s going to be a difference viewing video on a 55-inch display versus a mobile phone, tablet, or perhaps, even a watch. Facilities also have to consider whether they’re streaming on-demand versus live video. With on-demand streams, a little more video quality can be squeezed out. With real-time codecs and content, quality is constrained by how much bandwidth can be applied to compress the video as it’s going through a processor. That being said, latency may be more of a priority for some applications than others. For example, if you’re watching a television program, it may not matter if you receive that sitcom 5 seconds, 10 seconds, or even 20 seconds later. But in other applications, such as financial news or a military application, where video data is coming in from field ops, latency is critical. They must be able to receive video in the highest possible quality, in real time, regardless of the devices it’s being viewed on.

As the video codec field continues to evolve, and with more and more processing power available within each new generation of device, more efficient video codecs will allow facilities to achieve the quality that they need across a range of devices. Historically, the video codec market started with MPEG-1, then MPEG-2 followed by the H.264 (also known as MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding, or AVC) standard. Now, the industry is migrating toward High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2. But even within the confines of the latest standard, there’s a wide range in terms of flexibility and quality a video codec can deliver. It all depends on how a manufacturer has designed the codec, which is why selecting the video codec that not only guarantees the highest quality but also can cover the broadest range of use cases in a facility is paramount.

By taking advantage of the more efficient video codecs, facilities will be able to achieve better quality at lower bandwidths, and be able to see equivalent video quality from device to device.

Bill Cassidy is associate VP of sales—broadcast, enterprise, and government at VITEC.

Back to school planning isn’t just for the kids. As summer winds down, September is the ideal time for CIOs, CTOs, and technology managers to focus, plan ahead, and invest in new skills. Scan any job posting in the professional AV industry, and it’s clear that IT acumen is quickly becoming a requirement. AV specialists will always be in demand, but the AV leaders of tomorrow also need to be adept in networking, infrastructure, security, and IT assets. That’s why Future Plc hosts the AV/IT Leadership Summit live events series, co-located with SCN Think Tank. We bring our best-in-class magazine content to life and dive deep into the topics and techniques to give you the edge. Here are some must-attend sessions coming to New Jersey on September 27.

1) Keynote: AV/IT Collaboration

Dr. S. Ann Earon, the Founding Chairperson of IMCCA, with more than four decades of leadership and collaboration experience, will put AV and IT convergence in context and point to critical trends to watch.

2) Lifecycle Planning for a Softer AV Ecosystem

We will drill down of the new AV/IT Model and software-based AV designs. Discussions will be centralized around analysis, refresh cycles, upgrade paths, network investment, BYOx and how to ensure a better ROI.

3) Enterprise Deployments—What’s Next?

These tech managers share tales from the front-lines of AV/IT convergence. We will share success stories with the unified collaboration adoption, real-time operations support models, commissioning AV on secure networks and standardized system designs

4) What's Next for the UX?

Experience designers, AV integrators and consultants identify the hallmarks of a solid user experience, both from a customer perspective and a user point of view.

5) Venue AV Tour

• Demo cutting-edge AV live in action, on site, during this exclusive tour of the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City. Seeing is believing.

6) Connect With Peers

Meet technology managers from venerable institutions and discuss your common challenges and the ways you are working to address them.Registration is free for qualified AV and IT managers, CTOs, and CIOs.

Sign up today: https://www.avitsummit.com/avit-jerseycity2018

Correction: The initial publication of this article stated that sessions would be worth 5.5 AVIXA CTS RUs. The renewal units are for SCN Think Tank sessions only.

Think all remote employees sit around in their pajamas all day? Nope. Let's dispel the top five myths about remote work in the tech industry.

Myth #1: People Who Work Remotely Don’t Actually Do Any Work

There have been a ton of studies on the benefits of remote working for employers. Check out this study from Stanford, which shows that people who work from home are actually more likely to complete a full shift of work than those in the office. Or this article in the Harvard Business Review that talks about the fact that remote employees are more engaged at work than their in-office counterparts.

Myth #2: Remote Jobs Mean You're Working All of the Time

The truth is, if you have workaholic tendencies, working too much is something you have to look out for whether you're in an office or remote.

The best employers will stress work-life balance, encourage you to take time off, and will notice if you’re answering pings and emails late into the night…and yell at you to go to bed.

Myth #3: You Can Work From Anywhere You Want

Okay, okay. You can work from bed if you really want to—just remember, you'll need to jump on video calls every now and then.

The bigger factor that plays into where you can *actually* work remotely from is… you guessed it…Internet. As awesome as it might sound to work from the middle of a National Park or on a boat somewhere, if you don’t have internet, you don’t have a job.

Myth #4: Remote Workers Are Anti-Social

You don’t have to feel isolated when working from home. You don’t have to worry about having no work friends. No matter what job you have, any remote position at a tech company will mean that you are constantly connecting with your co-workers, clients, and partners.

Myth #5: Remote Jobs Pay Less and Don't Come With Benefits

Remote tech jobs should pay you just as much as you’d get in an office. And you’ll have the flexibility to enjoy it more, what’s better than that?

In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that if you’re applying or interviewing for a remote job and it pays less than you’d get paid in office…run!

Want to learn more about remote work in the tech industry?

Remote Work Life in the Tech Industry: The Ultimate Guide

We’re all busy—and it’s easy to have unexpected meetings prevent you from attending a local event. I’m happy I recently resisted that temptation, because these events can be particularly rewarding. In addition to sharing a common industry, you share the same language. When an entire group parks their cars in the same yard—it’s magic.

Yup, Boston is my hometown, yet I had only met two of the attendees at the first AVIXA Women Boston Regional Group networking event on August 9, hosted at the Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering at Boston University (BU).

It was wicked hot outside, which made for a perfect summer evening to enjoy Boston’s best ice cream from Toscanini's, talk everything AV, IT, and Red Sox with fellow women and men from our industry.

The first AVIXA Women's Council Boston event was organized by regional group leaders Linda Jerrett, assistant director of learning and event technology services at BU; Hope Roth, lead programmer at Boston-based, Riordan Brothers Integration; and, Gina Sansivero, director of business development, education at FSR and co-leader of the AVIXA Women NYC Metro Group.

AV in Action

With its official opening in September 2017, the newly constructed, nine story, state-of-the-art Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering facility at Boston University is stunning.

We all agree there’s nothing more rewarding than to experience outstanding AV design and integration in action. After finishing ice cream, AVIXA Women's Council Boston attendees were in for an even greater treat.

BU’s Jerrett and Tyler Brown led a presentation highlighting the integrated AV at the Kilachand Center Auditorium, which is the main hub and colloquium room.

For this project, Brown was the owner’s representative, communicating standards to AV designer Cavanaugh Tocci Associates and systems integration firm McCann Systems, as well as other external and internal stakeholders. He also ensured that when systems were brought onto the network, clients understood how everything worked.

A 12,000-lumen laser projector, a massive acoustically transparent screen, a 7.1-channel surround sound system, with microphones and voice reinforcement throughout the auditorium deliver an immersive experience for attendees.

For larger events, audio and video is streamed from the auditorium to four meeting spaces used for overflow, and audio plays in the lobby.

A combination of large airy conference rooms, meeting rooms, and huddle spaces are located throughout the facility and enabled with audio, video and web conferencing capabilities, making this space the envy of our AVIXA Women's Council Boston group.

We’re all looking forward to our next gathering!

Recently, a significant amount of time has been expended on the discussion of certain numbers. Topics have included 1Gb versus 10Gb, 4K versus 8K, single-frame times (16 or 33 milliseconds), and so forth. They are generally used in the context of a dialogue concerning IP networks. But there are some other very important numbers associated with IP networks that would be useful to know and remember.

1,518

For about 30 years, this number has been the maximum number of bytes in an Ethernet data frame. There is a legend among IT enthusiasts that the original IEEE 802.3 Committee, which was charged with writing the Ethernet standard, couldn’t agree whether the data field should allow 1,000 bytes or 2,000 bytes. So, the committee agreed on 1,500 bytes. Because the committee already had decided on the size of the address, payload identifier, and error check fields, 18 bytes were added to the 1,500 to make the total maximum size of a frame 1,518 bytes. This 1,500-byte maximum is the basis of virtually all system designs, regardless of the type of payload. It can be data, voice, video, audio, or metadata. A standard has been written that allows jumbo frames, but their use outside of data centers is infrequent.

1,460

Since nearly all IP packets are carried in Ethernet frames, we assume the entire packet structure is limited to 1,518 bytes and the IP packet consists of the 1,500 bytes in the data field. However, all IP packets use a 20-byte header that contains addresses, an error-check code, and other metadata. In addition, the next header in the packet will be either TCP or the combination of UDP and RTP. TCP uses 20 bytes. UDP and RTP use 8 bytes and 12 bytes, respectively. Consequently, the number of bytes that can be used for the application and its data is 1,460. This means that every video stream, audio stream, or data transfer using TCP/IP will have the data segmented into chunks of no more than 1,460 bytes. For example, the MPTS format, which is widely used in digital signage and IPTV, usually packs seven MPEG packets into each IP packet. Each mpeg packet contains 188 bytes. So, the total MPEG video/audio payload is 188 x 7 = 1,316 bytes. Adding just one more audio or video packet would exceed the 1,460-byte limit.

The importance of this number cannot be exaggerated with regard to IP networks. Even in the threeway handshake that establishes a TCP connection, the two systems assume that 1,460 is the maximum transmission unit (MTU). It can be negotiated to a lower limit. But, in practice, this is usually never done. Additionally, we must realize that the maximum 1,460 bytes of data in each 1,518-byte frame means there is a minimum of 3.8 percent overhead that reduces the effective bandwidth utilization. This principle applies to every one-way flow.

There are many other numbers that are used frequently in AV over IP. Some of these are 80, 443, and 224. But, we’ll save those for another lesson.

First there was working in the company office. Then there was working in your home office. Then there was Starbucks and the rise of the “third space.” Now the three are merging in the growing trend of resimercial design. -–Work Design Magazine, February 2018 Issue

CEDIA 2018 Product Roundup

If your hometown is anything like mine, chances are you have a ton of new business developments going on around you. Office buildings are nothing new, but this time around there’s a big shift happening. Yesterday’s suburban corporate office parks drove workers home, giving rise the teleworking boom of the early 2000’s. Since the Great Recovery began in 2009, a new trend is emerging in warehouse districts, downtown areas, and suburban mixed-use developments as workers flock back to the office. Mix in the largest generation of young workers and voila!, witness the birth of a new design trend. Resimercial is exactly what it sounds like – a blend of residential amenities woven into office design. It is commercial combined with a home’s casual, comfortable aesthetic. Who better to help this new generation of office properties get their technology solutions in line than the residential CI channel?

Imagine a new type of client who uses your services only during normal business hours and isn’t going DIY anytime soon.

Let’s first take a look at the key characteristics of a resimercial office environment:

• Comfortable & Collaborative: Think open workspaces, opportunities for relaxation, playtime, and socialization. Many new resimercial offices have ping pong tables, beer taps, and large conference rooms.
• Open Floor Plans: In resimercial, dedicated offices take a backseat to huddle spaces, phone booths, family tables, and large gathering spaces.
• Meeting Spaces Rule: Good resimercial offices feature well-designed conference rooms and huddle spaces that offer up opportunities for face-to-face collaboration or virtual meetings.

You already understand residential custom installation inside and out. Your company is used to fielding calls from clients all hours of the day, with immediate response times expected. Imagine a new type of client who uses your services only during normal business hours and isn’t going DIY anytime soon. Does it sound too good to be true? Let’s look at a few key areas where your residential CI business could easily capitalize on the new resimercial trend. Like any good business idea, finding the pain points that your new commercial clients are experiencing is a good start. Here are a few to consider:

1. BYOD: Employees are increasingly using devices like iPhones and iPads exclusively without needing traditional computers and laptops. Help your new business customers cater to their workers by leaning on your residential experience. Getting a small office online and managing their basic technology needs should be a walk in the park after managing the always-on needs of your high-net-worth clients and their families. If you’re uncomfortable with IT, partner with a local IT company and refer business back and forth.
2. Echo Chambers: Open floor plans mean acoustic challenges that need to be proactively solved. Imagine becoming a trusted advisor to a local architecture or interior design firm by offering to help engineer the noise management and audio systems. Help write the specification, bid the job, and win the business!
3. Easy Is HARD: If you’ve ever gone into a traditional conference room and tried to use the technology without some instruction first, you know what I mean. Imagine taking your residential experience into the conference room environment and leveraging control system platforms that deliver an intuitive user experience. “Don’t Make Me Think” should be the rule of thumb here, and you have a huge leg up on your commercial integrator counterparts who seem just fine with the status quo.
4. Hide The Technology: You already know how to conceal technology into furniture while hiding cables and clutter. The resimercial movement is a perfect way to practice your artistry throughout the office using technologies such as art and mirror TVs, hidden screens, and projector lifts. Walk into any office building today to see what traditional commercial integrators are up to. It sure isn’t focusing on aesthetics and hidden installation.
5. Workers Need WiFi: Just like your residential clients, workers need WiFi everywhere throughout the office. From the bar to the foosball table, there better not be any dead spots. Leverage your residential experience here by offering up design services to specifiers, ensuring 100 percent wall-to-wall coverage.
6. Service & Support: Businesses expect to have their technology perform properly at all times. Failure to provide great service here could mean huge dollar losses for your clients. Consider offering 24/7 proactive support as part of your sales strategy by delivering it yourself or partnering with a remote managed services provider such as OneVision or Parasol [the author is a co-founder of Parasol].

If your residential CI business is looking for new streams of revenue to offset the Internet of Things DIY wave in the low and middle segments of the market, consider resimercial a sound business decision. Margins are a little lower than the residential world; instead of 40+ point selling margins, expect to see 35-37 points depending on what part of the country you’re in. Balance those margins with the size of the commercial market available and you’ll be able to cherry pick the best projects to augment your residential business. It’s easy to get started, and chances are many of your clients are business owners or C-level executives anyway. Why not tell them to “bring you to work”?

Stay frosty and see you in the field.

One of the biggest catchphrases in the AV industry of late has been the “integrated experience.” What does this entail for spaces like meeting rooms?

A true integrated experience needs to account for all considerations that make an impression on users and provide positive feelings and a successful outcome before, during, and after being in the meeting space. This experience includes their ability to easily find the space, their comfort level within the rooms, their ability to leverage the technology for their needs, and most importantly, the satisfaction they have in accomplishing their goals for the meeting, presentation, lesson, or entertainment.

Here are some critical design and control considerations that lead to a highly valued integrated experience.

MAKING SPACE

First, let’s start with the space: the size of the room should be appropriate for the number of participants. One solution for addressing space considerations and rooms management would be through use of a room-booking and wayfinding system. Furthermore, through development of middleware, external software applications can be integrated with local room control systems allowing data to be exchanged, facilitating automation and optimization. A room-booking system not only helps identify the most appropriate space for the size of the group and technology needs of the meeting or event, it could also set up the room for use based on the scheduled activity. In addition to reserving the room, integration with a calendaring system provides participants with an appointment and reminders that could include details of room location, meeting agenda and content, remote connection details, and even Wi-Fi access details for guests.

The use of middleware connecting enterprise-level room scheduling software with an AV control system within the room can be a big step in creating an integrated experience. Not only can control of the space can be automated and provide a personalized touch specific to the needs of the user, it also helps to optimize room usage and system performance. In ideal scenarios, technology should be transparent to the user unless they choose to interact with it. By integration of environmental controls like HVAC, lighting, and shades along with scheduling and digital signage to guide, welcome, and inform, users will be treated to a higher level of care. This can be taken further by automatically activating aspects of technology that enhance the meeting or event like conference calls, live streams, video playback, or recording. Attendees can also be provided personalized controls via a mobile app or website link that supports communication with other participants, collaborating on documents, requesting help, reporting feedback, and even ordering refreshments. At the close of the event, it is just as important that participants are comfortable leaving and knowing where they need to go, understanding how to end the session or shut down the room, and automatically receiving materials that they need for follow up.

All of this demonstrates how automation can truly provide an integrated experience; however, it’s not done with magic. A lot of effort needs to be invested in the planning, design, software, and most importantly operation of these systems to create harmony that any user will value. It starts with the design of the facility including all spaces with which the participant will interact. With strategically placed signage to communicate meeting schedules, event details, room bookings, and locations of spaces like restrooms, break areas, and exits to the building, users will be comforted and their stress and anxiety minimized. Everyone hates getting lost, being late, and being distracted before an important event.

INTELLIGENT ROOMS

Other key elements within the space are the use of sensors. Knowing when rooms are in use or vacant, temperature, light level, the number of occupants, and possibly who is present will provide the ability to offer automation and adjustments that contribute to better management of the spaces, and enhanced comfort level and experience. Automation of a space is only possible when the proper input and feedback are available from the equipment and systems. A room can be set up for a meeting or event in advance; however, perhaps the activity does not kick off until the following criteria are met: the start time is reached, 80 percent of participants have arrived, and the organizer and key attendees are present. Selection of equipment that provides a robust API and predeveloped control modules plays an important role in ensuring the system is operating at optimal performance. Receiving feedback from the equipment on its current status as well as its “health” and usage history will help to provide finer control and information for proactively addressing needs before they lead to problems.

The last element that is important to consider is the investment in a software monitoring platform that can manage, monitor, control, and maintain all of the spaces within a facility or enterprise. This software needs to be flexible, scalable, and universal enough that it is not limited to integration with one particular brand, but can universally interface with anything that contributes to the integrated experience. As organizations grow and their needs increase, this software will be at the central point of their command center where ability to schedule, launch, support, and manage events is found. The ability to identify status, control activity, and respond to requests with concierge or VIP service can provide the ultimate level of client care and lead to an ideal integrated experience. Additionally, by collecting feedback from the users in conjunction with monitoring the system performance, adjustments can be made to continuously respond to user needs and preferences.

As with most successful outcomes, the integrated experience involves a conscious effort, time, detailed information, and effective planning. By first starting with the result in mind and working backward, the story will be painted as to desired experience and challenges that need to be addressed. Next, the solution will stem from defining the software and automation requirements, which will then dictate the design and hardware elements. As it all comes together, testing and user feedback will provide opportunities for fine tuning and integration. The interactive experience is an ongoing effort rather than a project finish point.

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Steve Greenblatt, CTS, is president and founder of Control Concepts, a provider of specialized software and services for the audiovisual industry.

Screaming across the hot asphalt at close to 200 miles per hour, the driver waits patiently for the perfect moment. He searches for a spot on the inside of the upcoming curve, the edges of his vision a blur of green and blue. Then, without lifting the throttle, he takes the turn. With a white-knuckle grip, he holds the wheel steady as a weight six times the force of gravity slams his body against the side of the cockpit.

This is just one corner of a 53-lap Grand Prix in Formula One, the world’s highest level of motor racing—and the most exciting engineering competition ever devised. Contested over a 35-week span in 21 different countries across five continents, it’s as global a sporting league as you’ll find. And while the skill of drivers—you guessed it, the best in the world—matters a great deal, Formula One is all about engineering, and always has been since its inception in 1950.

The term “formula” refers to the strict set of regulations each of the 10 teams must follow in developing their cars. Outside of those restrictions, teams pour tremendous resources into finding the smallest advantages over their rivals. Top teams, like Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari, spend upwards of 400 million euros a year and employ hundreds of the most brilliant engineers in the quest for victory.

But on race day, that quest is always something of a gamble—one of performance versus reliability. Turning up the engine to go an extra tenth of a second quicker could lead to failure later on; being too conservative might land you outside of the top three finishers.

This same basic conflict exists in the world of AV, minus the millions of scrutinizing fans. We want the newest, highest-tech displays and technologies to convey that wow factor and cultivate an avant-garde brand image. But, as NetApp’s senior program manager, Mike Tyler, said in this month’s AV in Action, when you’re living on the bleeding edge of technology, “once in a while you’re going to bleed.” But many times, such failure is intolerable. Unlike Formula One, where there’s always next race, you might not get another shot to wow a client, to ideate with visiting partners, or to capture and stream a pivotal moment. Non-functioning AV is utterly useless.

Luckily, the same development that’s making connecting AV a little trickier—convergence with the network—is also helping to minimize the risk of failure. Like the real-time car telemetry available to race engineers, network-connected AV devices can provide insight into how they’re functioning and warn operators when something’s awry. Problems can be prevented before they crop up.

But more than ever, technicians are essential to maintaining a reliable AV installation, especially as systems become even more complex and connected. You need someone onsite day in and day out, looking over the equipment. Because when you’re about to commit to a corner with your state-of-the-art AV system, it just hasto work.

The SCN Think Tank is right around the corner, and I for one, am stoked. Here are my top five reasons why you need to attend.

1. All of your friends will be there.

The Think Tank will be packed with top integrators, consultants, and experience designers. And they're there to meet you. Everyone is there to learn and share their tips and tricks on bringing AV to the next level.

2. You'll make new connections.

The Think Tank is co-located with the AV/IT Leadership Summit, the must-attend event for CIOs, CTOs, and in-house AV managers. They'll be plenty of time for you to network with those attendees—you can't afford to miss your chance to mingle with power players from companies like United Airlines, Google, Indeed, Rutgers University, and more.

3. You'll walk away with a better understanding of the future of pro AV.

Want to know what the pro AV market will be in one, three, even five years? You won't want to miss The Future of AV panel at 1 p.m. You'll get a sneak peeks of new technologies and how they apply to the market directly from leading AV manufacturers like Barco. And, no, this won't be a product pitch—they'll be talking about the overall state of the market and how trends will shape their product roadmaps.

4. You need AVIXA RUs.

Let's face it—you need those AVIXA RUs to keep your CTS certification. People who attend the full day of education will receive 5.5 RUs. Kill two birds with one stone—get actionable info to take back to your job and renew your certification.

5. You'll see AV technologies in action.

We're ending the day with a behind-the-scenes tour of the Liberty Science Center's AV systems. Led by the venue's AV team, you'll hear about how they chose the technology, challenges they face, and how it enhances the visitor experience.

If that doesn't convince you, I don't know what else will. Well, maybe I have one more thing—IT'S FREE! Use code "SCNGuest" for admission on me.

See you September 27 in Jersey City!

REGISTER NOW: https://www.scnthinktank.com/tt-jerseycity2018/begin

Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) are becoming very common in business—and not just pro AV, but all business. Not understanding all of the terms of an NDA and how to manage the information can cause damage to your company, your clients, and your reputation.

There are multiple items to consider when entering into an NDA. A few questions I ask are: Is it for the company overall, or just the person? Is it a single-sided NDA or is it mutual or bidirectional? Do you need to have subcontractors sign the NDA? These will typically be called out in the NDA itself. That is the first thing that most people neglect to do before signing: read the entire document. I have distributed and received many NDAs; I am always amazed by how many people don’t understand them…and sign them anyway. Some of the NDAs bind the company, some bind the individual. As a company principal, it is folly to have someone binding the company without a review first. Any questions and clarifications must be documented in the form before signing.

I prefer that NDAs be signed by all parties involved, even if it is companywide. The main reason is that I feel it helps all of the people understand the seriousness of the agreement. If everyone does not understand the requirements, how can the conditions be met? I also caution people that the NDA might have repercussions that are unexpected. When working with a publicly held company, the E.U., the U.S., and others have regulations to control financial information. This condition might seem far-fetched; however, think what would happen if someone knew where a company’s new headquarters was going to be built based on purchasing hundreds of conference room systems.

Now that a company has privileged information, managing it is imperative. Having been involved in projects that experienced information breaches, proactive information management is critical. The basic question I ask is: “Does this person need to know the project?” And about 95 percent of the time, they do not. After I have determined who needs to know, I then hand them a copy of the NDA to sign.

While managing information goes beyond the digital world, securing the computer data is one of the first steps to take. Not only should access be restricted, but I’d take it a step further and encrypt the data. Yes, information needs to be secure during transport and storage. The standard operating systems enable encryption of a hard disk; I do that on all my drives. I also consider encrypting the file with PGP or GPG encryption, just in case. Multiple layers of security are key.

That seems easy enough, right? There is much more to be aware of when dealing with confidential information. If there are hard copies—such as drawings or plans—keeping those secure is essential. Sometimes it’s as simple as not leaving said hard copies unattended on a desk or at the printer. If hard copies are needed, store them in a locked filing cabinet or room. After using the documents, shredding the materials is a must. Don’t forget to apply this due diligence to erasing your whiteboard or digital collaboration system—you have to ensure your information is not just laying around the office.

Headed out on the road? Don’t forget your security processes while traveling. Do not have phone calls in public that reveal privileged information; the same approach goes for using a computer in public where people can shoulder surf. Don’t talk about the project when at lunch, even if it is just you and coworkers. While people are typically not malicious, the idea of gossip and sharing a secret is just human nature. People will share a secret they know to feel important.

Think I’m being a little overzealous about the security of data and keeping it secret? Think back to last year when Equifax let down its guard—now think about how much it has sullied its own reputation. By following the rules of the NDA, I do not worry about my reputation. It is the only thing I can control. I don’t want someone else screwing it up by violating the NDA; that is why I am proactive.

No Assumptions

Do not assume that everyone working for the same company knows everything. This may seem very obvious, but when you think about the difference in responsibilities between the shipping department and the design department, you know those employees don’t know all of the same confidential information. Less apparent is that people within the same design department might not know about their coworkers’ projects.

Think of a significant integration firm with multiple locations. Why does the New York office need to know what the New Jersey office is doing? The same goes for end users or clients. Not everyone knows what is going on in every division. Just because it is the same company, do not share the information unless you know that you are allowed to share.

About to blab? Call the person you signed the NDA with and ask if you are allowed to share the information with another party. This will also help build your reputation—it will reinforce that you are cognizant of NDA requirements.

Don’t forget about subcontractors. If you are using them, ensure people critical to the NDA are aware subcontractors are now involved. And make the subcontractor has signed the same NDA, then file it with the originator.

Note: I am not an attorney; this column is not meant to provide any legal advice. Please consult your legal team for counsel. This piece is my opinion. I am not speaking for anyone else, including, but not limited to: my employer, System Contractor News, or Future plc.

Disabling hearing loss impacts 466 million people around the world according to the World Health Organization. And that number is expected to rise—a study by Johns Hopkins University concluded that the number of Americans aged 20 and older who suffer from hearing loss will double over the next 43 years.

One of the biggest factors affecting hearing is age. People may naturally lose some ability to hear well as they grow older (age-related hearing loss). More often though, hearing loss is the result of years of exposure to loud noises. Just as exposure to sunlight over a long period of time has a cumulative effect on the appearance and overall health of our skin, exposure to noise at high volumes—whether acute or chronic—can impact our ability to hear and can lead to hearing loss.

Prevention is the Best Medicine

Here are some quick tips to protect hearing and limit potential for long-term hearing loss.

1. Avoid loud noise whenever possible.

2. Wear ear protection in loud environments—like at a rock concert or around machinery.

3. Use headphones and personal devices at safe volumes.

4. Have hearing tested regularly.

Fortunately, advances in hearing aid and assistive listening technology mean people suffering from hearing loss have more tools than ever to help them hear sound clearly and engage more fully with others and their surroundings. Consider these four assistive listening technologies and their applicability in different environments.

Radio Frequency (RF)

Radio frequency transmits audio from a source to a receiver—this could be a person’s hearing aid or a small receiver worn around the neck—via the DECT 1.9 GHz, 72 MHz or 216 MHz FM bands. This technology works similarly to a radio station that broadcasts audio to individual receivers. RF systems are ideal for large venues such as outdoor stadiums or theaters because RF is able to travel great distances.

Infrared (IR)

IR systems use infrared light to transmit audio from a source to a receiver. Similar to RF, IR systems can deliver sound directly to a user’s hearing aid or to a receiver that he/she carries or wears around the neck. Unlike RF, infrared cannot penetrate walls or other obstructions. This limitation makes IR technology ideal for courtrooms, classrooms, conference rooms, adjacent theaters, and other venues where spillover of sound would be disruptive to others or breach confidentiality.

Induction Loop

Hearing aid wearers and those with cochlear implants often prefer induction loop systems to any other assistive listening system (ALS) because they are easy and discrete—there is no need to check out a separate receiver. Induction loop systems feature a loop of wire around a venue that creates an electromagnetic field within the parameters of the loop. Audio signal is broadcast via this electromagnetic field to users wearing cochlear implants, telecoil (t-coil) equipped hearing aids or a loop receiver (either hand-held or worn around the neck). Cochlear implant and t-coil hearing aid users experience clear sound delivered directly to their ear and uniquely calibrated to their specific hearing needs. Induction loops are ideal in classrooms, theaters, concert halls, houses of worship, public transit centers, auditoriums, and homes.

Wi-Fi

Wireless assistive listening systems (ALS) stream sound wirelessly from a source directly to an individual’s smartphone. Users can hear sound streamed to their smartphone through headphones or directly via their Bluetooth-enabled hearing aids. Wi-Fi enabled ALS are ideal for crowded environments featuring multiple audio sources (think several TV screens) such as bars, restaurants, airports, building lobbies, student centers, and office waiting rooms. Wireless ALS are also beneficial in houses of worship and classrooms. Because of the ubiquity of smartphones and personal devices, venues do not need to manage, loan, clean or store receivers.

The Bottom Line

Regardless of venue size, there’s an assistive listening system tailored to fit the needs of both the environment and the user.

I’m in a glass case of emotions…because I’m so excited for CEDIA 2018. This year’s show—held September 4-8 in San Diego—will be very different for me. It’s the first time I’ll attend as a non-exhibitor. It will also be the first time I attend looking at everything from a strongly commercial AV viewpoint.

Get a sneak peek of what exhibitors are showcasing at CEDIA.

While it hasn’t made it to Webster’s Dictionary yet, resimercial has become a popular term amongst #AVTweeps. Worlds are colliding, things are merging, everybody’s joining in the BYOD party.

My favorite thing about residential AV is voice control everywhere. I love walking into my house and telling Alexa to turn on the lights, or sitting at my desk and saying out loud “Play The Killers” and the music just starts. There’s no stress or fussing with a million different devices. It’s an easy experience, and things just simply work.

The other thing I really enjoy about residential AV is the beauty of it all. Things are designed to be elegant and fit in with my décor. At the same time, those products still function well. Pro AV manufacturers have already started taking a page from this playbook, but many are not there yet. I’m ready to enjoy looking at audiovisual equipment just as much as I enjoy looking at a piece of artwork. If it’s going to be front and center in the room—whether it’s a living room or a conference room—it might as well be pretty.

So as the residential AV market creeps into our sphere (or we creep into theirs, depending on how you see it), what are you doing to make a beautiful blend of both worlds?

There’s value to a can-do attitude, but some tasks steal your time and energy from your actual job responsibilities.

As a technology manager, you are used to taking on a lot of extra work. You perform a variety of do-it-yourself (DIY) tasks, including production, workarounds, trainings, and integration. But are there times you wish you could call another professional to take some tasks off your plate as well as to help you make the most of your time and investments? AV integrators can take on a variety of complex AV-related tasks but can also simply make your life easier by reducing worry and a heavy workload.

So how do you know when you should do it yourself and when you should seek out a professional audiovisual partner?

Here are some tips from industry pros:

When to Do It Yourself

When all you have to do is plug in a solution, and it will take more time, effort, and cost to seek out an audiovisual integrator, you can consider doing it yourself. However, this advice comes with a couple of caveats:

1. “Only do it yourself when you are 100 percent sure you can do it right,” advises Jason Ward, sales and marketing director at Involve.
2. Ensure you don’t want other services like advice, integration, maintenance, monitoring, training, etc. beyond the basic installation.

Tips for Doing It Yourself

If you decide to take on a DIY project, Ward recommends remembering the adage: “Buy cheap, buy twice,” meaning if you don’t choose a quality solution, you’ll end up replacing it sooner rather than later.

Other important tips include reading the directions and following manufacturer recommendations which often offer helpful hints, tips, and additional resources. An important step often skipped by DIYers is to address user adoption. Even if the solution is high quality and installed correctly, users won’t take advantage of it if they don’t know it’s there, don’t know what it does, and don’t know how to use it.

When Do You Need an AV Integrator?

You need an AV integrator when:

• The solution is complex
• It must work with other solutions
• You aren’t sure you can install it correctly or quickly
• You want to ensure ROI
• You need to maximize adoption

Some solutions require a high level of expertise, while others may be moderately difficult but take up valuable time to figure out, so they divert resources from daily duties and other projects.

Kevin Talbot, head of technical sales at Involve, says, it’s not just an issue of technology complexity but also of the service wrap. “Don’t take on the burden yourself of dealing with issues on kit that can be highly specialized in its implementation or deployment or you don’t have the time to install, implement, deploy, and/or maintain.”

The Value of an Integrator

The value of an AV integrator extends far beyond simply installing an AV solution. Ward explained that the “enhanced support and management ensure increased usage and adoption.” Also, integrators take a big picture approach that considers the entire space and user experience—not just the technology. “We deliver services with the end user’s benefit at the heart of everything we do,” Ward said.

Ideally, a client will include the integrator from the beginning of the project. When they are part of the planning and design phases, they can help you make the best purchase decisions. However, even if your project is well beyond that point, an integrator can provide expertise and resources that can help.

This blog was originally published on PSNI's website: http://blog.psni.org/av-blog/hire-an-audiovisual-integrator

The University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine, based in Chapel Hill, is a beehive of activity. In lecture halls and smart classrooms, the ideas never stop. Just ask Ben Whitfield in the school’s Academic Technology Services department. Whitfield’s role covers “a broad gamut,” from AV system design to product research, but he has a particular passion for AV project management. From this vantage point, he observes that AV over IP is the quickly becoming the “reality on the ground,” he said.

This exciting—but not always seamless—evolution from point-to-point systems to network-centric designs is creating more opportunities for in-house AV engineers and managers like Whitfield. With software-based approaches, and more ways to bring integrated experiences to life, Whitfield believes that we are living in the Golden Age of AV.

The Golden Age is a phrase that denotes prosperity and relative peace. It is often applied retroactively, after a period has ended, such as the Golden Age of Radio. Why does Whitfield think the industry’s halcyon age is occurring right now? It’s part technology development, part technology acceptance, he said.

“The use of technological tools, with the main focus of smartphones, has transformed us from conveying ideas and knowledge via ink and paper or audio transmissions to a world that communicates by face-to-face video interaction,” Whitfield noted. The acceptance of AV-enabled mediums—whether via phone, web conference, streaming lectures, et cetera—is what has ushered us into a new age of knowledge transfer, he said. “I call it the Golden Age because the acceptance is there. That was the first and major hurdle. All else moving forward will improve on that communication form.”

“I call it the Golden Age because the acceptance is there. That was the first and major hurdle. All else moving forward will improve on that communication form.”

Furthermore, in many commercial verticals, AV is now the expectation, not the exception, to the rule. Most new classrooms include HD or UHD displays of some kind. Static whiteboards alone no longer cut it in the conference room. People raised with Apple TV and iPhones in their hands are demanding dynamic, technology-rich learning and working environments. Interest in augmenting AV applications with IoT access and AI is on the rise.

Also, consider the trend toward more streamlined and standardized AV: The days of pulling five or six wires for signal transport and power are gone. Compare how much rack space an AV pro needs now compared to 15 years ago. This means that we can integrate more AV at more touch points for a higher impact. Distributed teams can also be united in more meaningful ways thanks to software-based AV solutions.

What's your take? Are we living in the Golden Age of audiovisual technology, or does the commodification of components change the equation? Tweet your golden ideas to @AVTechnologyMag.

Margot Douaihy is a storyteller, polymath, and the editor-at-large of AV Technology magazine.

Technicians play an unsung role in the success of AV projects and the retention of client relationships. Whether it is to install equipment, fabricate a rack, service a system, troubleshoot an issue, or respond to a need, technicians are involved in many post-sale aspects of a project and are called upon to execute what was promised to a client. In doing so, a technician may become a lifeline for client, building a trusted relationship that can be the catalyst for future opportunities. Simply put, it makes sense for technicians to be an integral part of any organization.

Like programmers, project managers, and salespeople, not all technicians demonstrate their value in the same manner. Some technicians may be specialists in one specific area of expertise, whereas others are generalists with a working understanding of many technologies and applications. There are also some that may possess skills beyond the basic job requirements, such as understanding control programming, audio DSP configuration, or programmable device setup like video processors.

As the AV industry continues to change and technology advances at a rapid pace, technicians (just like other industry roles) are challenged with the need to evolve their skills in order to retain and increase their value. This evolution can come in the form of expanding their skillset, mastering a specialty, or increasing their productivity and efficiency.

Here are some opportunities where technicians can grow professionally, add more value to their client or employer, and continue to impact the industry.

LEARN IP NETWORKS AND HOW TO INTERACT WITH IT DEPARTMENTS

Many areas of the AV industry are becoming simpler to install and set up, such as videoconferencing solutions. What used to involve proprietary hardware codecs requiring extensive setup, wiring, terminations, and testing has evolved to become a software codec solution like Zoom, Skype, or BlueJeans that requires nothing more than a computer, network connection, USB connection, and potentially HDMI connection.

On the other hand, other areas of the industry have become more specialized like video and audio signal transport and control. Point-to-point switching of digital signals over HDMI or HDBaseT over an isolated network is being challenged by a demand for video-over-IP solutions (like JPEG 2000, H.264, and SDVoE) involving network streaming, video processing, configuration of Ethernet network switches, network server-based control, and networked audio routing (like AES67 and Dante). Opportunities exist for technicians to become specialists in any or all of these areas of expertise. The common thread is that they all involve knowledge of IP networks.

Even though there is a trend of solutions becoming less installation-centric, like wireless source switching, these advancements have opened new doors to learn and master cutting-edge technologies. Technicians who focus on developing skills to master implementation of video, audio, conferencing, and control solutions on the network will find themselves in high demand.

BECOME AN EXPERT IN TESTING, TROUBLESHOOTING, AND CLOSING OUT PROJECTS

A technician who can thoroughly test a system and provide an accurate, detailed punchlist is an invaluable asset. There is a difference between simply providing a list of what works and doesn’t, based on cursory testing and subjective opinion, and thoroughly testing a system with intent to identify all open items and verify accurate operation. The former leads to inefficiency, uncertainty, and an inconclusive result, while the later provides a path for a confident completion and client satisfaction. By isolating issues narrowed down to the definitive cause (programming, wiring, setup, device malfunction, etc.) and identifying who is responsible, open items are quickly and easily resolved.

In order to be an expert in testing, troubleshooting, and closing out projects, a technician needs to have a big-picture view of the system. This includes understanding how and why all of the components connect and communicate, and how to identify the cause of an issue when something doesn’t work as expected.

The art of troubleshooting involves clearly identifying an issue, isolating and narrowing down the possible causes, and eliminating each possibility, one by one, while keeping all other variables constant. This process requires a detailed thought process, discipline in execution, and knowledge and experience in problem solving.

All systems require testing, troubleshooting, and a final punchlist in order to validate completion. Technicians who can test and troubleshoot effectively will find themselves indispensable as their projects are completed efficiently and comprehensively leaving their clients with a great user experience.

DEMONSTRATE LEADERSHIP ALONG WITH STRONG COMMUNICATION AND ORGANIZATIONAL SKILLS

As mentioned previously, a proficient technician can be a difference maker in success of working system and an overall project. Their ability to become the point person in the field, manage situations, and build trust with the client can prove invaluable. Even more so, technicians who demonstrate leadership in addition to strong technical skills become a greater asset to a project, team, and organization.

Leaders make others around them better by passing along knowledge, solving problems before they lead to bigger issues, identifying opportunities for improvement without being asked, and inspiring others to raise their game. While some may be comfortable serving in a support role and remaining within the bounds of their perceived job description, technicians who are willing to step up and take ownership of the outcome of a project, situation, and/or client relationship will find advancement in their career very quickly.

While it is presumed that technicians have strong technical skills, their ability to master soft skills like commitment to excellence, effective communication, and maintaining an organized approach to their work will propel them to stand out. Technicians who can think on their feet, have the ability to balance multiple priorities, and will resolve issues before they become a problem provide project managers comfort to focus on the most critical aspects of their job rather than micromanaging, and result in greater client satisfaction and trust in a relationship.

An important saying in business is “If you are not growing, you are dying.” It is critical to invest in yourself, advance your career, increase your knowledge, and hone your skills to continue to be an integral part of the industry.

Steve Greenblatt, CTS, is president and founder of Control Concepts, a provider of specialized software and services for the audiovisual industry. www.controlconcepts.net

It is a pleasure to kick off this last month of summer as the new content director for Digital Signage magazine, part of the AV Network family of pro AV titles covering every aspect of the global technology scene. Having started my AV journalism career covering digital signage and commercial integration in London for Installation Europe way back in the mid-2000s, I am coming full circle after making enriching stops along way with other pro AV titles under the Future umbrella, including Residential Systems and Sound & Video Contractor.

What I have learned on this journey so far is that the best stories, whether covering new innovative products, an outstanding integration project, or a current high-profile appointee, is that information is best delivered with an emphasis on accuracy and fun.

It’s with that spirit that I delve back into the world of digital signage, which is not only changing the way we get around but also how we interact with our rapidly evolving, tech-driven world. We haven’t yet hit Blade Runner or Altered Carbon levels of sensory engagement, but in the practical, fantastical, and creative ways that digital signage is used today, the expanded visual and technical vocabulary of the sector is undeniable. This evolution speaks to how quickly technology has become an integral part of our everyday experience—as well as how it is reshaping our connection to each other and our shared environments.

As content director for Digital Signage magazine, I welcome our readers, integrator and tech partners to be in touch with me directly—e-mail me at pllanor@gmail.com. Tell me your integration stories, what you are working on now, how you see the sector evolving, what you would like to see more (or less of) from the sector and our editorial team. My door is open.

Feel free to connect with me via Twitter: @llanordsm and @DigiSignMag.

The world has a shortage of healthcare workers right now but by 2030, that shortfall could reach 15 million. Technology will play a big role in how countries are able to address the problem.

The Reach of Telehealth

Remote areas are usually hardest hit by health worker shortages. Telehealth has long been a solution for reaching patients in these areas, but with lower costs for equipment and better connectivity, the practice is growing. Remote nurses, physicians, and pharmacists can reach more patients in less time and for less cost than by relying on traditional approaches.

Telehealth minimizes the effects of provider shortages not just by reaching patients who can’t make it to an office but by making interactions more efficient through standardized workflows and eliminating office wait times. That way, nurses and physicians can call on more patients. Pharmacy teams can also serve more patients by establishing processes to fill requests faster because they can receive many requests in advance.

Better Treatments

New technologies are also providing patients with better diagnoses and treatments. Many new treatments are less invasive, meaning faster recovery and healing. Better outcomes equal shorter stays, easing the burden on hospital and facility workers.

Decreased risk and improved outcomes also mean patients are less likely to return for follow-up or to receive treatment for complications.

At-home patients can use devices to monitor everything from weight and blood pressure to insulin and other levels. These technologies replace some traditional face-to-face visits and can be followed up with video calls. Thanks to artificial intelligence, algorithms mining medical records and healthcare trackers such as wearables and sensors, allow patients to take more control over their health. Technologies ultimately mean less dependency on healthcare workers.

The Future of Healthcare

The Association of American Medical Colleges predicts that by 2025, the shortage of physicians in the U.S. will be in the range of 34,600 to 88,000. Fortunately, advances in healthcare technology are rapid, allowing healthcare providers to extend their reach significantly

There’s a lot of talk about nurse robots that can perform a variety of tasks including carrying patients, helping the elderly battle loneliness, and reminding patients to take their medication. They are certainly not ready to replace humans, but they can begin to fill gaps in care with simple tasks that contribute to nursing staff’s long hours and burnout.

The right solutions can benefit providers, patients, hospitals, and other healthcare facilities. Technologies can not only make healthcare more efficient but can perform some of the tasks people don’t want to do or to assist in jobs where there are not enough trained providers.

This blog was originally published on PSNI's website: http://blog.psni.org/av-blog/technology-in-health-care-shortage

In this lesson, we’ll discuss HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). This is the foundation protocol of the current internet. We’ll look at why it’s important in AV, how it works, and where it can cause some performance concerns.

The HTTP protocol was first introduced in about 1990. However, by 1995, the idea of the worldwide web had moved beyond a vision and was quickly being developed. During the next four years, HTTP version 1.0 was standardized and the first browser appeared. At its formation, it was designed to transfer only text. However, during this same four-year period, modifications were made to allow it to transfer various forms of multimedia. Today, virtually all internet activity is based on its capabilities.

HTTP is a client-request, server-response protocol. There are a limited number of commands that a client (the browser) can send to the server to request a function be carried out. For example, a “GET” request might ask for a file. A “Post” command might request that a file to be uploaded be accepted by the server. Most often, commands are short, in clear text, and indicate the version of HTTP being used. Likewise, responses are limited to a few codes and a few actions. The response might indicate “OK” (I found the file) or “Re-direct” (you’ll need to get this file from another server). Client requests are sent to the server’s port 80. In fact, it’s the port 80 destination that indicates to management software and to the server that it is a web format request. This is used so widely that such requests are rarely blocked by firewalls. A common misconception is that the client also uses port 80. It does not. It uses a randomly assigned port, whatever the operating system chooses, but is always above 1024.

Aside from normal browsing, how do we use it in AV? To begin with, many devices can be configured using a browser. We simply open the browser, place the address of the device in the URL field and hit . The device has a built-in browser that generally opens a page requesting the username and password. We also use HTTP in adaptive bit rate (ABR) video (DASH, HLS, Smooth Streaming, etc.). In this case, HTTP requests are sent to the server indicating the desired video file, bytes to be retrieved, and certain other metadata chosen from the manifest initially supplied by the server. Finally, HTTP is used in video referred to as WebRTC. This can be a conference between browsers with audio, video, either, or both.

Sometimes the poor performance of HTTP-based video is blamed on the design of the protocol. However, more often than not, the degradation is the result of one of several other factors. For example, it can be a result of the authentication procedures used to verify the video is authorized for delivery. ABR and device logins that require external authentication are sensitive to this issue. HTTP video streams, such as ABR, also use TCP and can be degraded by competing traffic, especially if the traffic is in the opposite direction. This may seem counterintuitive. But, I suggest you research some my other writings on the topic of bufferbloat to understand why.

HTTP traffic represents nearly 90 percent of the traffic on the internet. It’s apparent it will continue to be used by both AV and IT into the future.

Phil Hippensteel, PhD, is a regular AV Technology contributor. He teaches at Penn State Harrisburg.

Preventative measures help people protect themselves from future harm in many ways. Doctors can provide vaccinations against future illness, for example, and auto mechanics can perform regular maintenance to ensure that your car does not suffer a major breakdown. We recognize that spending a modest amount of time and money to perform preventative procedures can stop much larger problems and costs from occurring in the future.

Proactive measures can help to detect future problems that are currently hidden or uncertain, and would not be discovered without consistent preventative maintenance. Not only can proactive measures prevent early failure and future problems, they also help find and stop problems that would not have been known until they caused a catastrophe. This is just as true in business as it is in personal health and property maintenance, particularly when it comes to surge protection procedures.

However, businesses often see proactive measures as an unnecessary expenditure. If they believe the risk is low, they may see the cost of consistent maintenance or proactive, preventative measures as a problem for their bottom line. Having not experienced any problems in the past, they often believe that they may not need preventive action. Many businesses do not believe they need to protect their facilities from surges, in most cases because they operate in an area with little occurrence of lightning. Unfortunately, this can have catastrophic consequences.

It is important to understand that your business may be more at risk from surges than you believe. Some experts estimate that between 60 and 80 percent of all power surges are caused by events or problems within the same building as the electronic systems they are affecting. These experts point out that within commercial buildings, there are usually many devices with powerful motors that switch on and off during a day, including elevators, refrigerators, pumps, and similar equipment. The truth is that surges can be the result of something as simple as your air conditioner cycling on or off. They can also be a result of electrical power plants connecting or disconnecting from the grid, which happens frequently as power needs change during the course of a day. The wear and tear from these frequent, smaller surges can degrade your devices over time, reducing their lifespan.

In addition to protecting your investments, proactive surge protection can act as any other preventative measure would—incurring a smaller cost initially (such as a surge protector sacrificing to prevent surge damage) to avoid the much larger expense of damaged or destroyed equipment. As surges are impossible to predict and can cause massive damage to any device on your power grid or IP network, it is an essential measure to reduce these risks. Considering a proactive approach to the protection for your devices can be a cost-effective measure that ensures your business can keep running even in the event of a damaging power surge.

This blog was originally published on ADI Global's Website: http://blog.adiglobal.us/how-proactive-surge-protection-keeps-your-business-running.

You’re an IT manager; how do you feel about AV/IT convergence? Think about high-bandwidth video streams flooding throughout your network. If you’re an AV manager, are these flowing packets really going to reach your video walls? If all that sounds like a hassle, this short guide aims to be mutually beneficial.

This is a fact: The professional AV industry is transitioning to IP. It already happened for control and for audio; Ethernet ports are everywhere. For video, it is finally happening now. Why? Previous circuit switching methods like HDBaseT, and their proprietary matrix switches may be dead due to cost, scale, and complexity reasons. AV convergence streamlines audiovisual designs to make AV systems simpler, more scalable, and less expensive.

How do you specify your AV-capable Ethernet network? There are four things to know:

1. Is the type of codec or compression used in the video-over-IP solution important for the backend network? No! There are no “good” packets without video artifacts, or “bad” packets with video artifacts. There are only packets that get reliably forwarded—it doesn’t matter from an Ethernet switching standpoint.
2. Is the latency important for the backend network? No—even if you have zero-millisecond latency goals. Ethernet switches’ latency, when moving packets from one port to another, are measured in microseconds (for instance, two thousandths of a millisecond), which is irrelevant.
3. Is the bandwidth required by the video-over-IP solution important? Yes! This is an essential parameter. When packetizing your video into “streams” of IP packets, it is important to know if you are producing streams of 1 gigabit per second, or streams of 10 gigabits per second. Ethernet switches will have to support these network speeds, and always in line-rate fashion.
4. Is the type of IP traffic generated important? Yes! This is the other essential parameter. Most video-over-IP solutions leverage Multicast Ethernet for transport. Multicast has proven to be a robust one-to-many form of communication over Ethernet networks: The video “server” or transmitter is sending the packets once, and the Ethernet switches are forwarding this traffic to the one or several receiver hosts that want to receive it. For that reason, your Ethernet switches must support IGMP protocol, with IGMP Snooping, IGMP Querier, and IGMP Fast Leave configured all the way between transmitters and receivers.

As an AV manager, you know now how to select off-the-shelf Ethernet switches with suitable network speeds and all the IGMP features above. As an IT manager, how do you implement such AV networking backend? In first place, you need to know if this is isolated installation (dedicated AV network), or if you are going to “extend” an existing network with new “islands” of AV.

DEDICATED AV NETWORKS

This is the simplest form of AV over IP, especially when one Ethernet switch is sufficient for all your AV encoders (TX) and decoders (RX). (Remember, there is no such “input” port or “output” port in Ethernet switches, since any port can send and receive simultaneously—it is called full duplex.) You are free to plug your RX and TX nodes anywhere on the switch. Just make sure you have enough ports, and the right network speed available on all ports: 1Gbps if you are using compressed AV-over-IP solution; or 10Gbps if you are using uncompressed solution, like SDVoE.

You may use either copper RJ45—with or without PoE—or fiber SFP connections. The IGMP Snooping, Querier, and Fast Leave configuration should be set across the default VLAN (VLAN 1) before you can click and play. If you deploy several interconnected switches, the links between switches must transport your video streams without a bottleneck. When you do the math, usually several 10Gbps or 40Gbps links are required for the interconnect. The IGMP protocol will need additional settings, such as a distributed IGMP Querier system, or Multicast Router auto-detection mode configured on uplinks ports. To remove that complexity, go with “stackable” switches instead. When stacked together, your switches will behave as a “single” switch—the standalone IGMP Snooping, Querier, and Fast Leave are configured to be sufficient.

EXTEND AN EXISTING NETWORK WITH AV ISLANDS

Don’t worry too much here; all tenets of a “dedicated AV network” above will hold true, when it comes to an enhancing an existing network with AV convergence. However, we must take care of three additional requirements:

1. Network bandwidth capacity (your video streams shouldn’t bring congestion to the existing network core, nor aggregation layers): For network capacity, we must do the math and calculate how many additional tens of gigabits per second the network will need to be capable of, from one switch to the other, and from an AV island to the other. We must remember that IT users shouldn’t be affected—in all cases this should be an increase in network capacity.
2. Flooding prevention (your video streams should be restricted to certain switches where the interested receivers are): To prevent flooding of video packets, the IGMP protocol requires configuration across the entire network.
3. Network security (don’t let anyone hack into your AV installation, and vice versa): Usually it is best practice to allocate a dedicated VLAN for your AV installation, which can be isolated at Layer 2 from the rest of the network. If this is a Layer 3 network with inter-VLAN routing, additional Access Control Lists (ACLs) can protect your audiovisual VLAN. But the good news is that your Multicast traffic will stay “local” in that VLAN—no flooding! Furthermore, if you need to “distribute” some videos outside of that VLAN, Multicast VLAN Registration (MVR) can be useful feature: it will let you specify where other RX in other VLANs can potentially “subscribe” to your Multicast traffic using IGMP protocol. MVR, which is a Layer 2 Multicast feature, should keep things simple for you, as other Layer 3 strategies—for instance, Multicast PIM routing—could bring more complexity.

Laurent Masia is product line manager for managed switches at NETGEAR and a founding member of the Software Defined Video over Ethernet (SDVoE) Alliance.

Sales is a highly competitive field. People who sell for a living often face many rejections before receiving a “yes.

Coaching can be helpful to struggling salespeople, as shown by a recent Forbes article that reported many salespeople who quit cited a lack of coaches and mentors as one of the top reasons they bolted. Some in sales management see their role as comparable to a sports team coach, given the attributes required to drive success in sales and sports are similar: encouraging a positive attitude, motivating, presenting a clear strategy, insisting on dedication and breeding consistent winning habits.

As a sales leader, you will often find your people looking to you for wisdom, direction, and reassurance. Therefore, you need a coaching process that takes time to build up the people who make up your talent pool. You need to look beyond what they can do today and help them realize what’s possible tomorrow.

Here are five ways sales leaders can improve their coaching of their sales teams and thus facilitate more team success—much like a sports coach looks for ways to lead his or her team to more wins.

1. Identify weaknesses.

Sales leaders must keep their eyes and ears open to find areas that need improvement. This information may come from a customer or vendor, a performance review, or observations from a colleague. Regardless of the source, always assess different opportunities for coaching and improvement.

2. Establish desired results.

This requires a leader to describe to salespeople the gap between what they are currently doing and what they should be doing. Associate an identifiable action with all the steps in between. When you outline the process up front, your team member can envision well-defined results.

3. Provide resources.

For the coaching process to be successful, you must clear away obstructions and make the appropriate resources available: time, money, equipment, training, upper management buy-in, and support. Most importantly, your salespeople must commit to the process and want to achieve the results.

4. Practice, practice, and observe implementation.

Better results require new behavior, which won’t come overnight. Once you have the resources in place and you’ve explained and demonstrated the desired skill, it’s time for the team member to implement it. They must sharpen the behavior with the help of a coach. Practice allows the coach to identify strengths and opportunities for improvement while witnessing the skill in real-time.

5. Use effective follow-up.

Many training sessions have gone for naught when there was no follow-up and new ways toward success were forgotten. Remember as a sales leader that your goal is to effect a behavioral change. Coaching is a process, and it never really ends. The next step is follow-up—regular intervals to review results. And when your salespeople reach goals, take time to acknowledge and celebrate it.

In conclusions, as a sales leader, you just can’t settle for telling your team what they should do. You need a process for coaching them to achievement. It gives you a framework to accommodate an individual’s unique personality through small adjustments.

The music fell faint; I inched forward in my seat and strained to discern the source of the melody. Then, with a brandish of his baton, the conductor wrenched the orchestra up from the sonic abyss and set it aloft in resplendent fortissimo. Storming onward to the rousing finale, a sea of bow tips billowed feverishly in time with the conductor’s bobbing coattails.

I recently spent an evening at Lincoln Center for a New York Philharmonic performance of works of Elgar and Tchaikovsky. As a devotee of classical music and a former orchestral musician (my first instrument was the cello), there are few things I find more beautiful to behold than a hundred musicians locked in perfect synchronization, each playing a small part in the unfurling of a symphony. But such coordination wasn’t always possible.

From Pythagoras’ discovery of musical intervals in the sixth century BC to the creation of early forms of modern notation by monks in the Middle Ages, musicians and composers had sought out ways of better recording their ideas and communicating them with others. Ultimately standardized in the Baroque period with the help of the printing press, the system of staff notation that has come to be employed all around the world is truly a wonder of human communication.

The technological landscape of today’s enterprise is increasingly shifting into a kind of concert hall where multiple players must share the stage. But here’s the problem: while the IT ensemble has a tightly defined system of sheet music, the AV section has many different ways of transcribing its notes, and they don’t always mesh neatly. We have to get by the best we can.

At AV Technology, we strive to facilitate better collaboration between the performers of information technology and audio-video. Last issue, as in many others, we provided a selection of material to help those in traditional AV circles continue their process of familiarization with the concepts of networking. In this edition, we take the opposite approach, offering IT managers insight into the current state of networked AV and its many unique attributes.

As pointed out in the July/August guide, AV Essentials for IT Managers, the benefits to bringing AV onto the network extend beyond the merits of performance, scalability, and cost effectiveness. As “operational technology,” many of today’s AV devices double as vital sources of data and analytics for business intelligence platforms. Simply put, organizations are better off when AV and IT play together.

But, we’re still very early on in this collaboration, and it’s going to take some time. Both sides just need to keep up their discourse, learn as much as they can about the other, and maintain a creative spirit. Then, one day, CIOs and CTOs will be able to conduct their AV and IT departments from a unified musical score, and it will be a thing of beauty.

At InfoComm 18 in June, there were more than 18,000 end users in attendance, and if the post-show chatter is any indication, this fact has quite a few people worried and upset.

Many believe that the rise of end-user attendance is a bad thing. They believe educating end users through AVIXA’s CTS training and allowing them to walk the floor and develop relationships with AV manufacturers is facilitating a trend of disintermediation. That these customers, once educated, are then empowered to circumvent the integrator altogether, spelling certain doom for the integration industry in the long run.

The assumption is that an educated customer is dangerous because they don’t need us anymore. The only problem with that assumption is that it’s wrong.

In today’s world, if your profit depends on the ignorance of your customer, you will soon be out of business. We live in the age of information, where everything you ever wanted to know is available by swiping the screen on the microcomputer that resides in your pocket. Does AVIXA make it easier to build knowledge with their structured coursework and first-class instruction? Of course. Would the end user be able to acquire that same knowledge without attending InfoComm? Most certainly.

For those in the industry still using the phrase, let me assure you, “The margin is not in the mystery.” You are not being hired as a mystical guru from parts unknown who harnesses the powers of air and electricity. You are not The Last Airbender.

According to a recent Gartner study, end users are 59 percent of the way through their buying cycles before they ever engage a company that provides that product or service directly. This means their research is nearly done before they speak with integrators or consultants—they are now looking for a company to fulfill the product or service that they have decided on. In other industries, large companies are scrambling to find ways to be part of that early conversation with customers through content marketing, and they are spending boatloads of money to do so. The AV industry doesn’t have to, because AVIXA is bringing them to us—we just have to take advantage of it.

Again, an educated end user isn’t a bad thing. They understand that AV is hard. That it can be tricky. They don’t look at a bid and think “Wow! That’s a lot of money to hang a TV on the wall.” Because they understand all the complexities each system may represent. Their education helps you build your value.

Yes, end users may bring some projects in house and use their own teams, but this doesn’t lock us out. The way in may just be slightly different. The door may be open to assist in large projects where they don’t have the skillsets yet to complete them, or enough staff to do so within their desired timelines. The door may be open to work for the end user directly as their in-house tech staff as well. The point is, it still takes hands to do the work, and whether your paycheck comes as a contractor to the company or as an employee of the company itself, the need for AV professionals hasn’t disappeared. It has just shifted.

End users are at InfoComm looking for education and trusted partners to help them achieve their goals. They see the show as a place where they can learn and network. Where they can build skills and relationships. Where they can find the know-how, products, and additional resources they need in order to continue to support the technology needs of their businesses.

They are already at the dance. Don’t stand on the wall with your arms crossed commiserating with your friends about how the person you wanted to dance with is out there on the floor with your biggest rival.

Having end users at InfoComm is an asset, not a liability. The question really becomes: How are you going to take advantage of it? Don’t just stand there; bust a move.

Get a Leg Up at InfoComm

InfoComm is no longer just a once-a-year product research trip with a couple cool parties. It is now a huge business development opportunity. Take advantage of it.

Consider getting space on the floor and building out a compelling example of the systems you build every day. With four out of every 10 people on the floor being end users, you’ll have a lot of potential clients to talk to.

If exhibiting isn’t in your budget, get on an industry panel or teach a class on the issues and problems that end users are facing when implementing technology. This type of exposure may be far better than having an actual presence on the floor. With 1,000-plus exhibitors, it can be hard to stand out. But if you are the person who taught the class that they paid for, guiding them through a problem that’s been plaguing them for the last year, I guarantee that you will be committed to memory. Let AVIXA help you position yourself as a subject matter expert to the very people you need to form relationships with.

As companies are scaling up quickly during this time of digital transformation, many are discovering the benefits of a hefty IT department. However, they are not finding the budget to go with it. To meet this demand, many cloud service providers are offering a variety of services that meet the IT needs of organizations in a more cost-effective and productive way. Infrastructure as a Service or IaaS has exploded in popularity in the last year as a service that delivers virtualized computing resources to organizations using the internet. As technical as it sounds, IaaS is a great tool to enhance the health of your IT department.

What is Infrastructure as a Service?

You may have heard of other cloud services such as SaaS or software as a service and PaaS or platform as a service. IaaS uses the cloud to hold critical processes for computing within your business. Within IaaS, cloud service providers host operating systems, equipment, servers, storage systems are other IT tools and components in one automated model. Depending on the service provider, you may benefit from maintenance and data backup added into your service plan.

Using IaaS, you no longer have to use your own data center to house your computing components. Instead, IaaS provides access to all resources inside of a virtual environment, usually using the internet. Not only are you given access to the components, but you are able to build your own IT platforms on the infrastructure itself.

These resources can be multitenant or single-tenant, depending on your company’s requirements. According to Info World, “Multitenant” means multiple clients share those resources, even though their systems are kept separate. This is the most common way to deliver IaaS because it is both highly efficient and scalable, allowing cloud computing’s generally lower costs.”

However, single-tenant infrastructures are best for clients who need to be separated from other clients. The cost is higher than multitenant, and the experience is similar to run of the mill third-party hosting services. However, through IaaS, you are given the opportunity to access more scalable options that simple hosting can give.

How is IaaS Used?

IaaS can be used for various purposes within an organization. For example, in digital business, IaaS is the perfect tool for digital marketing, CRM and IoT. IaaS is also a great tool for executing agile projects through rapid application development and flexibility. Datacenter substitution and batch computing are also on the list for the best uses of IaaS.

Why Companies Should Use IaaS

IaaS has many benefits over traditional third-party hosting and hosting on your own servers. In fact, it is the only scalable option that still allows for the customization your organization needs. Let’s discuss some of the benefits in more detail.

Utility Means Quick and Easy Service

IaaS services follow a utility model that is unique to cloud services. You pay as you go and for what you use, instead of a bunch of tools you don’t ever touch. IaaS services are ready to go at a moment’s notice, reducing the time required for implementation, training and customization. Scaling up your business requires more IT power to maintain your growth. Fortunately, IaaS offers quick scalability in a cost-effective way.

Limits Your Investment

Are you an SMB or small to medium-sized business? If so, you may understand how difficult it is to finance a complete IT department to handle your IT needs. With IaaS, there are no upfront costs associated with using the infrastructure. You will pay as you go for exactly the amount you use. There is no maintenance for you, leaving you free to focus on your products or services.

Allows for Focus in Important Areas

Your IT department is important for your business success. However, so is product development and research. Using a cloud service provider for your infrastructure allows your team to focus on other important areas that may have been neglected. IaaS services have virtually no set-up and do not require intensive user training. They also do not require any maintenance on your end. What could your team be doing without all of the repetitive computing tasks?

Scalability for the Highs and Lows

In business, we sometimes forget to prepare for the lows while we are overcome by the highs. Infrastructure as a Service offers a level of scalability that is unmatched. During moments of low demand, IaaS services can be scaled down to fit your needs. Once demand is up again, IaaS can follow suit, saving you time and effort.

IaaS is the perfect tool for organizations of any size looking for scalability, flexibility and functionality and your business should be taking advantage of it. If you don’t, you are missing out on cost and time-saving benefits.

This blog was originally published on New Era Technology's website.

When you work in sales, there's no end to the advice you field. Everyone—from bosses to consultants and trainers to the industry veterans you meet at the hotel bar—has tips and techniques that (supposedly) vastly improve your likelihood of making a sale. But here's the problem: the way people buy has changed. And that means that a lot of the conventional wisdom out there just isn't that wise anymore.

I did a Google search and quickly found the most popular pieces of sales negotiation advice being shared these days. Some of it still applies, but much of it does not. Keep reading to learn whether the conventional sales wisdom you've heard all your career still applies in the age of inbound sales.

Conventional Sales Wisdom #1: Never Negotiate with Influencers.
You don't always have complete access to decision-makers during the entire sales process. Also, there is typically more than one decision-maker in any given sale, and the influencer may be one of them. I agree that negotiating with the influencer or influencers alone is probably not going to drive great results, but the influencer can be your champion to tip you off or coach you on what types of points need to be addressed in the contract signing process. Don't count this person—or these people—out.
The Verdict: DISAGREE

Conventional Sales Wisdom #2: Never Be the First to Make an Offer.
This makes sense to a certain degree, but one could make an equally valid argument as to why you should be the first one to make an offer. If you know you need to negotiate around price to get a deal done, you're better off setting the range—"anchoring"—rather than letting the prospect set the range.

Starting the range low is key, using dollar figures or percentages—whichever appears more powerful or substantial. For example, a five-percent discount may sound like a slap in the face, but if you're negotiating a sale for a $100,000 per year product, that equates to $5,000 annually. This is an amount that carries far more weight than five percent, and offering it puts you in a much better negotiating position.
The Verdict: DISAGREE

Conventional Sales Wisdom #3: There's a Big Difference Between a Trade-off and a Concession.
Insightsquared.com features a blog titled "The 5 Keys of B2B Sales Negotiation," which I wrote about in my book, Inbound Selling: How to Change the Way You Sell to Match How People Buy.

This is probably my most favorite point raised by the team at InsightSquared. In effect, they define a trade-off as a give/get. For example, if you offer a five-percent discount, then the prospect will sign their contract two weeks earlier than planned. However, a concession is one-sided. In the same scenario, the prospect may demand a five-percent discount or threaten to take their business elsewhere. Because the prospect is viewing you as a commodity in this second scenario, either something went wrong in the sales process itself, or you're potentially dealing with a poor-fit potential new customer that's going to cause a lot more problems down the line. Walk away from people like this.
The Verdict: AGREE

Conventional Sales Wisdom #4: Never Start Negotiating Too Early.
Negotiations should not begin until you have finished the soft close—or what Dave Kurlan in Baseline Selling calls the "inoffensive close." The soft close is the natural conclusion to the advise step. You're basically asking the prospect if there's any reason at all they wouldn't proceed with implementing the plan you've developed together, which you've both agreed will help them achieve their goals or overcome their challenges. In other words, don't start negotiating unless you have an agreement, at least in principle."
The Verdict: AGREE

Conventional Sales Wisdom #5: Offer the Ultimate Package Early.
I completely disagree with proposing a product, service, or solution that your prospect does not need. This undermines your credibility as a rep and sets your prospect up for a poor experience. The 'ultimate' product may offer functionality or services that the prospect doesn't need, and the oversell is setting the services or account management teams at your company up for disaster.

Instead, when the time comes to recommend the product or service, inbound sellers recommend the right product or service for their prospect and make sure they can stand behind why they're recommending it. Your prospect will appreciate this even if it's higher than they were expecting. Setting a range early in conversations will also help. Quoting a price by starting with the highest and moving back down to the lowest reverses the psychology of price negotiation. It gets "better and better" (to the prospect) as you go, because you're coming down to lower and lower levels of pricing instead of causing them heartburn by going in the opposite direction.
The Verdict: DISAGREE

Conventional Sales Wisdom #6: Use Silence to Your Advantage.
Silence is far more powerful than most reps realize. I have observed many prospects literally talk themselves into—and out of—tough demands during a negotiation solely because the sales rep has not responded whatsoever. I suspect it is related to the simple fact that few people are truly comfortable with silence. My advice is simple: When in doubt, stay silent. Let 10 or 20 seconds go by, and I guarantee you'll reestablish control of the conversation.
The Verdict: AGREE

If you're still using outdated advice to negotiate and close your deals, you're working much harder than you need to be. The way people buy from businesses has evolved, and you've got to adjust for it. So examine your negotiating and closing strategies carefully. If they don't make sense for the informed buyers you're meeting with today, it's time to throw out the old playbook and embrace the inbound way of selling.

It’s no surprise that one of the biggest killers of hardware is heat. Long-term, excessive heat will reduce the lifespan of just about any PCB (printed circuit board).

What’s less understood are best practices for protecting equipment from heat and limiting the ruinous effects of high temperatures on AV. But keeping it cool as resolutions increase requires much more than adding fans into chassis design. The pro AV industry needs a new paradigm.

High Heat Means High Cost

Step one in limiting the damage of high heat: think about power. Do everything that you can to reduce the power that generates heat, and then remove the heat you do generate.

Here's an example: at Datapath, we are dedicated to reducing power to minimize heat. We think about chipsets, scrutinizing what’s required and incorporating lower-power chipsets to minimize heat generation. And when those chipsets need over a dozen separate power rails, efficient power supply design makes all the difference.

We perform various oven tests with an empty product chassis to understand exactly how airflow works. It is quite common that the location of a certain board will influence airflow. What we have discovered is that venting and piping can improve airflow dramatically; insight from our extensive testing has inspired the design of the Datapath VSN Micro line of video wall controllers.

What’s more, we control every element of our solution, from the backplane to the power supplies, to the chassis shape and airflow, and we can optimize graphics processing units (GPUs) for the best performance.

Don’t Think Like a Gamer

If you attempt to use general-purpose, off-the-shelf commercial products for video walls, you won’t get a fraction of the number of outputs that our expandable range of VSN expansion chassis offers. The power drawn would be far too high. That’s one of the reasons we focus on flexible solutions using our video capture cards and graphics cards. Using scalable PCIe technology, an expansion chassis can be added to the master system to provide additional PCIe slots allowing for uninterrupted communication between any device in any slot. Full gen-locking can be achieved between outputs within the whole system without the need for additional cables.

Think about a gamer's graphics cards. They often drive much the same resolution as our wall controller outputs, but we don’t need that massive 3D engine to draw flat video. We maximize what matters. We have our own custom-built cards that allow for various configurations that lower the power without sacrificing quality.

AV Over IP and Power

There’s another significant trend in pro AV: the desire to move power supplies and power sources away from the display to get the heat away from the wall and into equipment cabinets. Many vendors and IT directors are taking this approach.

As resolutions per output increase, however, from SD to HD, to 4K or 8K, how do you move signals in efficient ways, and when does cabling become an issue? As we start to think about moving 4K over HDMI or DVI cables, AV over IP becomes an increasingly appealing alternative. This is where 10Gb Ethernet enters into the conversation. IP allows you to go greater distances, and doing this over fiber saves power. With 10GbE as the backbone, you can place equipment in better spaces and continue to scale across a facility or campus. This approach is also helpful with noise distractions. I believe that 10GbE will evolve quickly especially as 4K becomes a more common format.

Focus on Fiber

Fiber is another notable cabling and infrastructure trend as we evolve into the 4K era. While it was prohibitively expensive even four years ago, as prices drop we should see the interest in fiber tick up.

John Storey is the Hardware Director of Datapath.

In its Q1 2018 Skills Index, Upwork reported that blockchain is its fastest growing skill (out of more than 5,000 skills). Intel forecasts that there will be more than 20 billion connected devices by 2020.

With its potential to create a common standard for secure AVoIP and IoT solutions, it's time for integrators, consultants, and end users to get hip to the blockchain movement.

I spoke with the team at BusinessStudent.com and they put together a list of courses that can help you better understand the technology.

1. Cryptoeconomics 101: Introduces you to the major principles that give blockchain its value. Focuses on core topics in cryptography and economics, and how they work together to creative systems of incentives for blockchain.
2. Blockchain 101 Intro – Non-Technical: This is an introductory course to blockchain technology. It will show you how transactions are stored in blockchain, how mining works via consensus, and the difference between permissioned and permissionless blockchain.
3. Build a Decentralized Blockchain App: This introductory course will teach you how to build a decentralized blockchain app with Ethereum.
4. Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies: This is an introductory course from Coursera that will teach you how Bitcoin works, how secure Bitcoin is, and how anonymous Bitcoin users are.
5. Blockchain Application Development for Microsoft .NET: This class teaches how to develop a decentralized application for blockchain on Microsoft Windows using Visual Studio or Visual Studio Code.

Want to learn more about Blockchain?

Click here to view our Blockchain Need to Know Series.

I recently spent time at the Kimbell Art Museum and chanced upon Annibale Carracci’s “Butcher’s Shop”. It’s amazing in a gallery with the Old Masters to see a depiction of skilled butchers with clean white aprons, fiercely proud of the work they do, but not doing anything more than their daily routine. 400 years later, and Carracci and I still marvel at the beauty on display in their shop.

It’s the same devotion to the daily grind that makes AV an art form. The process of pulling wire, managing schedules, ordering equipment with bulk discounts, maintaining client relationships, and working together to exceed expectations is where the beauty and simple joy resides for us AV nerds. Our clean aprons are racks dressed well and flaunted on Twitter for all to see! The sharp knives these butchers used skillfully are the same as strippers, soldering irons, and Ohm’s Law—powerful in the hands of a skilled tradesman.

I would be awfully embarrassed if, in a few hundred years, folks looked back and saw that my work was lacking, just a little short of magnificent. The beauty comes from the details and from the men and women who strive for excellence, understanding the work they do impacts people on an individual level.

My vision is for our industry to look past low-cost solutions that are good enough, to train eager workers into skilled craftsmen, and to provide experiences that inspire the folks that take part in them. The way to do this is to focus on people over profits, and to think further out than what you will be a part of. I am raising my son as if he will own my company one day, because, if he does, I don’t want a spoiled brat at the reigns. So the moves we make with our employees, partners, and clients are all aligned with a goal to create lasting things of value. I guarantee that the butchers depicted didn’t do just enough to get by—that’s not how you get remembered by Italian masters!

By providing value above cost and protecting the relationship with key clients and partners integrators can create a brand that transcends individual projects—and that is how you make a masterpiece!

InfoComm 2018 was a blast. It was my first time experiencing the show as a non-exhibitor. It was different, that’s for sure, but different in a good way. I wasn’t chained to a booth and I got to explore the show floor and attend classes. I saw innovation firsthand, met plenty of new #AVTweeps, and ran my first Show Daily. It was fabulous to say the least.

But, like most of you, I’m ready for a vacation. In my case, I’m not traveling; I’m taking a staycation. Shortly, I’ll be spending time with my family visiting various Chicago attractions like one of my all-time favorite places—Wrigley Field. Of course, that got me thinking about this year’s slogan for the Cubs: “Everybody In.” For those of you who don’t know, the Cubs’ manager Joe Maddon kicks off each season with a phrase for the team to rally around, the most notable of which has been “Try Not to Suck.”

“Everybody In,” according to Maddon, is a great slogan because “We are all trying to be this altruistic team person who puts the group ahead of the individual.” I can’t think of a better motto than that for the AV industry right now.

Our industry is expanding in ways we never imagined, and we’re all working together to create the next great AV experience. Manufacturers are creating relationships with likeminded firms to create an AV ecosystem; some of them, like Aurora Multimedia, are even creating open-source platforms and working with competitors for the betterment of the industry. Integrators are forming partnerships with furniture companies to create truly collaborative workspaces. Consultants are treating end users like cohorts instead of clients, and ensuring they’re up to speed with the latest advances in AV and that they understand what type of products they’ll need in their space.

With all these twists and turns, we’re hedging bets on where the industry is headed. Are we expanding to include content creators and experience designers? Are end users taking the jobs of integrators with DIY trends? Will we all be working for IT firms in five years? Anywhere we land, Everybody In.

The price of AV over IP cameras has become cost-effective, making them the go-to for surveillance. However, some installations comprise hundreds of legacy analog cameras, making it impractical to replace all of them at once. Without an infrastructure or video control system that can accommodate both on the same network, facilities are burdened with ‘ripping and replacing’—or buying old camera technologies.

Control centers are moving to open architectures, enabling some to have phased upgrade paths. It’s critical to ensure the video wall controller can concurrently accept old and new camera sources such as DVI, SDI, DisplayPort, older IP methods as well as the latest IP codex—and with varying resolutions.

“Big installations may have cameras that have been there for years, and if they want to add new ones, some are going to be HDMI or DVI out, others will be IP out,” says Darin Crosby, Global VP Sales at Datapath’s Philadelphia, Pennsylvania headquarters. “Being able to switch instantly between the sources and display them all on the screen, and size them any size you want, is probably the most important point.”

This flexibility comes with the ability to have multiple SQX boards and baseband capture cards in the chassis of the video wall controller. “You need a system that can ingest all of those seamlessly, display them side-by-side, and make it so that the operator doesn’t need to care if it’s the old system or the new,” says Mark Bohs, Director of Sales for the Americas at Datapath’s Philadelphia, Pennsylvania headquarters.

Recent technological advances are enabling AV designers, integrators, and managers of control centers to rethink lifecycle planning, reduce the amount of video wall controllers, and share content with satellite rooms more easily and securely for their customers. Sharing mission-critical content from a central control room to a crisis room or another secure location was once a desired feature, and is now a trend. Until recently, this has required duplicate AV equipment for each room.This white paper discusses how the role of advanced AV/IT video wall control technologies and content collaboration tools is undergoing a sea change.

A video wall control system should be able to integrate with an open video management system (VMS) platform. “If an incident occurs, the operator can bring up the live camera feed from the IP cameras themselves, and at the same time go back and pull up a recorded feed from a network video recorder (NVR) on the VMS,” says Bohs. At the same time, they can look at the existing live stream and the NVR stream. “The VMS can tell the video wall what streams to display so the operator can then manipulate what they’re looking at on the video wall through the VMS,” he says.

Think beyond camera sources. “During a crisis event, the control center might want to see CNN News on the video wall, or they might want to have the Weather Channel on there as well,” Crosby adds. “Being able to grab all these different sources, regardless of where they come from, various web pages containing maps, media networks, or wherever and being able to throw them on screen is very powerful.”

Click here to read more on the current state of video wall technology.

Laser projectors have only been available to the public for about 10 years, yet already they’ve changed the audiovisual game. Higher quality images, greater efficiency, and more compact designs have made them the new gold standard when it comes to projection technology.

Still, many hesitate to jump on the laser bandwagon. They want to know if the advantages justify the higher price tag and whether they should wait until even better laser technology comes out in the near future. The answer depends largely on what organizations need, whether they can afford the initial investment, and how long they’re willing to wait for technological improvements.

Why Are Laser Projectors Preferred?

Quality, brightness, and longevity. Anyone who has seen a lamp projector and a laser projector side by side in a dark room knows that lasers produce a much brighter image, and since they can handle nearly any wavelength of light, they’re able to produce deeper, richer, more precise colors as well.

Longevity is also a plus. Not only do laser projectors emit a brighter light than bulb projectors, they also maintain that brightness over time. Unlike bulb projectors, which tend to lose their color and luminosity relatively quickly, a 5,000-lumen laser projector will still run pretty much at 5,000 lumens in two to three years.

Overall, the best laser projectors have a 20,000 or even 30,000-hour lamp life. Compare that with the average 3,000-hour lifespan of a traditional lamp projector, and you can understand the appeal. Of course, you can’t replace the laser once it fails, but that’s unlikely to happen for at least 12 years, and only if you use it 8 hours every day.

Don’t Forget About Efficiency

Then there’s the matter of efficiency. Conventional projector lamps emit white light, which is then broken into blue, green and red light, which is then recombined to form white light. It works. It’s also inefficient. All of that hard work takes up a great deal of energy and releases a lot of heat, which in turn requires a powerful (and noisy) fan.

Laser technology projectors, on the other hand, use only the light needed to create an image, and therefore, tend to run relatively cool. No fan. Less energy. Less noise. Last but not least, laser projectors are comparatively space-efficient. Although they often weigh just as much, they come in a more compact package than their bulky, lamp-based counterparts.

The biggest drawback is cost. Laser projectors can set you back anywhere between $1,000 and $20,000. While many cost-conscious shoppers balk at the initial investment, it’s important to keep lifetime costs in mind. Laser projectors require far less maintenance and never require bulb replacement, which can run into the hundreds of dollars (those who have ceiling-mounted projectors will find that the savings go beyond the cost of a bulb, since it’s not always easy to remove a projector for repairs).

In short, laser projectors might be more expensive, but in the long run they could be more cost-efficient, depending on how they’re used.

The Future of Laser Technology

Currently there are two emerging technologies competing for the laser projector market: direct coupled RGB lasers and phosphor lasers. Whereas RGB lasers emit red, blue and green light, phosphor technology combines a yellow phosphor wheel with a single blue laser (some also use a red laser).

Both technologies have come a long way in recent years and are now making a big impact on the audiovisual world. In the meantime, existing laser technology has already raised expectations when it comes to image quality, lifespan, and efficiency.

Steve Rubery, general manager for Eiki International, Inc., is responsible for in-house sales operations and managing the regional sales representatives. He is CTS certified and an authorized trainer for the HDBaseT Alliance. Steve began his career with Eiki in 2004 and has been recognized for helping expand the company’s sales.

Time is money. Most companies try to save money by shaving time wherever possible. However, training new employees is one area where you can’t afford to cut corners. You rely on talented employees to move your company forward. If new hires aren’t given the tools to succeed, there’s no way they’ll reach their maximum potential. They’ll feel perpetual frustration, they’ll eventually leave the company, and you’ll be back at square-one, searching for another new hire.

And the cycle is doomed to repeat itself again and again.

Realistically, you can’t expect new employees to be successful after just one day of training. While holding a basic orientation-day for new employees is a well-established HR practice, onboarding is a more thorough undertaking where new employees are socialized into a company’s culture, and oriented to their specific job tasks and overall work expectations.

Depending on the company, the onboarding process can last weeks, or even months.

So, why put so much time into onboarding? Because studies have proven that organizations with a standard onboarding process experience many benefits, including 54 percent greater new hire productivity and 50 percent greater new hire retention.

The onboarding process will be unique for each company and for each employee, but I’ll talk about a few guidelines that can benefit almost any company. I’ve used these onboarding methods in my own company for years, with great success.

A new hire’s first day should be filled with meaningful introductions, engagement, and basic learning. But this isn’t possible if you’re having new hires fill out tax forms and non-disclosures, or having them study a 20-page employee handbook.

The majority of HR paperwork can be sent to the candidate as soon as they’ve accepted the job offer. That way, the new hire can turn in their paperwork on their first day, and clear the way for more meaningful activities.

Before their starting date, I would send new hires a welcome box containing a friendly handwritten letter from their new manager, a bright orange picture frame to use at their new desk, and some stylish company-branded apparel to wear on their first day. When done right, the new hire should come to work feeling like they’ve already been accepted into their new tribe. That can be a very powerful feeling.

Set Clear Goals and Objectives

According to one study by Allied HR IQ, only 39 percent of companies establish any goals or milestones for new hires. With no clear goals to meet, and no path to success, it’s virtually impossible for a new hire to feel any sense of progress. Statistically, employees in this kind of scenario are much more likely to leave the company within their first year.

Be sure to set clear goal and performance objectives for your new hire’s first 30 / 60 / 90 days. Share a three-month roadmap for key projects they’ll be working on. Establish management expectations for their performance. Schedule regular one-on-one check-in meetings, and be sure to respond to any questions they have along the way.

Use Real World Projects to Train Employees

One principle of adult learning theory states that adults learn best when new concepts are taught using real-world scenarios. This same theory also suggests that adults need the big-picture view of what we’re learning — we need to know how our small parts help make up the whole. For this reason, it’s important that training be as relevant as possible to each employee.

A small-scale project is a great way for new hires to become familiar with their various roles and responsibilities. Train them on the first stage of the overall process, then give them time to apply the knowledge to their project. When they are ready to move onto the next stage of the process, train them on those steps, using their project as the example. Continue this gradual process until the small project has been completed.

This may sound time-consuming, but in the long-run, it will actually save time and money training your new hire. He or she will learn the whole spectrum of their job, and gain first-hand experience of how they fit into the larger organization.

Check in with the new hire on a regular basis and respond to any questions they have. Provide quick feedback on their initial work deliverables along the way. This will help set the parameters for success right out of the gate.

Cultivate a Sense of Belonging

When employers don’t communicate with their people, it creates serious psychological barriers. As human beings, we’re hardwired to belong to social groups where we feel valued. We want to belong to a tribe, to something bigger than ourselves. When an employee truly feels that sense of belonging from their organization, they’ll be working for more than a paycheck — they’ll work to defend their tribe’s future.

You can’t just sit back and expect this to happen on its own. You need to take an active approach in helping new hires adjust to your company’s cultural and social norms. To help with that, I like to use what I call the navigator program.

A navigator is a veteran employee who has volunteered to help show new hires the ropes during their first month. When a new hire comes on board, they’re assigned a navigator outside of their team. The navigator sets up social activities designed to help the new employee bond with their coworkers. These could be group lunches, optional happy-hour gatherings at the local pub, or fun "get-to-know-you"games with others around the office.

The navigator will help put faces to names around the company and help new hires embrace the company’s core values. This leads to stronger cross-team communication, increased productivity and a sense of belonging that your competitors can’t match.

After a new hire completed their first month, I’d sit down with them to get their feedback. What can we do to improve our process? What’s something we could’ve done to help you reach your goals a little faster?

The next time we hired someone, I’d implement those changes. Our onboarding process was never set in stone. It was an evolving process that always focused on the goal of helping new hires become happy, productive, long-term contributors to the organization.

What happens when you take a coke bottle, shake it up, and unscrew the top? It explodes! This should not come as a surprise, it’s just cause and effect at work. You may not be excited about the result, but you probably aren’t frustrated either since it was expected.

During the course of a project you will inevitably deal with a client who is emotionally reacting like an exploding coke bottle. How to deal with this situation is critical to the outcome of your project.

The first and most critical part of dealing with a frustrated client is to identify if you made a mistake that they are reacting to and to take ownership. The last thing an emotional client wants to hear is that it is not your problem, and that they need to go somewhere else to find resolution when you are at fault. However, if you truly have nothing to do with their state-of-mind, bring the right folks to the table because it is not your problem.

Four main causes that create an emotionally tense client are unmet expectations, missed deadlines, communication breakdowns, and uninformed stakeholders creating a panic. Here are some tips you can use when your clients explode like a coke bottle.

When a client’s expectations are not realized, whether during the project or during final acceptance, it is hard for them to not react. After all, their hard-earned cash has just been spent and has not produced what they felt was coming. The first thing to do is to acknowledge the client’s feelings and state your understanding of their position. The reason they feel their expectations aren’t being met is because they have not felt understood, whether or not that is accurate. Getting your client to agree that you understand how they feel is the first step in getting stakeholder relations back on track. The next step is to refer back to construction and contract documents. Clients can often misunderstand or forget what was previously agreed upon because you are not the only contractor they are dealing with. Helping them understand the specified scope of work in a gentle way can build their trust in you as a partner with their interests in mind.

Related to unmet expectations are the problems caused by breakdowns in communication. An account manager may go on vacation or a project manager may have too much going on to pay attention and communications could fall through the cracks. A lack of information and coordination can cause a client to feel unimportant and pushed aside, as well as stressed over the progress of their job. A great way to start repairing the relationship is to waste no time updating the client and getting regular communications back on track. The next step is to identify what went wrong and repair the broken process. Turning failure into an opportunity to pave the way for future success makes it a lesson learned rather than a mistake—the difference is added value. Keeping a written process of how to communicate with stakeholders on a project is a good way to keep everyone informed of how to do this, but it takes leadership to get everyone to follow it.

Nothing stirs the pot quite like missed deadlines. With missed deadlines, trust has been violated and doubt has entered the mind of the client but there is still work to be done. Assuming another trade is not at fault, the first thing to do is communicate with the client and get the project back on track (see the trend here). Own the missed deadline, take responsibility (even if the blame is shared, take your lumps and let your partner in crime know you expect more going forward), and send a written letter or email to the project team. A stakeholder who wants to get mad over missed deadlines is looking to get an apology. If you come right out and own the missed deadline there is nothing else for them to do but move forward. If they continue to beat a dead horse explain that you really are sorry and that things are back on track, but in order to move forward with the project you need them to let it go.

Lastly you may find yourself getting a tongue lashing from someone you don’t know because they are not a stakeholder. A volunteer, concerned member, or anyone not officially a part of the project team will decide that their opinion in a matter is important and not being respected, and give you an earful. Take the time to understand their position! Use active listening to let them know you are paying attention, and when they are done repeat what they have said back. “If I understand you correctly, you’re saying that…”. If they are upset because nobody hears what they have to say, ignoring them or telling them to talk to their boss will not smooth things out. After they feel understood schedule a meeting with the stakeholders and bring the issue up. It is not your job to solve an issue that does not exist so make sure the stakeholders on the project agree it is a problem. If the stakeholders do not share this one person’s view, ask them to communicate down to tie up loose ends.

Even after executing these four strategies a client who is feeling let down or stressed may still shake their own coke bottle again and continue to explode. The best thing to do is to let them talk or yell. They will eventually run out of steam and give you the opportunity to respond. If there are other people in the room then responding with patience and dignity, opposed to the childish outbursts you are receiving, will actually give you credibility and respect while the stakeholder identifies themselves as petty and emotional. It may not be fun in the moment to take a beating and not respond with like force, but you cannot buy back your reputation. You will be remembered for how you deal with clients even if they are jerks!

At the end of the day, all problems are human problems. Understanding that mistakes will happen, people will screw up, and that communication is really hard will set your framework for dealing with stakeholders. Having a mentality of stewardship and seeing things through the eyes of the client will give you the empathy needed to drive the project to the finish line when things go awry. Finishing well is difficult but worth it every time.

In our industry, one thing we’ve always been able to count on is the need for signal transmission over longer and longer distances at ever-increasing quality. Over the years, both audio and video signals have been transmitted over a variety of physical media, in most cases meeting distance and quality goals. However, as resolutions improve and technological capabilities evolve, the goal line keeps moving on us.

For commercial integrators, a primary challenge is distributing AV signals with near-zero latency from a variety of sources to a myriad of displays in massive facilities—from corporate office buildings to university campuses. Transmission distance and quality are driving factors, which are further compounded by the need for cost effectiveness, ease of deployment, and scalability.

Optimizing AV over IP in corporate network installations

For these systems, packet-switching extenders convert AV signals to digital form and then break them into data packets that are sent over category media (Cat 5e/Cat 6/Cat 7 or fiber optic cabling) using a standardized communication protocol. Two of the more popular protocols are TCP/IP (AV over IP) and HDBaseT. The fundamental difference between the two is that IP systems can take advantage of standard Ethernet infrastructure, while HDBaseT systems can’t.

What you need to know about AV over IP

This has profound implications when it comes to transmission distance. HDBaseT systems are limited by their physical media. The range for Cat 5e/Cat 6 cable is 100 meters, which poses a big problem for these solutions in large networks. By using existing Ethernet infrastructure, that limitation is eliminated for AV over IP systems, which can transmit full HD (even 4K) signals great distances with imperceptible latency by connecting network switches.

To illustrate this point, let’s take a university campus as an example. At the university, all AV sources are located in the mass communication building’s AV center. Each source is connected to a transmitter that encodes AV signals into IP data, which is fed to the network switch. Each display in the building is equipped with a receiver that decodes IP data back into AV signals. The network switch sends the IP data from the transmitters to these receivers, which send the decoded AV signals to the displays for playout.

The basics of AV over IP infrastructure

The network switch in the mass communication building is connected to a switch in the engineering building via a fiber-optic link. That switch outputs the IP data from the mass communication building’s sources to another set of receivers connected to displays in the engineering building. And the engineering building’s switch is linked to another network switch in the student union, and so on, until the entire campus can view any source device located in the AV center.

With its advantages over HDBaseT, it’s not surprising that AVoIP continues to grow in popularity and deployment. As it does so, one component has become increasingly vital to the system: the network switch. Unlike traditional, more expensive AV matrix switchers, network switches aren’t pre-configured to a specific number of inputs and outputs (4x4, 8x8, 16x16 etc.). So, while AV switchers often fill up—leaving no room for the system to grow with new sources and displays without the purchase of another matrix—network switches don’t have the constraints of a fixed physical size because to the switch it is all simple IP data traffic (however there are bandwidth limitations to consider). To expand the distribution system, all that’s needed is a transmitter for each new source and receiver for each display.

Installing AV over IP systems today affords future expansion possibilities

Due to the central role network switches play, most AVoIP systems will require a higher-end solution. This isn’t the time to just grab the cheapest switch at the local discount store. It’s not going to handle the video traffic or have the features needed to properly manage the network. A managed Layer 2/Layer 3 switch is almost always required.

Two of the more important features to look for when selecting a switch are support for virtual local area networks (VLANs) and IGMP snooping. VLANs allow the network to be segmented. Integrators can use them to isolate video traffic, preventing them from slowing down other parts of the network, and facilitating the sharing of sources among displays. IGMP is a mechanism for AV systems that utilize IP multicasting. It prevents the switch from sending multicast data to every port, degrading performance and chewing up network bandwidth.

Considerations for delivering real-time AV over IP

For integrators, the goal line for signal extension will always be shifting. There’s already a push for the transmission of uncompressed AV signals with near-zero latency and streaming in 4K resolution is in high demand. But for today’s AV distribution needs, they’ve scored a touchdown with AVoIP systems utilizing managed network switches.

One of the biggest challenges marketers face today is customer acquisition and retention. The key to both acquiring new customers and retaining current customers is possessing the critical data that can help you, one, communicate effectively with the highest qualified contact possible and, two, further identify the needs of your current customers to foster long-term loyalty.

Unfortunately, today’s data industry is both far too complicated and highly fragmented, offering a confusing glut of choices that are overwhelming marketers, who are in desperate need of this mission-critical information. The existing data marketing ecosystem of data and direct marketing list owners, managers, and brokers is wildly inefficient and often ineffective, costing businesses untold millions in unnecessary time and money, and untold more in opportunity loss.

Even so, given the fundamental truth that data is the backbone of both digital advertising and marketing and traditional direct marketing, marketers have struggled along with what the market has been able to provide, for better or for worse. Global advertising revenue for 2017 was $591 billion with $209 billion of it dedicated to digital advertising. A conundrum as effective data sources are becoming even rarer as the need for—and actual dependency on—data becomes more essential. The escalating demand for big data sources that provide quality and complete data has skyrocketed in today’s digital age.

It’s the fundamental big data sources that have been the very crux of the problem for marketers. Today, an individual, entity, or brand looking to acquire a specific data set will have to spend extensive time and resources locating sources that meet its target audience, negotiate costs, and establish privacy standards for the transferring of the data. This leads to a decrease in quality and data record duplication. These three challenges not only make it extremely cost prohibitive to identify and acquire the various parameters required to compile the exact dataset that is needed but, for small and medium sized businesses, it creates a barrier to enter the data marketplace.

As problematic, attempting to generate revenue today from existing datasets brings its own unique set of challenges. The first is the time and money it takes to create data cards and collateral for the data owner to monetize. At the same time, they need to identify the right organization or marketplace with the widest reach—one that represents the highest demand for their data. The second major challenge is integrity and accountability. Data owners do not trust outside organizations to properly store, manage, and monetize their data. The last major concern surrounds the security of the storage environment. Data abuse and lack of transparency in the revenue share business model are underlying fears that will ultimately prevent a list owner from making his/her unique data set available for purchase.

So with all of the problems running rampant in the big data industry, what is needed to put this key facet on course? Below are five reasons why merging big data, artificial intelligence, and blockchain technology will revolutionize data-driven marketing worldwide, across all industries:

1. Empowerment. A blockchain-based system empowers data source providers to monetize their data and better capitalize demand, allowing data source providers to access the large global marketplace. In the same way that eBay provides a marketplace for vendors of physical products, a blockchain-based digital marketplace can create growth potential for data source providers of all sizes, while also reducing barriers to entry into the industry.
2. Transparency. A blockchain approach provides data providers with full transparency, traceability, and auditability, overcoming many of the hurdles data providers currently face in the existing marketplace. Anyone who has operated in the big data space knows that duplicate data, false data, and questionable sourcing are unfortunate industry truths. However, a blockchain-based approach provides complete transparency, allowing buyers to see where the data has been and where it came from prior to purchasing.
3. Confidence. A more transparent vetting and grading system for data will improve confidence building between the end user and data sources. Currently, most data purchases are practically blind transactions, whereby buyers won’t really know what kind of data they’re receiving until they actually buy it, because no vendor would ever reveal the data prior to money changing hands. Once you have the data, it’s then up to you to determine its quality but by then the money has been spent. Rather than this archaic process leaving much to be desired, having a three-party scoring system improves quality and increases trust in the marketplace, facilitating more transactions and leading to overall higher levels of confidence in the industry as a whole. Giving businesses and consumers quality and verified data that’s vetted and scored externally allows for the reduction, if not elimination, of false or outdated data—a significant problem currently plaguing the industry.
4. Simplification. By simplifying and aggregating world data transactions into a single point of sale, the result will be an “Amazon” like marketplace, where economies of scale and data aggregation will facilitate a smoother, cleaner, and simply better checkout process, creating more data trade worldwide. Giving end users a simplified, easy-to-use and robust interface with a quick and secure payment system between the business or individual and data sources is a requisite means toward this end.
5. Artificial Intelligence. “Smart Indexing” engines are now utilizing predictive analytics (a type of artificial intelligence using data analysis and machine learning) for “Confidence Scoring” to provide continual real-time accurate data. Based on immediate business conditions, this will allow for record sets that can be a single individual that matches all parameters or millions of records that match desired parameters.

Ultimately, democratizing big data levels the data playing field by providing the most comprehensive marketing data solution to all businesses and individuals. It will provide a robust interface between the business or individual and the data sources. The backend systems will ensure full confidence in data quality for the end user as well as transactional finality for the data providers.