Volume 17, Issue 28 — July 30, 2019

RavePro — Volume 17, Issue 28 — July 30, 2019

July 30, 2019 | Volume: 17 | Issue: 28

Many of you reading this have your CTS, the gold standard for certifications in the pro AV industry, as well as others. Today, Scott Tiner, a tech manager at Bates College in Maine, asks if certifications really matter, and why. Scott is an end user, so you may be particularly interested in his thoughts on certifications and if it's worthwhile when he's looking for partners.

Another end user, Chris Gillespie, also talks about his experiences with the design of collaboration spaces, including active classrooms. He has valuable insight into the end result of taking a technology-first, rather than people-first, approach.

Finally, if you're a marketer in AV, you won't want to miss Anthony Coppedge's piece on headlines. He doesn't mince words when he talks about the current state of copywriting, but he also gives good advice on how to improve.

We'll also be attending the Integrate show in Australia again this year. You can see all our coverage from last year here. You can also follow along on our social media accounts.

-Sara Abrons

COLUMNS

+ AV's Headlines Suck. Here's How to Fix That. [Anthony Coppedge]

After looking at the dozens of videos and hundreds of photos taken at these tradeshows and reviewing the video interviews with AV spokespeople, the patterns are almost universal: a laser-focus on the tremendous technology instead of the fantastic advantages for the end-user. How does this happen? Because engineers are incredible at developing a product, but are lousy marketers. Instead of presenting the value for end-users, the text descriptions and droning demos on the show floor regurgitate specs and technical minutiae. The result, unfortunately, is lackluster ads, product webpages, product PDFs and even social media promotions, which fail to deliver because they're either overhyped or underwhelming headlines.

+ Does Certification Matter? [Scott Tiner]

As a manager, I'm often faced with the question of what requirements we should put into a job description when we are ready to hire a person. Experience is always the easiest one to figure out. You think about how senior the position is and then you base years of experience or type of experiences on that. Education and industry certifications are different and always cause a lively discussion. Do people really need them? Do they matter?

+ Collaboration Space Interface Design [Scott Tiner]

For the past several years in higher education, the active learning classroom has grown in popularity. With these active learning classrooms comes an increase in technology. Many of the classrooms have multiple displays and multiple ways of getting your content onto those displays. These may consist of flat panels, projectors and interactive whiteboards. The expectation of these rooms is that the teachers and students bring their own technology into these spaces. This technology may be cell phones, iPads, tablets or computers. Because these are being brought in by the users of the room, the designers have no idea what type of devices are being brought in. While AV designers (internal or external) are extremely talented at designing these systems, the problem comes when we have to design the interface. How do you make a usable system with all this complexity?