Solving Volume and Noise Problems in a Home By: Kate Couch and Tony Sprando When most people contact Audio Visual for noise control and noise solutions they often don’t realize what’s truly contributing to the volume of the sound. When you’re in your home trying to get work done and you can hear the birds […]

As I hope you’ve now heard, LAVNCH WEEK 3.0 — three full days of exceptional AV, UCC and Digital Signage-focused education slash content slash thought leadership offering AVIXA CTS RUs — is happening next week. Taking place Feb. 9-11, LAVNCH WEEK 3.0 (what we sometimes like to shorten to LW3 when character counts are tight) […]

By Lisa Schneider EVP of Marketing & Sales, Videotel Digital All customer-facing businesses have been dealing with COVID-related challenges that have adversely affected their revenue, if not their ability to stay in business altogether. Many of these large and mid-size businesses, as well as small entrepreneurs, need solutions that allow their customers to enter their […]

THIS IS A PROMOTED POST  In case you haven’t heard, Sony’s new three-part Th!nk AV Thought-Leadership Symposium debuted this year at almost the perfect time. In between the sleepy holiday season but before the frenzy of spring (which officially begins March 20 in the Northern Hemisphere), the timing of Th!nk AV couldn’t have been better. […]

I can remember a time, long ago, when people with shared interests used to meet in large gatherings. They would travel from far and wide and journey to a single location in order to sell their wares, share stories, renew old friendships and make new connections. By day, these travelers would converge to discuss their […]

THIS IS A PROMOTED POST I don’t really know what I expected from the SDVoE LIVE! Holiday Special, but I can tell you that I definitely did not expect to see Justin Kennington come right out of the gate in a vest and red velvet slippers. Matt Dodd said Kennington looked like Rupert Bear. No […]

Higher ed just lived through what may be the strangest semester we have ever had. At my school, we held in-person classes, and — knock on wood — we were very successful, with limited numbers of COVID cases and no serious cases. Like many other schools, we employed social distancing, lower limits on people in […]

Things to keep in mind when establishing the reputation of your company. By: Tony Sprando and Kate Couch Most people fall under the assumption that reputation can only be built over time. The mom-and-pop shop that’s been around since the ‘50s doing things the good old-fashioned way. Or the tried-and-true Google ratings. Though these things […]

If you follow my Selling AV podcast here on rAVe, then this blog will be right up your alley. I haven’t done a point/counterpoint article in quite a while, but today I came across a blog shared by the NSCA about the importance of having a sales script, and honestly, I couldn’t disagree more. Full […]

Global managed services provider RingCentral brings out Glip, a free solution that offers video and audio conferencing — and integrates with team messaging, file sharing, contact, task and calendar management. The company refers to the integration as its “Smart Video Meetings” experience. You might have thought of Ring Central as a PBX-replacement, a telecom-as-a-solution cloud […]

THIS IS A PROMOTED POST  The AV, UCC and Digital Signage industries are as eager as any industry (well, maybe after healthcare) to get the word out on all the greatness that will come in 2021. And it has certainly been a busy but exciting start to the year. My 2021 agenda is filled with […]

Welcome to my 21st annual Kayye’s Krystal Ball! I love writing this annual predictions article — it’s both humbling and rewarding. It requires me to stop and research anything new, evaluate the potential impact it will have and then articulate it in a way that matters to readers. If you’re a regular reader of my […]

For too many churches, the question of when to upgrade video gear, hangs around like a frozen video frame. That reality has only grown with an increased focus toward streaming and broadcasting of worship services since March. As with any piece of equipment, each will eventually reach a point at which it must be replaced. […]

Simply stated, mid-September 2021. Decimated by COVID-19, most that are still standing have turned to virtual events. But, in those cases, you are trading dollars for dimes. Live events will not make any sort of significant recovery in 2021, I am sad to say. I miss them as much as anyone. But until we have […]

If you’ve been paying any attention to the conversations in professional AV right now, you’ve undoubtedly heard the word hybrid over and over again. There are countless products, articles and strategies for deploying technology that bridges our physical spaces to our virtual ones in ways that try to level the playing field and create equity […]

The pandemic has illuminated the importance of connectivity in our lives. We’ve had to adapt how our kids learn, how we socialize with friends and family, and how we work. Technology has and continues to play a key role in bringing people together while we’re physically distant. This paradigm shift holds especially true in the […]

I really hope everyone is doing the best they can to get through these challenging times. Allow me to share my professional experiences, which include working over the past 35 years in the following industries: film/video production, data storage and backup, network and telecom, video managed services; AV design and integration, and digital signage. Although […]

Collaboration. It’s not what you think it is … Whenever I hear someone in the AV industry mention collaboration, I am reminded of the words of the legendary Inigo Montoya in my favorite movie. “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” I was looking at job […]

THIS IS A PROMOTED POST By Paul Richards PTZOptics Following a socially distanced holiday season, houses of worship are continuing to look to AV professionals for the best tools to create livestreams or recorded videos of their worship services for the benefit of those viewing remotely. As the pandemic continues and these formerly in-person services […]

  By Tony Sprando and Kate Couch “Age appears to be best in four things — old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.” — Alonso Of Aragon Age is something we have been redefining for many years as a human race. In the ’40s […]

THIS IS A PROMOTED POST  The first major AV, UCC and digital signage event of the year was a virtual one. But a virtual format didn’t prevent us from digging in and getting some answers on the uncertainty that lies ahead. Th!nk AV, a three-part thought-leadership event, came to us from Sony, a company who […]

As technology salespeople, it is very tempting to have early conversations around technology itself. I’ve attended job walks or integrator interviews where the representative of a technology company quickly turns a discussion about a room into questions about how many inputs and outputs the company needs on their switcher or what brand of control system […]

Skype, FaceTime and now Zoom. Each of the past several iterations of videoconferencing have a few things in common. First, they became part of the consumer lexicon, becoming verbs, in fact. Second, they became popular because of their use by, and availability to the general consumer. Only Zoom, however, grew at what can be described […]

By Alexandre Jornod Futuresource Consulting Over recent years, the audio market has witnessed a progressive shift to more premium products. Case in point with headphones and models such as the Apple AirPods Pro, along with the Sony WH-1000XM series, which have helped democratizing higher audio quality to the mass-market. This trend, which can be seen […]

By Tom Kehr Almo Pro A/V The Almo Pro A/V Fall E4v was my first E4 as an Almo employee. I had the privilege of co-presenting with Donald Guzauckas of HB Live on “The Future of Events.” We touched on everything from corporate meetings to larger live events. We all know things are and will […]

Some of my closest #AVtweeps know that back last summer, I volunteered to be one of the 43,448 people within the global trial to get injected with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine (aka: BNT162b2 0.3 ml). Yes, I received the actual vaccine rather than the placebo (21,720 people in the study received BNT162b2 and 21,728 received […]

In more than one editorial I’ve made the point that new business opportunities come from who you know. And that if you want more things to come your way you need to know more people. That’s why it’s important to network: to meet new people and find opportunities that you wouldn’t otherwise know about if […]

“But they sent the wrong color. Did you know that this job has an open ceiling plan? We have to have gray or it will stand out.” The cable on-site was blue, and we needed 1,000 feet of gray right now or the schedule and budget would go off the rails. I called the cable […]

In my monthly blog series, I am highlighting some of the incredible people who work for the Audio Video Industry. In this post, we are profiling Murphy Daley. Here is a brief introduction. Murphy Daley -CTS ,PMP is an AV & UC Project Manager. She has also written four books, check them out on Amazon. […]

Defining the word that has had so many meanings over the past one hundred years. By: Kate Couch Audio Visual Bend “Okay, Einstien.” “That was smart!” “Your baby is so smart.” These are all common sayings we’ve heard that center around the idea of smart or intelligence. But what is smart? As we progressed further […]

By Chris Pennell Futuresource Consulting As the number of electronic devices in use across North American schools continues to proliferate, K-12 curriculum leaders and IT decision makers are turning to administrative tools to manage data assets, track progress and provide support. A new end user study from Futuresource Consulting explores the impact of these tools, […]

Several years ago, I won an award. I was so happy and proud that I was emotional upon hearing the news. I felt that I’d represented my industry, my colleagues, my company, and myself well enough to have even been considered. My colleagues at my company were happy for me, and my manager asked that […]