In 2004 Blockbuster Video had 60,000 employees, 9,000 video stores and did 6 Billion, (yes, with a “B”), dollars in revenue. By 2010 they were bankrupt. What happened? Netflix. The strangest part of the whole thing though is that Netflix never wanted or intended to be in the DVD business long term. You don’t […]
I read this article today (Sunday) on one of the nation’s other AV sites, and it’s premise was so far off the mark that I couldn’t even wait til tomorrow to write this piece. The main jest of the article is that Fantasy Football’s popularity has spurred a channel called NFL RedZone. The channel shows […]
I know that I’ve made unkind comments in the past about LinkedIn’s utility as a social media platform for professionals, but lately I’ve been coming around. I’m starting to find that LinkedIn isn’t completely useless. In addition to being a networking site, it also comes in handy as a venue for collaborating. I know that […]
They say that the ground wars are giving way to a more dangerous threat, one that has no readily visible location or target. Military aircraft are of no benefit in this battle. The military’s answer, for one, is the U.S. Army Cyber Command which plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes, directs and conducts network operations and defense of […]
By Jeremy Boyd, CTS Systems Design Consultant, AVI Systems Apple is not the end-all-be-all in the electronics space, but Apple’s products are often indicators of where we are headed. The iPod was an indicator of how we would start to consume music and the iPhone was the catalyst for many of us to look at […]
This blog and interview were written and conducted by Kelly Perkins. Check her out on Twitter at @AVI_Kelly. Midori Connolly is the principal at AVGirl Productions and former co-owner of an audiovisual company. She is best known for producing the first set of best practices for Sustainable AV Staging. Midori provides support to meetings and […]
If you read Part A of the Michelangelo Effect, you know it dealt with steering our AV businesses into the waters of AV/IT convergence. The words of Michelangelo seem to extremely relevant in defining just what attitude we need to adopt in order to be successful in that endeavor. In many ways, adopting that attitude […]
Have you heard the news? As you are well aware of by now, the hottest smart home product ever sold is the Nest HVAC controller. In fact, it was so hot that Google took note earlier this year and bought the company for a little over $3 Billion. Well yesterday, Amazon was outed for secretly […]
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, well-known as just Michelangelo, was possibly the most renowned artist of the Renaissance. Along with Leonardo and Raphael, they represented artistic pinnacles only to be imitated, but not perfected by other artists. Michelangelo’s body of work was incomparable, and all anyone else could hope to do was duplicate his greatness. […]
Convergence, in terms of technological convergence (according to Wikipedia), is the tendency for different technological systems to evolve toward performing similar tasks. The premise of AV and IT convergence is simple, two separate realms of technology come together as a single entity to expand the industry’s capabilities to satisfy full-scale technology needs of the end user. In […]
I have a competitive nature, and I make no bones about it. I like to win, and I work hard to win. When I don’t win, I go back to the drawing board, and work on what I need to do in order to win next time. It might be my bias but I think […]
As a college professor, I am fortunate to have met and even participated in the education of some really talented and bright students. In addition to teaching a New Media Technologies class that includes social media marketing, I also teach a semester-long course on personal branding. Basically, it’s a 4-month class where you create and […]
There has been a lot of confusion around the term 4k which is currently being used by marketing departments to describe a multitude of screens with varying resolutions. As a public service, I thought I’d step in and try to clear up any confusion. And with that I offer you AVPhenom’s Definitive Guide to Determining […]
With all that we presently know in terms of AV, IT and Internet of Things (IoT), I truly believe we are expanding into a full technology realm of elaborate innovation and boundless potential. As I’ve previously written on IoT and innovation, the components of technology change and growth are appearing before our eyes on a regular […]
I’m back from CEDIA 2014, and had a blast. As a video shooter, I had the unique perspective of checking out EVERY booth in my section, no matter how big or little. As usual, I saw more new products and ideas than what I expected going in to the expo. Like my other tradeshow blogs, I want […]
I was on the road with an AV reseller/partner recently who asked me what companies (excluding my own) I think are the most exciting in the AV space. My answer surprised her — NanoSys and 3M (she’d never heard of NanoSys and still viewed 3M through the lens of their legacy line of projectors). So […]
What’s more important: building a better mousetrap or simply solving the problem of mice in the house? Your answer depends on your perspective. The people living in the house simply want to not have mice in their home. The people selling the mousetrap want you to buy their newer, better mousetrap. So, who’s correct? If […]
A couple of weeks ago Gary wrote an insightful blog post that speaks to all of us who do lots of business travel. If you haven’t already read it, you should. https://www.ravepubs.com/five-simple-services-every-business-traveler-wants-actually-needs/ I have to concur with all of his findings, although (spoiler alert!) it hadn’t occurred to me to perform emergency plumbing repair on […]
Having attended probably 15 to 17 CEDIA Expos over the past 20 years, I feel I am comfortable in saying that this year, the 2014 show, is the best they’ve had in the past six years. Don’t get me wrong, last year’s event was well attended and was a good show, but there was a […]
I will start by saying I was dragged reluctantly kicking and screaming into the Twitter-verse about 5 years ago. I had no time or inclination to tweet, post, share, pin, or instagram anything whatsoever. Only some inside baseball on how social media affects SEO changed my mind, as I was helping launch a new division […]
On a random side-note, has anybody really read Frank Sinatra’s lyrics to “High Hopes”? They are weird. For instance — a ram trying to destroy a hydroelectric plant? I’m coming to CEDIA this year with an open mind — and like many attendees, I really want to be blown away with a clear winning product or […]
Well, another round of trade shows is upon us and once again the marketing spinnerets are at work spinning nonsense into innovation and trying to capture the consumer in the web. We’ve seen it all year with the misuse of the term 4k and with the unnecessary curving of our LCD and OLED screens, and now […]
Well, the annual eye-candy AV show known as CEDIA kicks off this week and I thought I would write a quick blog that, hopefully, you can print out and keep with you to make sure you see these seven things while in Denver: 1. The projector market is back! For years, the projector has been […]
Note: This series is being written along with two outstanding women in the industry, Penny Sitler of Draper Inc. who will handle content and interview for Part Two and Kelly Perkins of AVI Systems, who will handle the same for Part Three. I am handling this Part One of the series. And why not? — […]
An interesting study crossed my newsfeed this week, and engendered some interesting discussion amongst my peers and I. From the Academy of Management website: “Men who engage in small talk before getting down to negotiations — compared with those who launch right into it — not only make a much more favorable impression, but also […]
I’m sitting in a midtown hotel lobby in New York surrounded by what I call a technology inversion. What’s that? Well, in general, the evolution of technology follows fairly predictable patterns. Large problems are given attention by large institutions (governments, academic communities, corporate research labs) and their solutions are then productized. These products are then […]
The construction industry has fully adopted virtual design. Driven by a combination of government policy and strategies for more efficient, cost effective design practice, building information modeling (BIM) has become widely accepted as a transformation of analog text and 2D graphics, to 3D, digital electronic imagery and information. BIM as a design software tool is […]
Half of one billion dollars in audio, video and lighting technology sales over the next 12 months. And that’s just from one segment of the house of worship market, representing only about 2 percent of all churches here in the United States. It’s likely your business hasn’t seen the majority of your sales come from […]
In this series, Women in AV: The Three, three high level women executives in the AV industry will be interviewed and give their unique perspectives on their backgrounds, the industry and certain issues that women are facing in the current technology business climate. This blog series preamble is dedicated to all of the women in […]
If you travel a lot for business, I’ll bet you can name the top five services all business travelers want off the top of your head — without thinking about it. But, if you’re not a weekly road warrior, you might not realize what you want (aka NEED) when you travel until it’s too late […]
MOOCS, class capture, blended learning and flipped classrooms are all the buzz in today’s higher education tech world. Several factors drive these changes in technology and pedagogy. Some institutions are trying to find ways to cut costs, others are trying to figure out ways to make some extra money and many are simply trying to […]
I had a bittersweet weekend. I moved my eldest daughter in to college. And, if you’ve ever done that for your own kids, you know that last line is a massive over-simplification of the process. I mean, moving someone in to college entails a plethora of things including spending thousands of dollars on dorm room […]
