Challenges and rewards at the top of the value pyramid
I recently participated in the second annual
InfoComm 100 executive conference.
It was a great honor and surprise to be
invited back after I got on my soapbox last
year at the inaugural event and challenged
AV leaders to embrace the changes that were
sweeping our industry. This year the tone was
refreshingly different and there seemed to be
almost universal acceptance of the increasing
role of IT players in AV. Most of the reactionary
and protectionist vibe was gone and
the group was strongly focused on embracing
IT, mobility, and other adjacent technology
and business trends while celebrating
the unique talents that only real AV practitioners
can offer. We recognized that the AV
industry is at the top of the value pyramid
that is built on a facilities foundation and
enabled by information technology infrastructure.
AV is what end users directly interact
with to create experiences, to exchange
information, and to facilitate meaningful
collaboration. AV technology managers are
responsible for delivering these user experiences
and need to know more than just how
to move around packets of information in
cyberspace. We have learned how to manage
environments by understanding things like
the properties of light and acoustics that go
beyond ones and zeros.
The overall theme of the conference
revolved around the relationship between
the AV industry and architects. I found the
topics interesting and learned a lot about
architecture and new construction. Shame
on me, but I must admit that I hadn’t even
heard of building information modeling
(BIM) before the conference. Now that I
know what it is I realize I have seen outputs
of BIM, but I didn’t know how important it
was in architecture and in AV by association.
So much for CAD. Another major topic was
sustainability. In case you hadn’t heard,
“green” is now maturing into “sustainability”
which I personally find to be a good evolution
because it better represents the overall
value of energy and resource conservation.
The AV industry, especially the telepresence/
videoconferencing and control system
segments have a golden opportunity to take
a leadership role in the application of technology
to enable sustainability initiatives. I
couldn’t be happier to see sustainability go
mainstream and for the AV industry to realize
its own power to reduce waste and to
contribute to this evolution.
The next big trend that was repeated
throughout the conference was the impact of
commoditization of AV hardware. The former
cornerstone of our trade has eroded and
is being replaced by software and services.
Margins on AV equipment are shrinking, but
the demand for AV knowledge, applications,
and services is rising. This is forcing manufacturers,
designers, programmers, integrators,
and technology managers to grow and
change, but that didn’t seem to bother the
conference participants nearly as much as it
did last year.
The one area that seemed to be in need of
more adoption and understanding was social
media. I felt a little strange being one of a
handful of people to raise their hands repeatedly
when asked how many in the crowd had
a blog, tweeted, or was on LinkedIn and
Facebook. I just assumed everyone had
embraced social media by now and that
assumption turned out to be dead wrong. I
guess that is something we can collectively
work on as an industry. Feel free to friend me
or follow me if you want to discuss this further.
The conference also included great interpersonal
networking opportunities, exceptional
speakers, and an awards program that honored
some of the industry’s finest. InfoComm
and their sponsors put together a meaningful
conference and the industry will be the better
for it. But wait, there’s more, including my
favorite output of the conference, visual scribing.
If you haven’t seen visual scribing yet, it
consists of having a talented artist represent
the major themes with drawings and word art
while the presentation or conversation is happening.
It was an incredible tool for triggering
memories and for capturing the essence of the
conference. Check it out here: http://yfrog.com/5n8glj. The conference may be
over, but the event lives on. Sonic Foundry is
providing the presentations on-demand at
sonicfoundry.com/infocomm100, there will
be a free outbrief session at the InfoComm
tradeshow in June, and new materials will be
posted soon on the InfoComm website.
Gary L. Hall is the Geospatial Metadata
Officer at National Geospatial - Intelligence
Agency in Washington, DC., and the CEO of
LocalShare and The New Green Economy.