The A/V Industry Is Losing Its Congregation

One of the first things I wrote for this website was a general frustration and call to action for the A/V industry as a whole.  I still maintain that we, as an industry, do not succeed in informing the general public about what it is that we do and how we improve the quality of work or life for people.  In reading Mike Brandes’s recent post about Consumer audio visual technology consuming the enterprise I saw that same complaint continue to flourish.

I cannot fathom how the A/V industry, which has a finger in the worlds of IT, architecture, construction, entertainment, education, retail, and technology as a whole, has failed (and just so there’s no confusion here – FAILED) to help the end users of the world understand what makes the home theater they bought at Best Buy different from what we provide them.  Mike goes directly after the issue when he says “As I sit in meetings and hear requests for projectors with built in Netflix apps I cringe.”  As he is a technology manager for a university, Mike is getting the “I do it in my home, why can’t I do it here” symptom of modern life on a regular basis.  Sometimes that comment is about a potential upgrade to a system and other times it’s a guest that just doesn’t grasp how difficult it would be to keep and maintain up-to-date systems across a campus environment.

The speed of technology is getting faster and faster making it nearly impossible for the largest consumers of it to keep up.  If a university or large corporate facility was to attempt to keep up with the rate of evolution we see on a yearly basis, no project would ever actually be finished because as soon as the purchase order was signed, they’d have to redesign the project and start all over again.  Sadly, this already happens with many consultant driven specifications just due to the timeline from design inception to bolts-in-walls.  There isn’t blame to be placed when it happens; it is just a factor of our industry.

We are reaching an interesting crossroads in our industry where people’s desire to have the feel of their home system in every room they step into is driving system design and development.  When was the last time you heard a client say “this system does something really cool, I wish I had that in my home”?  That was commonplace just a few years ago.  But with the evolution of smart phones and home theater systems, the end users are no longer seeing the differentiation.  Technology in the enterprise environments used to be a driving factor to encourage people to join the staff.  Now it’s expected to be there, and if it is out of date or not well maintained it will actually drive staff members away.

This is where I go back to my original thoughts on the matter: the A/V industry needs public advocacy to help people understand why what we do is beyond the latest gadget going on sale from the big box store.  When the CES show was taking place I got daily updates on every national and local news outlet.  It didn’t matter how much misinformation was being shared by the news outlets to the public, there was still a discussion taking place.  But ISE is taking place this week and I haven’t seen anyone outside of the A/V industry say a word.  There is just as much, if not more, innovation taking place at ISE, but the public isn’t getting the information on how these changes will affect their lives.  We may not be providing the shiny new screen to adorn their wrist, but we will be the ones implementing the changes in how they receive, share, and interact with information on a larger scale not to mention work with our IT brethren to be sure that shiny new wrist screen gets that information.

InfoComm will take place in June and Microsoft is going to show up.  Will this finally bring the professional A/V industry into the public eye or will it just be another example of how well we preach to the choir with no one facing the congregation that is in dire need of saving?