The AV industry is premised on providing solutions.
At least from the pro installation and integration perspectives, the point is not just the toys. We are hired to make the presentation more memorable, build productive work spaces, or manage an entire home.
Regardless of the motivation the point is to resolve an issue.
Ours is a profession fraught with challenges which we are tasked to solve on daily and hourly basis. Yesterday’s answers may not necessarily be the best fit for today’s configurations. Finding better ways to provide services becomes a passion, an obsession really.
This need from both a practical and technological perspective to improve systems and reduce complexity is the main motivator for the existence of trade shows.
Infocomm is our Library of Alexandria, the ancient facility ordered by Alexander the Great to collect the complete compendium of human knowledge. The InfoComm 2015 show is a temporary temple of tech totality. As with all mysticism, one has to be careful to separate fables from fact.
Education Sedation
Here lies one of our bigger issues, with the onslaught of information, offers and innovations, the scene is ripe for exploitation.
On our peak days a single project may require working knowledge of HVAC, lighting, room acoustics, digital transmission schemes, load tolerances and the nuances of a variable in a select active statement. Pretty heady stuff which we strive to gain an understanding of and achieve qualified certification in.
To paraphrase the infamous Rumsfeldian logic : We know what we know, know what we don’t know but we are not as aware of not knowing what we do not know we don’t know.
Here is where the snake oil salesmen linger, in the zone where the application of an education can lull us into sedation.
The Lotus Eaters Would Be Jealous
Mixed in among the truly new and the products which offer more productivity and features are the pseudo solutions. We’ve all seen them—these glossy high-margin items which proclaim to have exploited an overlooked functional physics.
Riding just the edge of serious science and nibbling at our own limited understanding of the relationship between the macro and micro the premise seems plausible.
Maybe, just maybe is it true that “Big AV” and the copper industrial complex are conniving to suppress superior solutions in an attempt to save their existing profit models.
Maybe, we just want to believe. Or we want to provide our clientele with what they believe.
In a culture where a computer science major is mistaken for a degreed nutritionist and once legit surgeons offer up simple rules of thumb for everlasting life, we are bending to our clients too much.
What are you looking for this Infocomm?
Are you still rolling with the recession years’ phycology where sexy salaciousness sold over substance?
The road to perdition is paved with good intentions.
