David J. Danto
Principal Consultant,
Collaboration/ AV / Multimedia / Video / UC
Dimension Data
Director of Emerging
Technology
Interactive
Multimedia & Collaborative Communications Alliance
eMail:
David.Danto@DimensionData.com 
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Technology Industry News: @NJDavidD
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InfoComm Bound Random Thoughts
I and many industry
colleagues are in the process of preparing, packing and / or heading to Orlando
next week for the 76th
InfoComm Conference and Expo. If you don’t know it,
InfoComm is the largest, most comprehensive and best attended professional
audiovisual and communications trade show in the U.S. – with around 40K
attendees every year.
As
I get ready for what is simultaneously one of my favorite and most exhausting
weeks of the year I like to reflect on such ideas as industry buzz, milestones
achieved, past shows, and things of that sort.
Rather than have them just rumbling around in my head I figured I’d put
a few of them down in a blog so that I can burden friends and associates with
reflecting on them as well. Some of
these may be controversial enough to make you stop and think for a moment. That’s the point. Whether you agree or disagree, if I’ve given
you something to think about, that has to be good in the grand scheme of
things. Here they are in no particular
order:
· What The Heck Do You Do / Make? I attend a lot of conferences. I walk a lot of expo floors. Nothing is stupider than a huge booth /
exhibit with palm trees, fast cars, pretty people in model clothing and similar
things meant to be eye-catching -- with absolutely no clue what the firm’s
product or service is. Exhibitors have maybe
eight seconds to visually tell people why they should stop at their booth. If they blow those eight on flashy images
people don’t stop. A simple black on
white sign that says “We make the best screwdriver/projector/display you’ll
ever see” will want people to stop and see more. That is so amazingly simple that I can’t
fathom why many exhibitors don’t get it.
· Sexism Is Offensive – All Sexism. Booth Babes have no place at InfoComm. Bravo to us that we finally have greater
awareness of that now. Regrettably,
neither does a Women in AV movement. As
beneficial as the intent is, it is as offensive to me as a Catholics in AV or Caucasians
in AV might be to others. As an
industry we should not be celebrating any special group. We should be celebrating the best and brightest
contributors regardless of labels. It’s
sad that we try to compensate for inappropriate past recognition levels of the
contributions of one class of industry participants by inappropriately
recognizing only one class of industry participants.
· Get Used To Orlando Every Other Year. We get this debate every year. Why
can’t they hold the show in Vegas every year?
Vegas is better/cheaper/etc.
Personally, waking-up in Orlando in June with so many layers of humidity
condensation on the hotel room window that I can’t see out of it is about as
bad as I can think of for a venue. In
fact, in past years I’ve parked in the lot behind the Orlando convention center
first thing in the morning, and by the time I walked to the expo floor I needed
to shower and change again. However,
regardless of any rumors to the contrary, this is not changing. There are large numbers of InfoComm attendees
that can’t make it to the west coast or are forbidden by employers to attend
conferences in Vegas. Their needs will
be met every other year - period.
Orlando is the only east-coast venue that makes sense from a dozen
logistical angles. If you’re still
convinced the rumors are true then you should look at where InfoComm
posts their schedule years into the future – with contracts signed to cover
the venues.
· Stop And Congratulate Ken. There are not very many people in our
industry that are universally liked and respected, so take the time to
recognize one of them. Ken Zorzi of KBZ
will be attending his 40th InfoComm show this year. Of course it was called NAVA back then, but
its 40 years just the same. Ken and his
organization have filled a crucial role for the AV and Collaboration
industry. As AV moved from projectors to
complicated and expensive collaboration systems, many of the small to mid-size
AV firms didn’t have the resources to stock supplies of conferencing /
collaboration equipment, and didn’t have the expertise to configure and install
it. KBZ enabled hundreds of firms to
access both the needed equipment and expertise while being content to sit in
the background, invisible to most consumers.
Here
is an article his firm wrote upon his 39th year last year. On his 40th anniversary of joining us – and
doing so amidst family commitments and life changes – everyone should stop by
the Cisco booth (#2921) and give him a well-deserved pat on the back.
· Show-Up Or Shut-Up. If you are a manufacturer in AV or
Collaboration and you’re not willing to be at this event to let people see your
products / services side by side with those of your competitors then you’re
dead to the world. Nobody is saying you
have to have the largest booth or throw a party. A simple 10x10 booth that says you feel
strongly enough about what you do to make the investment in time and resources
is essential. Exhibiting in the past but
choosing not to now says to everyone that either you can’t afford to be there
anymore (huge red flag) or you’re afraid of the comparison to competing firms
(huge red flag.) It very correctly
should affect users’ buying choices. I
send my clients an annual list of firms that stopped exhibiting and strongly
advise against doing business with them because of the potential red
flags. I’m sure others do too. No one should care how much you want to
compensate for it with independent efforts or supporting other conferences in
other venues. Show-up or shut-up.
· A High School Diploma Comes In Handy. Those of us that graduated from High School
heard in history class that people who do not learn from history are doomed to
repeat it. I hear there is a new, very
high end interactive display being shown at the conference this year,
specifically intended for the corporate enterprise. That shows me that we again have a
manufacturer that was too close to their product to care to investigate the
history of the marketplace. Even the
existing manufacturers of interactive displays know that complex products have
not been successful anywhere other than in the classroom or lab – and these
firms are now producing much simpler products for the corporate market that are
seeing success. Here’s
a link to a simplified, pictorial history lesson (PowerPoint in PDF) that
details the history of interactive displays in the enterprise. Hint to manufacturers: I do offer my consulting services to companies
to perform market research and give independent evaluations. I’m sure many others do to. In high school we were also advised to spend
a moment considering if our assumptions were wrong. Whoda thunk High School would come in so handy?
And finally, one important
piece of advice I remind my colleagues of at this conference is to keep an open
mind. If all you do is spend time with
the vendors and products you know then you won’t have gained very much. The parties and concerts and dinners with
your current suppliers may be fun, but they don’t help you grow. You should attend classes, visit vendors you
don’t know, and generally spend time out of your comfort zone. The speed of technology disruption is faster
than it has ever been before. If all you
do is what you’ve always done – even if it has been successful in the past --
it is likely that the next new thing will shake-up your world (and not in a
positive way.) Speak with peers at other
organizations, find-out what is happening in their world -- learn from each
other.
Have
a great InfoComm 15. I hope to see you
there.
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This
article was written by David Danto and contains solely his own,
personal opinions. David has over three decades of experience providing problem
solving leadership and innovation in media and unified communications technologies
for various firms in the corporate, broadcasting and academic worlds including
AT&T, Bloomberg LP, FNN, Morgan Stanley, NYU, Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan
Chase. He now works with Dimension Data
as their Principal Consultant for the collaboration, multimedia, video and AV
disciplines. He is also the IMCCA’s
Director of Emerging Technology. David can be reached at David.Danto@Dimensiondata.com
or DDanto@imcca.org and his full bio and
other blogs and articles can be seen at Danto.info. Please reach-out to David if you would like
to discuss how he can help your organization solve problems, develop a
future-proof collaboration strategy for internal use, or if you would like his
help developing solid, user-focused go-to-market strategies for your
collaboration product or service.
All image and links provided above as reference under
prevailing fair use statutes.