AV lecterns are more than just podiums, according to Bob Snyder. They’re incredibly important and can make or break an experience for the end user. In his latest column, Bob speaks to a few companies about what it takes to create a next-level AV lectern and how its importance has changed over the years.
Also, Mark Coxon writes about the five innovation gaps. Yes, integrators are typically value-added resellers of AV equipment. But they’re so much more if they truly innovate — and in these times of preconfigured right-out-of-the-box solutions, innovation is needed. Read more here.
There it is, always on stage. Standing on a podium for so long and so often, some of the users even call it a podium. But it’s not a podium, it’s a lectern. For years it was made of wood, a dumb block. It stood in front of us in church, at military ceremonies, in university lectures, in conference halls, at our courts of law and at press conferences. While the users have not changed, the potential uses of a lectern have multiplied.
As integrators, at the bare minimum, we are value added resellers of AV equipment. We make AV systems more valuable than the sum of their parts through expertise in installation, maintenance, and long term support of technology. However as prices decrease, all-in-one products replace multiple SKUs, and systems come preconfigured out of the box, that value add decreases as well. This means there is pressure on the integration market to innovate, both in system design and in business model, in order to maintain revenues and a relevant place in the customer value chain. But is innovation part of most integrator’s identity? Where I work now at XTG, our mission is to innovate, and we have a culture that embraces freedom to fail, knowing that if we are going to do what has never been done, we’re going to make some mistakes along the way, and that’s expected.
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