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AV Industry Leaders Ponder the Future

Tom Stimson, The Stimson Group, 24th July, 2009

InfoComm International, the trade association for the Audio Visual (AV) Industry, took a bold step in April, 2009 by bringing together from around the world one hundred AV thought-leaders and dubbed them the 2009 InfoComm 100. The product of this group’s two-day think tank was a collaborative white paper outlining the conditions and trends that will most affect the industry over the next five years. Very high on the list of discussions was the evolving relationship between AV and IT (Information Technology).

Several assumptions collected by the 100 revolved around the universal standards and open source product applications that AV and IT sometimes share:

• The computer will increasingly become a multifunction tool supplanting specific AV devices.
• The AV Industry needs to fully understand unified communications, networks, and wireless applications.
• The value of installed systems will be in software rather than hardware.

However, the majority of cited trends suggested that customer experiences will increasingly drive expectations. In other words, both the AV and IT industries must connect learn to the end-user on the end-user’s terms:

• Customer demand will “pull” technology to their expectations instead of the industry “pushing” their own agenda.
• “Plug and play” will be expected.
• Network traffic will surge with “real time” voice and video.
• Inclusionary technology will be expected to be everywhere.
• There will be a mainstream shift towards do-it-yourself installations.

In essence, the 100 are suggesting that neither AV nor IT will be calling the shots – but their customers will. In fact, what the end-user wants will require no less than a full and thoughtful collaboration between AV and IT. Neither industry is fully prepared for this, which is why efforts like AVConnect.org are so important right now. The AV Industry has the most to learn and perhaps the most to gain from bridging the AV-IT gap. Their top goal must be to gain credibility within the IT world. In my opinion, this will be accomplished more quickly through faster adoption of IT open standards in the AV world. This will lead to more productive discussions about currently conflicting standards and eventually put the AV community at the IT standards table to protect the visual communications experience of the end-user.

While it may not be fulfilled in the five-year horizon discussed by the InfoComm 100, AV and IT will one day converge into something one participant called the Technology Integration Industry. Visually, AV will always be at the top of the industry pyramid. It represents the end-points and drives the user experience. Technology makes up the middle and encompasses the virtual and real hardware over which information flows. It makes the user experience possible. The foundation of this ever-growing pyramid is cabling and building infrastructure that exists with or without the accompanying technology or audiovisual end points. Eliminating the gaps in human communication between these three technology components means releasing our collective imaginations so that anyone, anywhere can interact with anything or anyone.

Tom Stimson, MBA CTS is the President of The Stimson Group, a Dallas-based business consulting firm specializing in the needs of AV Industry management. Tom is the 2009 President-Elect of InfoComm International, a member of NSCA, and a prolific columnist and blogger. Learn more at www.trstimson.com or tom@trstimson.com.