Postcards from InfoComm International

Greetings from The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Center, Westminster, London at the Roundtable event hosted by InfoComm International®.

With the UK government having extended its apprenticeship initiative until March 2014, InfoComm took the opportunity to make apprenticeships the main topic of the event, and it was well received by 30 of the UK audiovisual industry’s finest. The guest speaker was Garry Chapman, Business Development Manager, National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) presented Apprenticeships in the UK – What You Need to Know.

“As a new member, I found the event very informative and a useful networking forum,”says new InfoComm member Steve Binder, Head of Sales at technical services provider Qcom. “We have a number of engineers in the field and we are passionate about investing in our people. Apprenticeships is something we definitely want to explore further.”

Several case studies were presented by AV companies who have already taken up apprentice schemes with fantastic business results. Focus 21 Visual Communications Limited successfully integrates apprenticeships into their business in the areas of IT, engineering,  sales, service and maintenance as well as within their technical installation teams. “I would recommend the apprenticeship scheme to any young person who is well driven and is interested in kick starting a successful career into a great industry,” says George Tilby, Apprentice at Focus 21 Visual Communications Limited.

The event was sponsored by Cisco.

The spirited conversation lasted until the restaurant began clearing tables in Charlotte on Thursday, January 17, for InfoComm’s first Roundtable in North America. Integrators, end users, manufacturers, reps and stagers mixed it up and discussed everything from on-going AV-IT collaboration challenges to standards and InfoComm’s new AV Systems Verification Checklist.

A full house and hopeful start for the new year. Thanks for your hospitality North Carolina. We’ll be back.

Don’t miss a roundtable near you! See the full schedule.

On July 3, we met with representatives from eight of the leading companies in the country for our roundtable in Santiago, Chile. Different areas of discussion included integration, design, rental and staging, installation, programming and advertising services using professional audiovisual media.

We also had a guest presentation from Rubi Valenzuela, who moved the audience with a different vision of the media, as well as the role that we as individuals should have within our companies.

Thank you to all who participated in this event!

InfoComm was treated to southern hospitality when we hosted two events in Atlanta this week. On Thursday, March 22, Digital Projection opened its Atlanta headquarters office to our Member Roundtable and Manufacturers’ Training sessions. A group of 35 were treated to Peggy O’Keefe’s presentation Herding Cats — Coping with Out-of-Control Clients. It’s great to travel the country meeting and networking with our members. (more…)

The start of the New Year also marks the start of the InfoComm
Roundtables! As a relative InfoComm newbie, I felt as if this event would help me better understand our members and their roles in the AV industry. Fortunately, the roundtable tour began near Washington D.C., in nearby Herndon, so this gave me the opportunity to attend my first roundtable.

In about 15 minutes on the bumpy back roads of Fairfax, I found myself at the Washington Dulles Marriott at Worldgate.

Shortly after I arrived to the roundtable, we all settled in the meeting room as we prepared for Peggy O’Keefe’s presentation on project management. Her presentation, titled Love, Addiction, and Product Management – A Manager’s Guide to Maintaining Balance, gave us insight on the perils of becoming too involved and obsessive with a project and how it can harm the outcome of a project. I found the presentation to be fascinating; she was very enthusiastic and raised many good points that can also be applied to my field of work.

After the last presentation, the participants broke up and began the networking portion of the event. Although I was on photography duty, I took advantage of the opportunity to connect with industry members and ask our members about our social media activities.

I found this event to be a valuable experience, as it gave me a first-hand opportunity to meet the InfoComm membership and learn more about our industry. Looking forward to attending another one soon!

When I was covering the industry for Pro AV magazine, I always wondered what went on at InfoComm’s ever-growing, worldwide tour of Regional Roundtables. I knew they were a member benefit — a convenient way to network with local AV professionals, take in some manufacturer training, maybe earn some CTS renewal units and generally learn what the association can do for members. But I never had a chance to attend one.

So I fixed that.  It was great to meet so many old friends and new colleagues at last week’s Washington, D.C., Roundtable. (The photo, right, catches me walking into the room late for one of the sessions. Who took that picture?) The event drew people from all over the region, from AV integrators, to government contractors, to manufacturers, to university tech managers. You couldn’t be there? Roundtable sponsor Sonic Foundry recorded it for your streaming pleasure.

The manufacturer training sessions by Biamp, Chief, Kramer and Williams Sound were well attended. And during networking time (good food and drinks, BTW), several AV pros I know said they found the training particularly useful. Then keynote speaker Peggy O’Keefe, adjunct professor at New York University, took the mic to describe the personalities that people bring to bear on projects — and how to manage them. Is it possible to care too much about a project? Peggy makes a compelling case.

Next stop: the Regional Roundtable in Scottsdale, Ariz., on Feb. 23. It’s being held at the fantastic Talking Stick Resort, which won CCS Presentation Systems a Pro AV Spotlight Award in 2011 (great golf, too, if you’re so inclined). Now that I’ve seen a Roundtable first-hand, I can confirm that these gatherings are well worth the time and effort. I already have a follow-up meeting set with an integrator I met at the D.C. Roundtable to learn more about what they’re doing in our market.

To everyone in Member Services, thanks for having me!