AV/IT-Talk-the-Talk

AV/IT - Convergence or Disconnect?

As a national trainer in the U.S., one of the great things about the job is I get to travel around and meet all kinds of people in all kinds of places from all kinds of jobs.  One thing I have definitely learned is we all talk very differently and we even listen differently.  Where we come from, what we do, and our experiences change the way we hear or the way we listen.

Below is a quick chart to give you a quick reference to the kinds of things that we take for granted in our everyday conversations with IT guys from an audio-visual perspective.  These are just a few of the many things that you’ll encounter, but it gives a good start.  My recommendation is to take a format like this and build on it so that you analyze your own terminology and sanity check it for how IT guys may understand it or read into it.  You’ll see that some of the things we say in audio-visual may have a different meaning to an IT guy or at least these things will evoke an immediate reaction that you may have to work around or hurdle as an objection.

What the Audio-Visual Guy Says	What the IT Guy Hears (or his Immediate Reaction)	What We Audio-Visual Experts Should Do
AV	Anti-Virus	Use the term audio-visual from the start to avoid confusion.
Convergence	IP and Telephony (high cost, long nights and lots of pains)	Avoid the term convergence unless used with audio-visual and IT all together.
Streaming	Transporting huge amounts of data to lots of users at the same time over corporate network until it crashes or bandwidth is brought to its knees	Ask the questions up front about if/how streaming is used on the network now.
Open Architecture	No security	Clarify that interoperability and security are not mutually exclusive and ask what security requirements there are on this network (i.e. FIPS and AES).
User Friendly	No levels of control or delegation	Ask questions about delegation when addressing user needs – clearly separate user needs from admin needs.
Email Integration	SPAM ready	Ask SMTP, POP3 and how this will work before you say “this can email you if there is a problem.”
SNMP	As a network guy, this is my in to ask a million questions…are you ready?	Ask about public vs. private and how SNMP is used on this network.
Uses Static IP Address	We don’t do that	Ask if static IPs are allowed and know if the devices you are proposing work with both DHCP and static.
Manage Devices on Your Network	Not on my network	With a 99% or 99.9% uptime requirement know your STBF and SPOF requirements.
Capture and Record	My users don’t go in front of cameras	Many IT guys are very aware of how their users won’t use a room with a camera, ask them.
Asset Management	Usually has to do with data not devices	Use physical inventory and tracking as examples so they know you are not referring to data.
Full Duplex Communication	Do networks operate on anything less?	In a network there used to be half duplex as a common mode, so talking up full duplex in videoconferencing isn’t a big deal to a network guy because all network stuff should be full duplex by now.
Management Software Provided	Yeah! Yet another software package To update and track	Sure the software package you offer may be free of charge, but is it solving a problem they don’t have?  Make sure they need a software package first.

The overarching way to avoid these confusion-causing communication errors is to ask many more questions.  No one knows more about the customer’s network and network integration needs than the customer and their chief technologist – find that person and work on an ongoing basis with them.  As consultative solutions providers we are best suited to use that person’s knowledge to gather the information required to provide the solution they need.  The more we learn about IT, we realize we need to ask more questions.  Seems a little counter intuitive at times, but it holds true. 

We (as an industry) spend a lot of time talking about the importance of learning more about IT.  Taking courses provided by InfoComm like the 3-day AV/IT integration course or taking classes from allied industries are a great idea, but what do you do with the information once you start getting it?  I recommend you add it to your toolbox.  You may not be designing networks, but it will help you ask logical questions and interact with the whole team better.  The more we learn about IT the more we realize (just as in audio-visual) we need more information from and about the customer and their application in order to provide a good solution.  Every application and every solution is unique. 

Maybe the best approach is to think about when you have had your more positive consultative experiences in your life as a customer.  The people who were best suited to serve you were the ones who asked the most questions.  Based on the result of the experience you probably learned that these questions didn’t stem from their lack of knowledge, but moreover from a better knowledge of their trade and from a true desire to know how best to apply that knowledge to your particular needs.  There is no better way to understand those needs than to ask questions and to do the complete needs analysis.

Bottom line is you can’t fake genuine care for how the project turns out.  If you do genuinely care how you are going to meet customer needs you will do well.  This takes time; time to learn emerging technologies that affect them, time to learn their language and time asking the right questions and investigating their needs.

The author:

Max Kopsho, CTS-D, CTS-I, MCSE, DSCE – Kramer’s Director of Group Sales and Consultant Relations

Max has worked in the AV industry for over 15 years in various management and technical roles.  Over the last 26 years Max has acquired an extensive background in supporting A/V systems, computer networks, telecom, and VTC systems.  Max developed one of the industry’s first networked AV solutions and that product is now deployed in a single network with over 15,000 network attached AV devices.  Max has made considerable contributions to the InfoComm Education area in AV/IT and CTS preparations.  He was awarded the 2010 Educator of the Year for InfoComm.