The Importance of Industry Wide Collaboration in AV

Hail, hail, the gang’s all here. Greg Harper, President of Harpervision Associates; Cory Schaeffer, Director of Alliances & Ecosystem at QSC; Michael Reilly, Director of National Accounts at Barco; and Charlie Jones, Global Alliance & Partnership Manager at Sennheiser, joined Ben Thomas for an engaging roundtable discussion on the state of collaboration in AV. There was much to discuss with rapid AV technology advancements during the pandemic.

The pandemic changed the expectation of what the AV industry is doing. People attend multi-person conferences via their desktop or smartphone instead of in a conference room. Video conferences are now the standard over audio-only. “Now the challenge is, how do you create rooms and [create] spaces where it makes sense to go into that space,” Harper said. “Because if I have everything at my desk and have the right camera and a good microphone, why do I want to go into a room? So, what can I build in a room that will make it a better experience than sitting at my desk?”

Harper said businesses are transforming the traditional conference room into an interactive video experience with multi-camera functionality, advanced screen technology, and ceiling mics to meet today’s collaborative conference expectations. “When you start thinking about the capabilities of some of the technology and bringing that all together, you can create a much better experience in the conference room than before.”

Schaeffer said the pandemic showed people the importance of collaborating with partners from all over the country and the world, and that need will continue as people start working back in offices. And the AV needs in those offices need to keep up with these new demands. “Now, when we go into a room,” Shaeffer said, “we need more than just one USB camera. We need to be able to add more things so we can zoom in and get the reactions of the people in the room to the far end. We can partner with other companies to deliver what the end-user is looking for because none of us have everything every user needs.”