Podcasts about crestron

samsung av residential 8k foothold crestron hunter douglas

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 2, 2025 25:49

Samsung's' lineup for the year includes 8K. Are we really ready for the next step in display fidelity? Talking shade solutions and the evolution of modern shade technology for the residential space. And finding the potential within the mid-market project. The video version of this podcast can be found here.Every week we bring the latest news and stories for the residential AV industry. We discuss how these topics impact integrators in the space with a panel of experts. Joining us this week is Scott Stephenson from Hunter Douglas and Brad Hintze from Crestron.Host: Matt ScottGuests:Brad Hintze – CrestronScott Stephenson – Hunter DouglasLinks to sources:CE Pro – Samsung's 2025 TV lineupCE Pro – Hunter Douglas & Shade EvolutionResidential Systems – Utilizing The Mid-MarketSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Copilot Practical Applications and Success Stories with Sarah Miller

Microsoft Teams Insider

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 5, 2025 25:23 Transcription Available

Sarah Miller, Senior Product Marketing Manager - Microsoft 365 Copilot at Microsoft, dives into practical applications of Microsoft Copilot AgentsThe concept of Copilots and the journey organisations take to adopt and integrate this AI technology effectivelyReal-world use cases, including how Pets at Home are using AI agents to improve operations and efficiencyImportance of enterprise security in AI adoptionThe concept of AI agents, their functions and business value across different industriesHow Copilot Dashboard and Success Kit can assist organisations in measuring AI impact and managing AI deploymentMany thanks to Crestron, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support.

ai home microsoft pets success stories copilot practical applications sarah miller crestron

Erik DeGiorgi, Netspeek

Sixteen:Nine

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 22, 2025 34:54

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT The people who build and maintain very large networks of displays, PCs, servers and other devices tend to have more to do than time to do it, and when some technical shit hits the operating fan, trying to work out what's happening and what to do about it takes experience, brainpower and what can be punishing downtime. So what if generative AI could be used by a network operations center team to comb through knowledge bases and trouble ticket archives to identify solutions in seconds, instead of minutes or hours? And what if a lot of meat and potato workflows done to deliver services and maintain uptimes could be automated, and handled by an AI bot? That's the premise of Netspeek, a start-up that formally came out of stealth mode this week - with an AI-driven SaaS solution aimed at integrators, solutions providers and enterprise-level companies that use a lot of AV gear. The Boston-based company is focused more at launch on unified communications, because of the scale and need out there. But Netspeek's toolset is also applicable to digital signage, and can bolt on to existing device management solutions. The guy driving this will be familiar in digital signage hardware circles. Erik DeGiorgi was running the specialty PC firm MediaVue, but sold that company about a year ago. Since then, he's been forehead-deep working with a small dev team on Netspeek. We caught up last week and he gave me the rundown. Subscribe from wherever you pick up new podcasts. TRANSCRIPT Erik, nice to chat once again. You sold your company about a year ago, and I don't want to say disappeared, but kind of went off the grid in terms of digital signage, and now you are launching a new company called Netspeek. What is that? Erik DeGiorgi: Thanks for having me back, Dave. It's crazy. Time flies. I think it's well over two years at this point since our last conversation. We launched Netspeek at the beginning of the year. At the same time, we sold out MediaVue. Netspeek is bringing to market the first generative AI platform focused on supporting the day-to-day operations of mixed vendor estates of pro AV networks. Digital signage is certainly a component of that. We're really focused on the totality of pro AV technologies. So it includes a lot of UCC unified collaborations and communications technologies as well as signage, and really targeting office spaces. So think about meeting rooms and conference rooms. You might have a Zoom or a Teams environment in there as well as a signage system or classroom environments, and what we've developed is a generative AI solution that can be embedded into those networks, that can work alongside human operators, network administrators, technicians to help them support them in their daily workflows, and then also bring a large amount of automation. So our platform can not only kind of observe what's going on in a network, kind of a 24/7-365 way, but then take action and use its own logic and reason and independent thinking to analyze situations the same way a human operator would and then structure and generate responses. So being able to directly address equipment and solve problems independently. We're pretty excited to bring that to market. We're launching to the industry here in a week, and then we'll be demoing at ISE at the beginning of February. You'll have your own stand at ISE? Erik DeGiorgi: Yes, and I did pull up the booth number ahead of the call, but of course now it's on a different tab. It's in the Innovation Park, and the booth number is CS820, and it's actually centrally located there in the Innovation Park. So actually right outside the digital signage area. Yeah, I think for people going to ISE, the Innovation Park is kind of along the main corridor in between halls. Erik DeGiorgi: Yep, it's the central hallway. Okay, so people should be able to find you there. Erik DeGiorgi: Hopefully, yep. Not a sprawling booth like a Samsung or LG or something, but… Erik DeGiorgi: We measure in single meters. I think it's a 2x3 meter booth. Startup life. Erik DeGiorgi: The price was right. There are lots of device management platforms out there, either independent third-party platforms that you would subscribe to and bolt onto your system or a fair number of companies, whether they're integrators or CMS software companies in the context of digital signage have their own device management code written in, how is this different? Erik DeGiorgi: Yeah, absolutely. Netspeek is not another monitoring platform. Monitoring is a necessary component, right? You need to know what you have on the network and know what it's doing as a foundation. But our value really lies in the intelligence that we're bringing into that. So it's taking that monitoring and observation, but then actually doing something with it in doing that either again to assist a human by bringing kind of an encyclopedic knowledge and institutional knowledge or whether it's through the automation, and so we're going to market with a total solution. We have a monitoring platform that we've developed as a necessary part of our total solution, but we actually are also partnering with existing remote monitoring and management platforms to essentially bolt on to them, and then bring that intelligence to their monitoring platform and actually at ISE, you'll be able to see that as well. So they should happily run in parallel using APIs or…? Erik DeGiorgi: Yep. So we hook into the existing monitoring platform and we essentially bolt on the, the reasoning and the intelligence, and then allow an existing user to leverage that front end, and that monitoring platform that they're already familiar with. Who do you think you're primarily going to be selling this into? Is it like integrators and service providers who have network operation centers or would it be end users? Erik DeGiorgi: So it's a little bit of both, and candidly at an early stage, you tend to take a bit more of a scattershot approach, and test where the value emerges. It's a new technology, gen AI, everybody knows it's there and in a large part don't know what to do with it. But we've kind of honed in on three initial go to market opportunities. One is like a total solution directed towards the end user. One is more of a channel centric focus, whether it's a system integrator managed service provider. We're actually already engaged with a few, of each, that are interested in leveraging the platform in that capacity. And then also, like I said, with, an existing management. You could be a manufacturer. So think about even an independent manufacturer, or a platform provider, like an existing monitoring platform. So an existing tool is specific to a manufacturer or a tool for more broad-based management. Like I said, we can kind of bolt into those and go to market that way as well. So in the scenario of a network operation center in the context of digital signage, an integrator that's doing the work to monitor a large QSR network for a restaurant chain that doesn't want to do that internally and they've got a whole bunch of screens up on a wall and they've got big curved desktop screens and the whole bit and they're watching what's going on. Is the idea here in part that. As a problem develops and it's kind of weird and not familiar that if you had to go into a whole bunch of manuals and archived information, it would take many minutes, maybe even hours to do it versus if this is all on a learned model that the solution or at least ideas on a resolution could come up in seconds? Erik DeGiorgi: We really kind of lean into the personification of our platform. So our product is called Lena and Lena is an acronym that stands for Language Enabled Network Administrator. So we really have modeled the platform and the solution after the workflows that human operators perform every day. So imagine being in that knock and sitting there next to your colleague, Lena and Lena happens to be trained on every respective certification related to the deployment, and has been trained in every application software that's being used, has an encyclopedic knowledge of every technical document for every piece of equipment or technology that's in that deployment, has the ability to - at the speed of light - comb through any historical information like previous support tickets or anything like that that's been related. So being confronted with a situation, whether that's a critical situation or whether it's looking at something that's preventative, or maintenance-oriented, just imagine having this kind of superhuman user that can just as a human operator analyze the situation, develop a logic flow, think critically about that situation, pull in outside information to help diagnose a potential issue, construct a resolution, and then either autonomously or along with a human companion and approval, go ahead and execute that action. One of the things that Lena can do out of the box is we've done all the integrations, and I say all we've done many, and we're continuing to do many more integrations with all the different devices and technologies that you see in these networks. So, as a generative AI, Lena can generate information for human consumption, but Lena can also generate structured information that translate down to device commands in various ways. So Lena can actually take action and do things on her own, and, we default to saying “her” because get used to personifying. Some people lean into that, some people don't. But you really kind of think about it as this if you had your next hire, your next employee that had all of this institutional knowledge and had the ability to take action in this way. What would be the ROI on something like that? I assume that if there's a problem emerging that seems kind of weird, that can take quite a bit of time theoretically to come to a resolution, unless you have somebody on staff who is almost like Lena and has that encyclopedic knowledge, otherwise it's going to take many minutes, right? Erik DeGiorgi: We quantify value in two ways, coming from two different directions. Again, think about the application. We're primarily focused on day one is kind of meeting spaces, conference rooms, classrooms, that type of stuff. So you have people, employees, workers going into those spaces, and your sales and marketing people having meetings every day and using those spaces. How much downtime is there in those rooms and what's the value of eliminating some of that downtime, right? So it's kind of a workforce efficiency quantification and we ran that as an exercise and based on our pricing models and some averages of salaries for typical people and took a stab at it and if we save one person in one room two minutes a day, it pays for itself. So imagine a meeting of four people. If you can shave 30 seconds off of that, it pays for itself. So that's kind of one way to look at it. The other way is what you were talking about is kind of the operational side. What is the cost to operate these networks and to develop that skilled labor, to deploy that skilled labor? And even with that skilled labor, there's kind of the human component. It takes time to process information to think through things. Lena operates at a different pace. So being able to not only just problem solve, troubleshoot, and come to a resolution quicker, but our real objective is actually to mitigate most of those problems from occurring to begin with. We're going to be showing a couple of things at ISE. I'll just give you a tangible example. A room check is something that we're going to be demonstrating. So for those unaware, at most corporate spaces, there are people that go around and check the rooms on a daily and weekly basis. It's a high frequency. It's a very manual process. I'm going room to room running a test call, making sure things are working before the start of the day. It's a high labor, high cost process. So we're actually demonstrating an automated room check where Lena being embedded in the network can go and perform that activity autonomously at really any frequency. So we're actually going to break the system and we'll be demoing Lena identifying that and actually resolving it. So something's logged out. I'm going to log back into that room's zoom account and run a test call and give it the green light. That's a very tangible thing. That's a real world thing that a lot of people do in these spaces that costs a lot of money and it's something that we're going to be able to help out with. Is this the way AI works, is it kind of a continuous learning thing, where the more that Lena is applied to a system, the more it's learning about its quirks and things that happen, or is it kind of a preset load of information and it's just working off of that? Erik DeGiorgi: It's an interesting question. I would answer that by saying it's kind of a hybrid, because there's a couple things there. So first there's, I think, a data security and data integrity aspect, and that's something we take very seriously. So we were deploying and as we grow and many enterprises as we did in our previous company, of course, we're not going to be extracting any information or learning from that specific application and bringing that into the general knowledge. So none of our users' information related to this specific network gets brought into the general learning, right? So we take a very, data security approach. I mean, AI is exciting. It's going to change things, but it's also scary, right? It's new, and we want to make sure that we have a very clear focus. I'm in a very clear message around that, that as we deploy this, any state specific or enterprise specific information is retained by that and it's not brought back into the general knowledge. But, in a different way of answering that question, our platform is built to think critically about situations and develop its own logic flows and reasoning flows. So what it is not is pre programmed, in a sense. If this, then that, right? That's not what we've done. We've created a body of knowledge and we've created a set of contexts and parameters, and then we allow Lena to kind of think on her own in order to address and identify and work essentially, again, the way a person would. So there's kind of a big question we could go in a couple different directions, but I don't know if that helps at all. Yeah, it does. I'm curious. The thing about AI, particularly in its early ages, and it's come a long way in the last year and a half, but one of the concerns was around hallucinations and AI models just making shit up. How do you kind of wall that in so that if you have a resource archive that when Lena is trying to troubleshoot something and it comes up with a resolution, how confident can you be that this it's absolutely working off of what's there and not just kind of imagineering some other solution? Erik DeGiorgi: Yeah, absolutely. So just as a human being would, if I ask you a question, you're going to want to have an answer, right? And if you don't really know the answer, you might kind of fudge it, right? These models are not too dissimilar in that respect. So it's a complicated answer. There are several, if not many things that can be done. There's a lot of context that's provided, so Lena is never reaching out to the internet and looking for information. Lena's on rails in that sense, there's a very kind of tight context, we have built in mechanisms within the platform to self audit and self check so when Lena is presenting something, you know like, here's an issue. I'm going to construct a potential resolution to that. There's actually mechanisms that we've built into the platform that will take that output and fact check it, if that makes sense, at a high level. So you're absolutely right. It's absolutely a problem. But there are several mechanisms that we've put in place in order to mitigate hallucination, and quite seriously, we interact with this platform quite a bit as you can imagine, and it's really not an issue. So with automation, are there kind of guardrails around that? Because if anybody who's watched Hollywood movies thinks about Skynet and Terminator and everything in between. So if there's a problem, would Lena decide, okay, we're having a problem with overheating, so I'll just turn off all the power in the building. Erik DeGiorgi: No, I mean, again, Lena has very tight parameters, right? And it's actually not that hard to constrain a model in that way. We're not just letting this thing loose and it's multifold, right? So it's built into Lena's programming to not do that, but beyond that, automation is enabled as much as the human counterpart want to, right? So are there non mission critical things that we're allowing when it's fully automated? Are there things that we need, human confirmation, it kind of just depends on the workflow. It depends on the application, how much you want to automate and how much you don't to be candid. You know, we're learning what the temperature of the early adopters is and seeing it. It's a brave new world for all of us. We're trying to figure out, it's all new, right. And it's not gonna be hell where it kills the crew to protect the mission. So it's far more benevolent, I think. I like to think about it more as the computer on the Starship Enterprise. Let's use, like, a good one, right? It's your friendly AI that's keeping track of all your critical systems and is there to help you work through problems. I'm guessing among potential customers, there's at least a couple of lines of thinking. One being that Lena would allow us to do more with the staff that we have in our knocks or whatever their operation they're thinking about for it, but the other one would be Lena can take the place of like five staffers and we can save half a million bucks or something Erik DeGiorgi: Yeah, it's an interesting question. It's one we actually talk about quite a bit and you know, disruption disrupts in many ways, right? This technology is most certainly disruptive and that's not just in signage,it's going to be in every aspect of our life going forward. But I believe and it's just not my belief, but it's what I hear and observe, is that the teams, the humans that are actually tasked with doing the operational work every day are so overwhelmed, that it's going to be more of the former, right? At least at the outset, certainly, there's so much we were talking about it the other day. You know, we have an immense amount of data. How much data comes out of these networks use your, example network, you were talking about the retail installation, how much data comes back from that network, whether it's telemetry or whether it's telemetry coming back at the device level or whether it's information based on viewership. I mean, there's so much data that's coming from these systems. How much of it's actually used? You know, I don't know, if I take a stab at it, under 10%, 5%, I mean, probably very little of it's actually used. It's overload. So why don't you just put it on and now you have your data analyst and you can actually leverage that information. So there's a lot of work that's not being done in the spaces that Lena can step in and do that can support and work alongside human operators that are presently overtasked. For those people who are listening and thinking well, this sounds interesting. I wonder if this can apply to my business and my operation they would then be wondering How do I do this? Am I buying an enterprise license? Am I having to install a local server? Is it a SaaS model? How does all this work? Erik DeGiorgi: Yeah, so we are a pure SaaS model, and again there's a couple of different go to markets, whether it's your channel, but let's just say like the direct to end user. If I'm an enterprise and I want to adopt the platform, it's a SaaS model, it's largely a cloud based, all the magic goes on and in our cloud infrastructure. There's an edge client that gets deployed into each of the local networks in the enterprise, and between the cloud infrastructure, between the edge client, which is typically virtualized in the network, we securely and safely can communicate with all of the connected devices and operate the network as we've been talking about. What kind of a learning curve is involved? I mean, I assume this is not the sort of thing that you just sign up for and get your activation code, plug it in and off you go to the races, like there would have to be quite a bit of onboarding, I would imagine. Erik DeGiorgi: Right. Well, so there is onboarding. I would say, in comparison to maybe some of the other universal multi vendor monitoring and management tools, it's less. I'll explain why. The burden to onboard our platform, so of course we work very closely with the client to do all of this, but we essentially do an asset dump, right? So every enterprise has a spectrum of asset management, let's just say, from enterprise to enterprise. So we bring that in, we clean it, we structure it so we know where everything is, there's a physical check to make sure that the right equipment is in the right place every. Again, we're focusing on rooms and meeting spaces and that kind of thing. So there's typically a specific vocabulary or nomenclature to those spaces that might be named after a sports team or something. I actually had an account of, believe it or not, that was named their rooms geographical places, but actually geographical places that they had other offices. So they had literally an office in Paris that had rooms called Milan and Berlin and everything. So imagine having to figure out how to train the model to not get screwed up with that. But nonetheless, that's our problem. So there's a bit of specific learning to the application. You onboard the devices and then really you're off and running because there's two main things that we do. We've done all the integrations with the devices so you really don't have to do that and unlike existing platforms where you have to do a lot of programming, like let's say you wanted a single touch to reboot a room or something like that and there's three or four devices or log into something, right? Typically, you'd have to program those subroutines and create those command structures, but all that's generated in our platform. So it's really saying, this is what I have, this is where it is, and that's it. So yes, there's onboarding, but compared to existing platforms, it's actually quite light. Is that onboarding part of the SaaS fee or am I paying like a number to get that part done? Erik DeGiorgi: We're still figuring that out. What the objective and what we've done thus far is: you sign a contract with us. We do that work for you. There's no upfront fees and you're just paying your, your typical SaaS. But you're kind of learning on the fly and you may realize, Jesus, this is taking like two weeks of labor to onboard each our clients and need to do charge something to cover that Erik DeGiorgi: Well, that's why I chose my words carefully because I might we're figuring it out as we go. But that's the objective, right? The objective is that we just want to make it really clean, really simple. Hey, you're a customer you're locked into a year or two or three a contract, it's fine. We're going to get you up and running and we're going to support you along the way, and we're not going to nickel and dime you. So you talked to an integrator, I know you're kind of pre selling this to companies, at least making them aware. How are they responding? Erik DeGiorgi: Well, very well. We had a UC, industry veteran join us several months ago, he has about 30 years in the industry, Polycom, Crestron, and almost every day, we're having lots of really high level conversations with end users, integrators, partners at all levels. We just kind of pinch ourselves. We're still batting a thousand, like every single conversation has led to more and everybody's very excited about it. You know, there's been this huge AI buzz. There really hasn't been a lot behind it, behind the buzz, and so we're super excited to show real world applications, bringing actual value to the industry and it's resonating, and we're very excited. We had a pre-call and I asked about the level of activity among particularly larger companies in AI, and I was surprised when you said that it's largely just a roadmap item still for most companies. Erik DeGiorgi: Overwhelmingly, with a couple exceptions, the general feedback that we get is: we need to figure out how to do something with you. We know AI needs to be part of our strategy. You know, it's on paper and that's kind of about as far as we've gotten with it. If people want to know more about this, they could find you online at Netspeek.com, right? Erik DeGiorgi: That's right. Netspeek.com, and of course on LinkedIn, and for those going to the show we'd love to see you there. All right. Thank you, Erik. Erik DeGiorgi: Great to catch up, Dave. Thanks so much.

AV SuperFriends: Off the Rails - Vaporware and BS and nonsense

AV SuperFriends

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 15, 2025 65:59 Transcription Available

Recorded January 10, 2025 In our first episode of the year, we launch a brand new series where we review some of our recent internal projects. Marc kicks it off with his project of an ambitious transformation of a residential-standard building into a modern collaborative space, complete with flexible meeting spaces for a mix of university staff and non-university guest users. Also news of the discontinuation of Crestron's DigitalMedia products (but not really) and consumer devices driving commercial AV. Crestron's announcement: https://go.crestroninfo.com/webmail/767943/1926282682/f167ee3ceca170406bc12c4d7b1f96a64cd2029764e3a6dd248c7290118a0ac2 AI-suggested alternate show titles: War Room Woes Dirt Walls and Other Disasters The Great Crestron Conundrum MicroLED Madness Consumer AV: The New Frontier Teams Rooms: The Unexpected Solution From Residential to Revolutionary Much better human-suggested alternate show titles: That hyphen is important It's not a house Buckets of use case Digital signage president Wow wall Leadership didn't want to spend a lot of money That's where all our stuff lives They're not fake; they're just stupid A lot of surface mounted garbage In need of some type of technology This sh*t never changes Little tiny sharpshooter groups Explore the rooms We stream live every Friday at about 3:30 PM Eastern/12:30 PM Pacific, and you can listen to everything we record over at AVSuperFriends.com ▀▄▀▄▀ CONTACT LINKS ▀▄▀▄▀ ► Website: https://www.avsuperfriends.com ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/avsuperfriends ► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/avsuperfriends ► YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@avsuperfriends ► Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/avsuperfriends.bsky.social ► Email: mailbag@avsuperfriends.com ► RSS: https://avsuperfriends.libsyn.com/rss Donate to AVSF: https://www.avsuperfriends.com/support

ai leadership digital explore nonsense blue sky av digital media buckets off the rails super friends vaporware crestron

Customer Stories and Enhancing Meetings with AI, Brad Hintze, Crestron

Microsoft Teams Insider

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 15, 2025 23:14 Transcription Available

Brad Hintze, EVP Global Marketing at Crestron, shares customer stories about how Crestron enhances customer meeting room experiences.Examples from Puma, Fortuna Entertainment Group and Blue Water Financial ServicesCrestron's wide array of solutions cater to diverse meeting room setups from small huddle rooms to large boardroomsThe growing significance of AI features such as transcription in meeting spacesThe importance of superior audio quality when it comes to AIDevelopments coming in 2025, including advancements in visual AI, multi-camera systemsThanks to Crestron, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support.

stories ai meetings enhancing puma crestron

The Puzzle of Leadership

The Impostor Syndrome Files

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 14, 2025 32:19

In this episode of the Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about leadership. Being a people leader is hard! It's especially hard in a rapidly changing world where there is so much more to think about and so much less time available to us. My guest this week is Scott Allen, a management professor and leadership consultant who talks about what he refers to as the puzzle of leadership. Here we explore the challenges facing current leaders and how to approach them through curiosity and experimentation. Scott also shares three important action steps all people leaders should take to build their confidence and maximize their effectiveness. And, finally, we talk about some options to consider if you're working for a difficult boss.About My GuestScott J. Allen, Ph.D., is an award-winning educator passionate about working with people at all levels and across industries. He serves as an instructor in SMU's Cox School of Business Executive Education and spent more than 18 years as a professor of management. His areas of expertise include leader development, the future of work, and executive communication.Scott has published more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. He's the co-author of several books, including The Little Book of Leadership Development: 50 Ways to Bring Out the Leader in Every Employee; Emotionally Intelligent Leadership: A Guide for College Students; Discovering Leadership: Designing Your Success; and Captovation: Online Presentations by Design. Scott hosts Phronesis: Practical Wisdom for Leaders, ranked among the world's top 2.5% of podcasts. Along with the podcast, he publishes a weekly newsletter called The Leader's Edge.Scott frequently serves as a keynote speaker. In addition, he consults, facilitates workshops, and leads retreats across industries. Recent engagements include Lubrizol, Key Bank, Progressive, Nestle, EY, Siegfried Group, Dallas Area Rapid Transit, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Sherwin Williams, Whiting-Turner, Toyota Motor North America, Lexus, Gee Automotive, Crestron, NASA-Glenn, Elbit America, Oatey, Dominion/Enbridge, Endeavor Energy Resources, TransAlta, FedEx Custom Critical, Thompson Hine LLP, Nordson, and Cleveland Clinic. Scott served on the board of the International Leadership Association, Association of Leadership Educators, and Management and Organizational Behavior Teaching Society. He was named an ILA Fellow by the International Leadership Association in 2021.~Connect with Scott:Website: https://www.scottjallen.net LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-j-allen/ ~Connect with Kim and The Impostor Syndrome Files:Join the free Impostor Syndrome Challenge:https://www.kimmeninger.com/challengeLearn more about the Leading Humans discussion group:https://www.kimmeninger.com/leadinghumansgroupJoin the Slack channel to learn from, connect with and support other professionals: https://forms.gle/Ts4Vg4Nx4HDnTVUC6Join the Facebook group:https://www.facebook.com/groups/leadinghumansSchedule time to speak with Kim Meninger directly about your questions/challenges: https://bookme.name/ExecCareer/strategy-sessionConnect on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimmeninger/Website:https://kimmeninger.com

AV Over IP With Crestron | The Road To ISE 2025

spain barcelona ip av evp fira crestron integrated systems europe

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 7, 2025 4:28

We're coming back to Barcelona for one of the biggest trade shows for the AV industry. Integrated Systems Europe 2025 comes to the Fira from February 4-7 in Spain, and we're on the path to see what innovative solutions we can expect to see. We talk to Crestron's EVP of Global Marketing Brad Hintze about what we can expect at their stand at H300 in Hall 3. We also discuss the rise of AV over IP and the value of that flexibility for a system.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

215. The Future Is Bright In Home Automation And Lighting Control - With Jason Lemay, Owner Cite Solutions

The Real Build

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 26, 2024 57:20

In this episode of The Real Build, I sat down with Jason Lemay, owner of CITE Solutions. Jason has 25+ years of experience in custom home lighting control, home automation, and residential electrical systems. Jason Specializes in Lutron and Crestron systems. He is experienced with all home automation and lighting platforms. Jason and I touched on a few different topics like: Listening to your clients so you can deliver a top notch product. The best home attomation system for your home. Advancements in home automation What to look for when hiring an automation company. Guest Info: Jason Lemay Website: ⁠⁠⁠https://cite-solutions.com/ Linkedin: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lemay-0b0b572b/ Host Info: Email: Bill@rkreiman.com CONNECT WITH ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ▶︎ YOUTUBE | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxAdSxHN0dIXZPhA-6p1HYA ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ▶︎ INSTAGRAM | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/imbillreiman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ▶︎FACEBOOK| ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/billy.reiman ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ▶︎ LINKEDIN | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-reim...⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ▶︎ TWITTER | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/ImBillReiman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ▶︎ WEBSITE | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.rkreiman.com⁠

owner bright lighting advancements cite lemay home automation lutron crestron

Simplifying AV Management Through The Network | AVWeek 695

management network tesla cloud av simplifying choice awards shure crestron av it

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 16, 2024 30:33

Cloud revolution, converged networks, and sustainability are transforming the AV landscape! The industry is redefining Device Management like Tesla disrupted the auto industry. Industry leaders are breaking down AV and IT barriers. Crestron becomes the first AV manufacturer to achieve sustainability certification.This week, industry experts join us to explore the latest trends in commercial AV, including Xyte's innovative cloud platform, the evolution of converged AV/IT networks offering cost savings and improved management, and Crestron's strides in environmental responsibility, addressing IT departments' focus on energy cost savings and sustainability.Host: Tim AlbrightGuests:Kelly Teel – Kelly on LinkedInRon Callis – OneFireflyMike Gleason – UtelogyLinks to sources:AVNation – Xyte's First AV Cloud SummitCommercial Integrator – Crestron Attains SAVe CertificationInavate On The Net – Converged Networks & AV SystemsNotes:AVNation studios production equipment provided by Shure and Vaddio.Select Nominees for our AVNation Readers' Choice Awards 2024 here! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Episode 184: Josh Willits on How AI is Transforming Portal Proposals

covid-19 coo transforming released portal av proposals mechanicsburg willits crestron

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 12, 2024 55:41

On this week's podcast, Josh Willits joins us from Mechanicsburg, PA, where he is COO of Portal, the proposal software and product/pricing database for integrators. Although you've seen him wearing the Portal orange pants at trade shows going on 11 years now, Josh's career has also included a tenure in the custom integration trade, as well as several years with a well-respected Crestron programming company. You may even remember his Covid-era side hustle as a gentleman coffee roaster.Today we'll touch on a bit of that career arc, but mostly we'll focus on Portal's latest innovation: the AI Proposal Builder. Released in beta to the industry on November 12, the new tool promises AV and security dealers the ability to create complete project proposals in just seconds, transforming often-tedious process and making it easier for integrators to sell projects and get paid.

How AV Revolutionized The NY Giants Draft Room | AVNation Special

ai research vice president recovery frost rooms relevance byod decisionsthe crestron

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 7, 2024 28:34

This year, the New York Giants and Image Engineering worked with Crestron to revolutionize their Draft Room. This state-of-the-art dynamic space has multiple displays and solutions to provide seamless operation of roster updates, meetings and more. We sat down with Ty Siam of the New York Giants, Ian Bottiglieri from Image Engineering and Brad Hintze from Crestron to discuss the steps of modernizing the room and the process in making those solutions.Host: Tim AlbrightGuests:Ty Siam – New York GiantsIan Bottiglieri – Image EngineeringBrad Hintze – CrestronLinks to sources:AVNation – Crestron Transforms New York Giants Draft RoomSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

draft new york giants revolutionized crestron avnation

The Year of Recovery for Video Rooms and the Relevance of BYOD

Microsoft Teams Insider

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 30, 2024 27:08 Transcription Available

Roopam Jain, Vice President of Research, Information and Communications Technologies at Frost & Sullivan, explores the evolution of room video systems, the impact of hybrid work and office modernisation.The influence of the UC/Collab platform on room system decisionsThe transformative role of AI in enhancing meeting experiencesBYOD is becoming a significant part of the meeting experienceSustainability is a key consideration in workplace technologyThanks to Crestron, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support.

QSC Acquired for $1.2 BILLION | AVWeek 688

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 28, 2024 27:16

There are some huge changes brewing in the world of AV! Acuity has purchased QSC and Q-SYS for $1.2 billion, with a B. A second Sphere is set to be built in Abu Dhabi, and the potential for other significant AV projects across the globe. Crestron opens a new experience center in New York, offering clients a chance to see these solutions in action.Every week, we break down the biggest news and stories relating to the world of AV. Tim Albright sits down with industry experts to talk about the significant impact of these trends and what integrators need to know. Joining us this week is Steve Greenblatt host of a State of Control and Michael Braithwaite of Modern Atomics.Host: Tim AlbrightGuests:Michael Braithwaite – Modern AtomicsSteve Greenblatt – Control ConceptsLinks to sources:rAVe Pubs – Acuity acquires QSC for $1.2 billionInnavate On the Net – Sphere coming to Abu DhabiAVNation – Crestron's Experience Center in New YorkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

new york state billion av abu dhabi sphere acquired acuity crestron experience center qsc tim albright

When There's Too Many Remotes | ResiWeek 454

new york building remotes crestron

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 23, 2024 30:43

Crestron opens a new experience center in New York. We continue the eternal discussion about if show rooms are necessary. OliverIQ offers a new "smart home as a service" alongside their app. What's the state of control (devices) in residential? Building the ultimate smart home space and how integrators can help their clients achieve that dream.Host: Mitchell ToolenGuests:Jason Knott – D-ToolsMark Feinberg – Home Theater AdvisorsBrad Cook – AlfredLinks to sources:Residential Tech Today – Creston's Experience CenterResidential Tech Today – OliverIQ Smart Home as a ServiceResidential Systems – Building the Home OfficeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Creating Immersive Workplace Experiences with Crestron

The Collaboration Space

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 22, 2024 12:40

Before we dive in, here is the link to the 10/29/24 Crestron Manhattan Experience Center Open House the panel mentioned.Welcome back to The Collaboration Space! In this episode, we'll discuss the effects of the return to work debate that's heating up and what it means to you and your teams.We've seen mandates in the news, including the latest from Amazon, who is targeting January 2025 for a mandatory 5 days in the office schedule. But it's likely that around the globe, hybrid rules will still apply, too, since employees don't want to give up that flexibility. So it's time to ask, "What does your workspace look like? When was the last time they've been updated? Now is the time to earn the commute with immersive experiences in the office with modern technology.Cara Shannon and Joel Mulpeter from Crestron are joining our discussion today.Watch the video podcast to explore insights from AVI-SPL and Crestron panelists, including:How do we create high-impact spaces that really encourage us all to go back to the office and yet still help us connect to our remote teammates?Types of high-impact spaces: ideal for in-person experiences in larger spacesHow Crestron Sightline delivers an inclusive experience for hybrid team members and supports multiple core platforms in the roomYou'll also hear feedback from teams using Crestron Sightline rooms and how these rooms create an inclusive experience with technology such as:1 Beyond camerasAI-powered speaker framingAutomate VXDisplaysCrestron DM NVXCrestron FlexOne-button connectReady to add Crestron Sightline to your meeting spaces? Email us at contact@avispl.com, and we'll connect you with an expert at your local AVI-SPL office.Learn more about AVI-SPL and Crestron.Get AV and unified communications news delivered to your inbox.Follow AVI-SPL: Linkedin Twitter YouTube

amazon experiences workplace types immersive crestron

Episode 182: 30+ Years of Inventions with Modern Atomics' Mike Braithwaite

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 21, 2024 57:56

On this week's podcast, Modern Atomics co-founder Michael Braithwaite joins us from Austin, TX, to discuss his 30-plus-year career as an innovator and inventor of smart home and commercial AV technology. Mike and Jeremy recently re-connected, prior to his new company's launch at CEDIA Expo last month in Denver, and that chat was so insightful, that Jeremy wished afterwards that he'd recorded it for this podcast. In this episode they re-capture some of that magic as they discuss Modern Atomics' first product, called Reaktor, which is a power distribution unit designed specifically to save energy while powering motorized shades. We also learn how the company plans to use its innovations in other applications going forward and look back on Mike's impressive career leading Crestron's residential systems group in the early 2000s, co-founding NetStreams, and helping bring more innovation to Screen Innovations. Special thanks this week's sponsor: the Sonos Era 100 Pro.

modern tx invention av braithwaite reaktor crestron atomics sonos era cedia expo

Many Ways To Use Crestron's AV over IP NAX | Road To CEDIA Expo 2024

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 2, 2024 5:44

Michael Short, Senior Director of Residential for Crestron talks about the interesting ways they'll be showcasing their NAX audio distribution solution at booth 1901 during CEDIA Expo 2024.CEDIA Expo 2024 is coming to Denver September 5-7, coinciding with the second Commercial Integrator Expo. This presents not a look at the latest innovations in the residential space but the commercial side as well and where those interests overlap for the custom integration channel. AVNation brings you the coverage not just during the show, but the days leading up to it.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

senior director residential many ways crestron michael short nax cedia expo avnation

AI Brings The End of Ceiling Microphones | AVWeek 678

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 19, 2024 33:16

The end of ceiling mics is coming thanks to AI. The power of companies partnering for developing IT and AV talent. How lobbing efforts could help AV users and IT managers.Tune in to AVWeek with Tim Albright and industry pros from Crestron, AV Magazine, and the government sector as they dive into the hottest trends in commercial AV. Extron's partnership with NSCA and the XBO Experience to further workforce development. Find out how AI is revolutionizing audio (goodbye, complex ceiling mics!) Catch CEDIA's bold push for federal recognition of the "Technology Integrator" role—set to reshape the industry!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

ai av microphones ceiling nsca crestron tim albright extron

Episode 88: Crafting a Compelling Product Narrative With Enablement

Win Win Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 15, 2024 24:09

Research from Sales Enablement Pro found that reps are 15% more likely to understand how to navigate different sales scenarios when utilizing sales plays. So how can you ensure your sales teams are effectively equipped for success?Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Win Win Podcast. I’m your host, Shawnna Sumaoang. Join us as we dive into changing trends in the workplace and how to navigate them successfully. Here to discuss this topic is John Hesseltine, the senior manager of sales enablement at Crestron Electronics. Thank you for joining us, JJ. I’d love for you to tell us about yourself, your background, and your role. John Hessaltine: Thank you for having me, Shawnna. As you said, I’m the senior manager of sales enablement at Crestron Electronics. We do a bunch of different things that make everyone’s lives easier and I’ve been here for almost six years. I previously came from another manufacturer in the professional AV space. In total, maybe 12 years total in the professional AV scene. But I’m not alone, right? I have a fantastic team of six people who all work together to create sales enablement content all within Highspot. So it’s clearly not just a job for one person, I represent the whole team here and we’re excited to be a part of this. As for like the role and what we do, like it’s been in flux for the last six years since I’ve been within sales enablement, it’s still like sales enablement still an extremely new position, we’re still trying to figure out what it means. Sales enablement folks know what it means, [but] everyone else within the company is like, “So what is it that you do?” I guess what that means is we’ve been changing what we do every so often. Every year we have new updates, roll out different strategies, and try to implement new changes to hopefully equip the sales team better around the globe for Crestron. It’s been a lot of fun and we just try to make ourselves useful for everyone. SS: I love that. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us today, I appreciate it. Crestron Electronics is definitely on the cutting edge of innovation and manufacturing. What are some of the strategic initiatives that you are focused on driving for the business and how does your enablement strategy help to support these? JH: For folks that don’t know Crestron Electronics, we have almost 2,000 unique SKUs —a super wide range of products that we offer: commercial, residential, marine education, government healthcare, and hospitality. We do so much stuff [for] everyone that’s behind the scenes if you will. The way we say it is we make spaces smart, we enhance the way people live and work, and we do all that via hardware or software. There’s a lot of stuff that goes into manufacturing, but it’s really difficult to enable [for] 2,000 unique SKUs. You could do content for each one of those or each product family, but that doesn’t totally work.What our value is as a company is how we bring all of that together to create one consistent ecosystem, regardless of if you’re in the home, or if you’re in the office, or you’re in the hospital, a hotel, or a school. We bring all that together and that’s where sales enablement is key. Being able to consistently deliver a message, not just about products, but how all those products come together as a multi-layered, multifaceted approach. Creating value not just for the end user, but the IT professionals and the people that have to work with the technology on the backend every day.So, really it’s enabling our sales folks to talk about, and position our ecosystem, and leverage everything that we have to provide the best possible experience. That’s what we do when we create storylines, right? We work with a bunch of folks in different aspects of the business. We have people in vertical marketing and channel marketing, we work with the various team leads and VPs to come up with consistent strategies for their teams to leverage with all our products. A hospital is going to use the same product that potentially an enterprise is going to use, but they’re going to use them in different ways and they’re going to connect to different things. We enable folks to speak proficiently about our product and our solutions specific to the market. That’s what we’re doing and that’s how sales enablement is helping Crestron get that word out and that message out. SS: Now, you talked already about some of the unique considerations for the manufacturing industry, but how do you factor those into building an effective enablement strategy? JH: Part of the best thing about being a manufacturer, and especially when you’re techy, is you get to work with the people that build the product, engineer them, and design them. The biggest issue when working in an electronics manufacturer is translating that vision from the person that created it and making it accessible to everyone to understand not just, our customers, but also our sales team. We can do some really interesting and complex solutions for problems that our customers might face. It’s sometimes really hard to explain how we do that and what our value is in doing that. That’s one of the interesting things about being a manufacturer—you’re creating all this new stuff, and it has a place in the market, but you just have to tell the customers and tell the world what it does and how it does it.The way you do that is via your sales team. Of course, you can do marketing, you can put anything out there on the internet on the web, and make posts on LinkedIn. It's really making sure that your sales team can also articulate those advantages and they feel confident in doing it.We want to make sure that they can have conversations about the products and go a little bit in-depth when they need to. And that’s why we leverage, Sales Plays within Highspot. We can give them what to know, say, show, and do with their customers. And, it gives a really easy hopscotch approach within their sales opportunity. They go from their needs audit, or they ask questions of the customer to find out what it is that the customer is looking for. We don’t tell our sales team to go in there pushing X, Y, and Z products. We want them to sit down with the customer, understand what their needs are, and what their problems are, and have a meaningful conversation with them. Then we can start prescribing and telling them we think this would solve their issues, and here’s why. Highspot has allowed us to organize those conversations for the sales team in an easy-to-follow way. I think that from the manufacturing side, that’s difficult. Initially, without a platform like Highspot and without being able to organize all of this stuff, you would just get spec sheets, and spec sheets don’t tell a story. Some people can understand or read one, and they prefer that, and that’s fantastic. But a lot of people making purchasing decisions in our industry find a lot of value in other aspects and they don’t care to learn specifically about what the product or solution does.That’s the fun part about working for a manufacturer, we can make that story, extract from the spec sheets, and use those as data, but then create the story of how the sales team should use it and talk to the customers and show the value.SS: Now I want to focus specifically on the enablement components prior to Highspot. I believe you all were leveraging a different enablement platform to execute your strategy. What were some of the challenges you were facing during that time and what was the impetus for making a change? JH: This was before COVID, and we switched to Highspot during COVID. We switched to Highspot in early 2020 and we had already made that decision. But in December of 2019, someone who was pretty high up came walking by my desk [and said], “Hey, so and so says that the platform's not good.” And we’re like, “Oh, okay. Interesting.” And so I told my boss that, and it was “Oh, all right, we got to make a change.” It had reached the point where it was being spoken about that. What we have isn’t working and it was all the way at the top of the company. And we’re like, “Alright, we’ll make a change.”We did our due diligence, we looked and explored different options, and we landed on Highspot. It made a massive difference. We didn’t know what we were missing, we didn’t. It’s been a wild ride, we’ve been with Highspot for a little over three years at this point, and it’s been great. It’s been eye-opening and we’ve been learning so much and reiterating what we do with it. We weren’t able to get that with our previous platform and it’s been awesome also working with Highspot in large part, thanks to podcasts like this that we’re on now, where there are sales enablement pros also being a part of the journey with us as a customer.We learned so much from not just being in the platform, but from all of the content and all of the assets that Highspot as a company creates for the sales enablement industry. And that’s been extremely helpful for us to sit down and focus and not have to do our own research specifically, but listen to what you all say as pros, and it’s gone a long way to help us create a better platform for our users. SS: I do always love to hear that, so thank you. Now, talk to us about some of the challenges, though, and how you were able to overcome those challenges by leveraging Highspot to help? JH: Biggest challenge: I can’t find anything, and I don’t know where anything’s at. Our previous instance looked like a folder structure. No different than SharePoint, right? So that was the biggest hurdle, our sales team needed to find resources to use. We’ve been able to reorganize Highspot—search tags were a godsend. Being able to organize things with tags and then, guess what? The search works with tags. It just made it so easy to, you can find content. What we’re saying now—and we should have said this three years ago when we first started using Highspot—[if] you can use a mouse, you can use Highspot, it’s where you can find everything you need. Now granted, a lot of that has to do with my team of six folks who worked hard through multiple iterations, Highspot assisted with making a UI that makes sense for our users. We were able to do that, and the next thing was actually telling people how to use the content they found. Sales Plays was just like an epiphany. We didn’t have anything like a Sales Play prior to that, so we would just put assets on there. Comparison documents, compete documents, SWOT analyses, all the typical things sales say they need and marketing says you should do. We’re doing all that content, we would put it out there and announce it so people would know about it. But, only 20% of the sales team looks at the announcements we do.You can’t force their eyes like Clockwork Orange, where you just see and look at all our announcements for everything. Being able to organize it in a way that makes sense for the user has been able for us to leverage, to organize the content in a way that they see it, they find it, no matter their journey to get there, regardless if they’re clicking, or if they’re searching, or if they’re looking at one of the Sales Plays we made, right? We have the content in multiple different ways which has been super helpful. We still get calls about, “Do we have any assets about this?” Absolutely. But, those calls are super diminished. If anything, it’s great now because everyone knows that they should be looking in Highspot first.They say I didn’t find it in Highspot. We might have done something wrong, but we’re also super happy that the sales team is using Highspot to find content. It’s been great. It went from something that was, “I guess I need to look in there for something”, to the default workflow and work path for the sales team.They will look at Highspot first before they go to our website. They will look at Highspot first before they go to our marketing portal. Highspot is that single location where they go to find anything, and that’s it. There are certain things we don’t have on Highspot for a reason, and we get questions like, “Hey, why isn’t this on Highspot?” “Oh, because of this.” “Oh, yeah, that makes sense.” But it’s so ingrained in them now to go check Highspot first. It’s great, we’ve been able to surface the content and organize it in ways that we weren’t able to do before, and that’s made all the difference for us. SS: And I can tell because your results are amazing. You guys have an incredible 92% adoption rate. I’d love to understand, what are some of your best practices for driving adoption with your reps? JH: It’s a name, actually. Jill, on my team, is one of the reasons that we have such great results. One of the great things about this whole sales enablement thing is people know who we are now. Our names are associated with all the content we do and one of those names is Jill, on our team. She calls every single rep, and we’re a global company, so we have people all around the globe and she calls every single one of them. From their bosses, their directors, and their VPs, and asks them, “What are you using from Highspot that is successful? What else do you need? Do you have any comments?”We have constant contact with all of our sales reps and we use Highspot as the backbone for it. “Did you see this, by the way? We just added this to Highspot and we just announced it out. Did you see this?” “Oh yeah, I’ve seen it and I had a lot of success using that with X, Y, Z customers.”We pick up the phone and call people. I know it’s a weird concept nowadays, but we literally do schedule phone calls, and Jill calls everyone in the organization and it helps us get everyone on the same page. So that’s one of the ways that we drive adoption.We call them and tell them what’s new, right? [It's] really easy to ignore an email, especially when you get multiple emails from the same source over and over again because we’re constantly churning out content for them. You can’t ignore a phone call, [and] you don’t want to ignore the phone call from Jill. It’s great though and that’s how we get a lot of uptake on the platform. SS: Communication is key, so that’s fantastic. JJ, you’ve talked about this a few times, but I’d like to actually click into it a little bit. A major part of your strategy is Sales Plays, for which you even won an Impact Award—congratulations. What are your best practices for building effective Plays? JH: The first thing we did, and maybe it’ll help others get their Play adoption up, is we make like a monthly reader’s digest for each of our market verticals. We call that the monthly message and we make that in a Sales Play format.So that is the default thing, we put everything in there. It’s not like we’re explaining everything, we just have links. It’s like a repository, a link to Plays, and it trees out from Play to Play as you go down there. We have all the sales teams default. “Oh, I’m going to look at the commercial monthly message. I’ll look at the residential monthly message.” And you can’t go wrong when you look at that because of all the content that we create. The sales enablement team, we don’t just say, I feel like making a piece of content or a Sales Play on this today. We work with the sales leaders and find out what they are really focused on—if there’s a new product, or a really big initiative.We don’t just create content for content’s sake, we make it relevant to the business, and our sales team travels a lot. If they just need to check in on, “Oh, what is it I’m supposed to be doing?” It’s in a Sales Play. It’s right on the homepage of Highspot when they log in. We have the monthly message Sales Play and that has other Sales Plays in it. They can go in, they know that they’re going to get an organized structure of, what to say about it, what our advantages are, there might be a competitive analysis in there that they can look at or leverage, and pitch out to a customer when they’re going up against a competitor like that. And it’s just become an integral part of the experience within Highspot.Yes, we have a lot of individual assets, but almost every asset is made in response to a Play. They’re all tied in there and they’re all interconnected. Plays have been a major part of our time at Highspot and we find them good to leverage. It’s a solid solution and we don’t make them too big either. SS: Absolutely. It sounds like you’ve created a really interconnected experience for them leveraging plays. How do you leverage those same sales plays to help support some of the key strategic initiatives that you’re driving for the business? JH: Like I said, we do them based on new product launches or campaigns that we’re leveraging. But the main thing is, we have a red phone all the way to the top, and we can talk to anyone. That’s one of the great things that we’re privileged to have, is we can speak with anyone. We use those Plays to say, this is what XVP is saying, this is what the mandate is, right? At the end of the day, we all have marching orders. The plays encapsulate that, right? And that’s how we get strategic initiatives accomplished. I can give you an example. Recently there was some industry news.The first thing that happened, the head of residential sales called us and said, “I need a Sales Play about this subject right now.” We created a form, he gave us a little bit of information, and we went with it from there. We worked with marketing, we created a Sales Play, it was super timely and super important. Then, what the head of sales did, he called every single rep and said, “There’s a Sales Play made. I need you to read that. There’s also a Pitch template made. I need you to pitch that to every single one of your customers.” This is not typical, but it was extremely timely. We just got handed a golden opportunity and we need to take this, our whole sales team needs to act on it immediately. Sales Plays are super vital and super important to us and as a result, we reached out to thousands of people, thousands of customers and have opened up conversations that, those doors we thought were closed. We’ve opened up conversations with those customers again, those deals, and it’s been great.So we’ve had a great response with it. It’s awesome, the sales leaders, like the head of sales, think of Highspot first when he wants to get a message out. SS: That is amazingly impactful and again, another area where you guys are seeing amazing results. You’ve driven 88% Play Adoption amongst your team, even in just the last few months. Can you tell us about some additional examples of the impact that you’ve been able to drive through plays? JH: I can’t give you numbers specifically because as we’re talking, our Salesforce sync is happening with Highspot, which is at 30% at the moment. So we don’t have numbers associated with anything. But I can tell you, my team sees it on LinkedIn all the time, we see our content being used on social media. Of course, it’s legally approved and able to be sent externally, we market as such within Highspot. But we see our content in use, we see the messages that we write, how we write things, and what we tell our sales team to say.We see that happen and then the sales team will come back to us and say, “I had a lot of success with this. This worked so well. Can we get something else like this?” I think the proof is in the pudding, we are seeing 100% impact of what we do. It is so cool to log into LinkedIn and then see new ways that people are using our content. I can’t give you numbers, but I can tell you that it’s being used and we see it everywhere. It’s great. SS: It sounds like it. JJ, last question for you. As you look to the year ahead, what are some trends or innovations you see that are really shaping the future of enablement in manufacturing?JH: AI. AI is something that we’re really excited about. Everyone’s talking about Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, and all of those things. I haven’t dabbled in that too much, but I’ve dabbled in a bit of the Highspot AI and how much that’s helped us. If that can translate over to creating content, that’d be awesome. As I said at the top, we have almost 2,000 unique SKUs. That’s a lot to create content for, and if we can just create little tidbits of information about something that we didn’t have before on certain SKUs, that’d be awesome and that helps a lot. I think AI is going to be a way that is going to make us more efficient, right? We’re not going to leverage AI to create new content from scratch. You have to feed it good material, but it’s just going to make our lives so much easier and so much quicker to collect the information, and put it in a standardized format that we can then bring to the finish line. As it is now, we spend hours, days, and weeks doing certain tasks. AI is going to make that easier and it allows us to be more efficient. I don’t know if AI is going to help us get more done, right? The biggest thing I learned from Highspot is it’s not always about more, but it’s also about the [quality], more importantly. We don’t want to do more Sales Plays.One of the biggest things I learned from Spark was you can only change the behavior of the sales team three times a quarter. More than that, the sales team is getting whiplash. We’re not going to use AI to create more content in that respect, but what we’re going to do is we’re going to use AI to help us focus more on creating better Plays for the sales team.AI is just going to take a load off our backs and we can focus more on what is impactful for our teams, and we think it’s Sales Plays. That’s what I’m looking forward to, I’m looking forward to more AI stuff. We're still in a trust, but verify phase with AI. I think that’s going to be a massive help to help us really concentrate on what we know is effective for our sales teams. SS: Amazing. I hope you’re joining us again at Spark ‘24 in October because I think we have a lot more innovation coming on that front. John, thank you so much for joining us today, I really appreciate the time. JH: Thank you. It was great. Thanks for having me on, I really appreciate it. SS: To our audience. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Win Win podcast. Be sure to tune in next time for more insights on how you can maximize enablement success with Highspot.

covid-19 ai research sales chatgpt product comparison narrative plays pitch spark crafting salesforce av ui compelling win win swot clockwork orange vps enablement sharepoint skus microsoft copilot impact award shawnna highspot crestron win win podcast shawnna sumaoang

Making A Successful Trade Show Interview | ResiWeek 444

google av trade shows chromecast livewire vanco crestron michael short cedia expo

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 14, 2024 27:24

Google is ditching Chromecast for a new box top device. How to prepare your team for on-camera success, especially since CEDIA Expo 2024 is coming up. Director Barry Sonnenfeld is delivering the keynote for CEDIA Expo 2024, and what that means for the industry.On this week's episode of ResiWeek, we are joined by Michael Short from Crestron, Henry Clifford of Livewire and Aaron Rozanski from Vanco. This panel takes a look at the lastest news and stories coming out of the residential side of the AV industry.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thomas Philippart de Foy, Appspace

Sixteen:Nine

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 3, 2024 36:37

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT One of the things I noticed bombing around the two exhibit halls at InfoComm in June was how most of the digital signage software companies were located in one hall, and some of them not looking all that busy, while there were at least a couple of others in the other hall, and they were packed with people. One of those companies was Appspace, and it was clear to me why the company was there with a very prominent stand. They were with their people, so to speak. While Appspace may have started years ago as another digital signage CMS software option, it now refers to itself as a unified workplace experience platform. That's why it was nested in with a bunch of other tech companies that provide the kinds of technologies - like collaboration tools - that drive contemporary workplaces. The company started out small, but now has 450 staff, offices all over the planet, and about 40% of the Fortune 500 as customers. I had a chat with Chief Innovation Officer Thomas Philippart de Foy back in 2022, and I wanted to do a catch-up with him because I was intrigued by what the company is up to. I also wanted to know more about how Appspace products have steadily been stitched into the fabric of how a lot of companies communicate, and tied in with many or most of the core tools now used around modern workplaces. I also wanted to better understand the company's recent announcement of developing native support for its software within Microsoft's Teams. Lots of CMS software companies have tie-ins these days with video conferencing tools, but Thomas explains in our chat how this is different. Subscribe from wherever you pick up new podcasts. TRANSCRIPT Thomas, nice to chat again. We've done a podcast in the past, but for people who maybe don't know much about Appspace and didn't listen to the last one, the fools, could you give me a rundown of what Appspace is all about? Thomas Philippart de Foy: Hi Dave. Thanks for having me on this podcast again. Appspace has changed a lot over the last 15 or 20 years. It was a digital signage vendor company many years ago. We are now considering ourselves as more of a unified workplace experience platform, delivering a lot of services to large enterprise customers, whether it's digital signage, which is one of the communication channels that we have, or an app, an intranet, or a whole workplace management suite of products. So the company has changed. We have around 450 people globally with offices around the world and really focused on the enterprise market, although we do a lot in the education space as well. Around 200 of the Fortune 500 companies use Appspace today. Where is the company based? Is it in Dallas? Thomas Philippart de Foy: Well, originally, the company was based in Dallas. Today, a lot of the leadership team is based in Tampa, Florida. So, I would say there is probably a split of headquarters between Dallas and Tampa. Both offices are very important for us in the US. In the early days, you can correct me, but I think a lot of the development was done in Malaysia, right? Thomas Philippart de Foy: Yes. We still have a very large product engineering organization in Malaysia. Our Chief Product Officer and co-founder, Stan Stephens is still based over there. So that hasn't changed, but obviously, we acquired a company in the US, The Marlin company, a few years back. So we have additional resources elsewhere in the US and then we acquired Beezy, which is an Intranet company out of Barcelona in Spain. So we now have a big dev team out of Barcelona and some dev people out of Porto in Portugal as well. I was at Infocomm recently and found my way over to the Central Hall. Most of the digital signage stuff was in the West Hall, but, if you could take a bus over to the Central Hall because of all the construction, I walked through there and saw the Appspace booth and saw it was very large and very, very busy. And you guys were just in the midst of an announcement. So I thought, well, okay, this would be a good time to kind of catch up on the company and what it's up to that announcement was around Teams integration, and I thought that was kind of interesting because I thought you were already integrated with Teams and it sounds like a lot of companies have done that, but what you're doing was distinct. Could you explain to me and the listeners what's different about the integration you've done with Teams and with the other platforms? Thomas Philippart de Foy: Sure. I remember having that conversation with you years back about digital signage on devices in meeting rooms and the benefits it would have for large organizations. Obviously, the pandemic increased the value of content on screens in meeting rooms, whether it's for safety purposes or education on how to use the technology in the room. We've natively integrated with several platforms, first with Cisco, integrating directly into their Control Hub platform. This allows you to enable signage from their backend. We also integrated Poly with Logitech. Today, we're especially excited because we're natively integrated into Microsoft Teams Rooms, the leading video conferencing platform in the industry, and being integrated directly into Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) makes it extremely easy for large organizations to scale signage services to all those devices from MTR directly. This means that when you enter a room, you're greeted with content on the screen. That content could be a welcome message, instructions on how to use the meeting space, or how to keep it clean after your meeting. It could be corporate messaging, but it can also include Microsoft Teams Rooms instructions, helping users navigate the technology in the room. We're very excited about the reception we received at Infocomm from customers. I was actually locked into a little meeting room under NDA; it was focused solely on Microsoft, and customers could come in to discover not only what we're doing with MTR but also our integration with Microsoft Teams through our embedded app and our SharePoint integration, essentially everything we're doing with Microsoft. And what's the difference between when other software companies say they're integrated with Teams and when you say there's a native integration? What's the difference there? Thomas Philippart de Foy: The first and the most important one is that we're the only vendor that's certified with Microsoft Teams Rooms. So if you have an issue with your MTR endpoint and you're running a noncertified digital signage solution on it, Microsoft is likely to say, “Hey, you're not using the product as it was designed. Therefore, it's not supported.” Because many large companies are using MTR, you would expect those companies to want to standardize on something certified by Microsoft. So certainly there is that aspect. The other one is how you deploy it. A lot of companies have so-called digital signage levering a web URL. We're running our app on an MTR endpoint, and it's deployed through MTR. So from a deployment standpoint, from a monitoring, it is a true digital signage endpoint, like any of the other apps-based digital signage endpoint. That gives you many additional capabilities around the narrowcasting of content, broadcasting in case of emergency, and so forth. So I think those two are really critical. There are other benefits to managing Appspace from MTR. But I would say just first, make sure you're using a Microsoft Certified solution so that you're fully supported and then the second is being able to deploy this at scale and have an MTR endpoint behave as a true digital signage endpoint and not just a web URL inside Microsoft, which is what some companies do with Zoom. That is not true digital signage as you know. So because it's just a web URL, it's just showing a web page like any other web page versus what you're saying is because it's natively integrated, it's a true endpoint and you, you have the ability to know what's going on with it and manage it as well? Thomas Philippart de Foy: That's correct. You're able to monitor exactly what content is displaying. You're able to cache content and not stream everything. I mean, it's our full Appspace app that's running on the device. Okay. So with that, is it a kind of a push situation where your customer-facing salespeople and your business partners are saying to companies: You have this collaboration display in a bunch of your rooms, and it's sitting dark a lot of the time, you could do things with it? Or are the end-user customers saying, “Hey, we have this collaboration display that's sitting dark a lot of the time, can we do something with it?” Thomas Philippart de Foy: I think it's a combination of the requests. What we're seeing is there's a lot of digital real estate deployed in companies that is not used all the time, whether because there's no video conferencing happening or there's no call, no meeting happening in the meeting space, but those meeting space are still visible from outside, either because there's a window that opens up to the meeting space or because it's one of those new types of Huddle meeting spaces, which are open. So there's a request from internal comms and facilities to use as much digital real estate as possible they have to communicate to employees around the workplace and comms and safety. and there's less and less appetite for companies to print. So they're looking for every digital real estate they can leverage. So I think there's certainly that, and we're getting asked constantly by big companies saying, “Hey, we're rolling out AppSpace. We want to target the meeting group.” That's very, very important to us. But we're also starting to see the teams that are using the technology for their day-to-day operations saying, "Hey, can I actually put my content on those screens as well? It's my meeting room in my neighborhood, where I have my team. I want to be able to use that screen when someone enters the room to talk about our team's performance and really narrowcast to their team.” So that's why they want full control of the device and not just a web URL streaming generic. Now, do they have to go into the Appspace application to produce that content or to load it in, or is it somewhat headless in that they can produce something in whatever toolset they use and it's, and because of the hooks that are set up, it'll show up there? Thomas Philippart de Foy: Yeah. Both are possible. One of our most popular integrations is with SharePoint. If the comms team is producing content on SharePoint, we have a connector that allows us to fetch that content and repurpose it for digital signs so that it automatically populates. I mean, that's been a very old story, right? We heard about the need for repurposing existing content from third-party tools. SharePoint is super popular in the Microsoft ecosystem. but it's not only that. But so you could imagine having a playlist of content playing on an MTR endpoint that's just fetching. Microsoft Content from SharePoint that is potentially related to a team or related even to the IT team that operates the MTR endpoint. So now, what you're seeing on the digital sign is the how-to instructions that were actually created in SharePoint. There seems to be a real distinction between companies that have decided to make their workplace their core vertical market and, let's say, other digital signage companies, whether they offer software solutions that include workplaces as one of their capabilities. Looking through the Appspace website, it strikes me that this is all you do, and you realized or have learned through the years that you can't just offer a digital signage solution. You've got to be making a space reservation, booking, assignment, and all kinds of other things like that. So what is the range of services? And, also, is that what you found that guys have said, look, if we're going to work with you, this has to be just more than something that's going to put messages on screens? Thomas Philippart de Foy: Yeah, I mean, if I go back, I think we were one of the very first digital signage companies to say our focus is going to be the workplace and not retail and transportation and others and we were very early there. So we focused on building our product to address the needs of the corporate market and corporate communications. When we acquired Marlin, we were acquiring a company that was focused on frontline workers, and communication on digital signs. So again, staying very much in our focus area of workplace communication versus retail or other channels. When the pandemic hit, we had a lot of customers who reached out to us and said, our workers are now back home, we need to continue to deliver the message that they were used to seeing on digital signs, but we need to deliver it on their personal devices. That's really when we focused and started focusing on personal devices, released our employee app, and did an intranet acquisition and suddenly, all of this started to make sense for customers. One single platform to deliver across multiple communication channels, but all natively integrated, not something where you're trying to put solutions together. So we do email publishing, publish to Microsoft Teams, WebEx, and Slack, publish on digital signs, publish into an employee app, publish on an intranet, and all of those are native features of the app-based platform. They're not point products that we're plugging one into the other. That means that from a core comm standpoint or facilities when you're creating content, you know you have the ability to amplify your message to all those communication channels and that all of that is going to be automated. Now, while we were doing this and focusing on the comms aspect, there was a real need for a new weight for users to plan their journey into the office. You were no longer going and sitting at a desk and just booking a meeting room through Outlook. You needed to book a building pass to access the building. You need to reserve a hot desk or a hotel desk to be able to book other resources like a smart lock or a parking place, all those resources that are needed for you to have a productive user journey. And so we delivered the features In the apps that we had, so it was easy to do it on the signage front for scheduling panels because it's the same app that runs on the digital sign that actually runs on the scheduling panel. The same thing for the wayfinding kiosks, the interactive kiosks that we were doing years ago now also support wayfinding services, and then because we launched a mobile app for employee communication, all we had to do was enable those workplace services in that same employee app, so employees have only one app, one app to receive the latest company news, to be connected to the workplace, but also to manage their journey into the office. Today, it's a whole suite. That's why we call ourselves a unified workplace experience platform. We have one app that team members use on their personal devices, phones, desktops, and tablets. Then, we have one app that runs in the physical workplace, on digital signs, on an MTR endpoint, on a scheduling panel, on a wayfinding kiosk, and on a desk bar. And then, at the core, you have Appspace. How do companies get their employees to use that? Thomas Philippart de Foy: That's probably the biggest challenge for any organization in launching a new app is user adoption for different reasons. You may have frontline workers who don't have a company email. So we had to support one-time password and digital signage plays a key role there in getting users to activate their one-time password. Use digital signage, say there's a new app available for you. Scan the QR code. It asks you to enter your employee's unique identifier, your personal email address or phone number. You get a one-time password, and you're then able to log into the app and have access. So that's number one. You need to make sure that everyone is a first citizen of the modern workplace—your front-line worker, or desk worker, whether you have an email address or not. The second thing is a lot of people use their personal devices and if you're like me, I'm not in favor of using my personal device to use a company-needed app. So I want options. One of the options is to have a fully responsive web app, a PWA. So, if you access Appspace on your Safari or Chrome browser, it behaves exactly like a native app. The first time you log in, you can actually pin it on your home screen. Next time you go in, there is no address bar, you have the full app experience, but it's a web app. You didn't download it from an app store. Makes it easier. And then finally, For IT, the biggest challenge is certifying an iOS or an Android app on mobile devices. That takes a lot of time, sometimes 6 months, 12 months, even, to get the certification. So what we did is we embedded our app in Microsoft Teams, and because it is now the number one app used on desktops and mobile devices in the corporate space, you just, as an IT organization, need to enable the Appspace app in the admin console of Microsoft Teams, and one morning the user wakes up and they have on the sidebar next to do a call, your meetings, you now have the Appspace app and all the capabilities embedded in Microsoft Teams. That from a user adoption point is game-changing, because now you don't need to certify an app, you don't need your users to download a new app, you don't need your users to remember a web URL, the app is just there living in Microsoft Teams. So you don't have people going, okay, what is this weird thing? Thomas Philippart de Foy: That's correct. I'm curious, you mentioned the pandemic and COVID and there was endless writing about how this is going to change workplaces, everything's different. Will people ever go back to the office and so on? I work from home and haven't worked in an office for a very, very long time, so I don't see it, but I'm curious, did it genuinely change, or did it just kind of sort of change? Thomas Philippart de Foy: I think it really changed. I think employees will go back into the office, and most companies want that for cultural reasons, productivity reasons, and so forth, but the way we will go back into the office will never be the same. The physical workplace has changed. There are fewer desks than there were before, more meeting spaces of all sorts, huddle spaces, meeting rooms, conference rooms, a lot more, and so the way a user is going to operate in the physical workplace is never going to be the same as it was before. I think that's huge. Also, we're still learning, and companies are still learning, changing, and adjusting. And so the core, the heartbeat of the workplace, in our case, Appspace needs to be super flexible to be able to implement new rules and new workflows to enable the user to plan their journey into the office and also to drive the behavior of a user. We have a huge services organization that implemented hot desking and hotelling, and when they opened their office, all the consultants and partners rushed into the office, and they had a huge capacity issue. People didn't book their workspace, so they expected they were going to find one, and there was no workplace available, so they got super frustrated. So, the company implemented managed power outlets at the desk, and power is only enabled if you reserve your desk and check in on arrival. The following day, people who came into the office without reserving a workspace and trying to hijack a desk didn't have power, and that never happened twice. When you run out of power, you always figure out how to reserve your power for the next time you go around. So I think those behaviors are changing, and technology is there to help the behaviors change, supporting the behaviors. And I think that's huge. So it's not telling an employee you have to reserve is telling the employee that if you reserve, you get all those incremental benefits, Are you also able to support a lot of the devices that I saw in walking around Infocomm, and some of them I was already aware of like very small displays or even just little LED light things that communicate that this space is available, or maybe a display that says the space is available between these times and it's booked these other times or whatever? I find those things very interesting in terms of office hoteling and so on. Thomas Philippart de Foy: Yeah, the number of new devices released in the last two years has been crazy. Both you and I come from the signage world, and adding a new device and running content on the new devices is native to a digital signage provider. That's what we've always done. So whether you display calendaring data or turn on an LED or not, it's not different from any type of content in general. I think that's where companies who did reservation software are struggling because they don't understand the physical workplace device side of the experience. But coming from the digital signage space in our case, we understand that. So, a scheduling panel back in the day, it was Crestron. Now it's Logitech and iADA and there are so many of those, the Cisco Navigator, and there are so many devices. And because we're completely OS and hardware-agnostic, you run our app on it, and you deliver the scheduling experience and then the desk plugs are the same, whether you take the Crestron desk plug, the iADA desk plug, or the nPlug, they're all small desk plugs that allow you to run an app on it and display the experience on those devices. So for us, it's very native. What's interesting is what incremental device content we are putting on it and that's the other devices we don't see, all those IoT devices in the ceiling that track air quality, room temperature, humidity level, and occupancy. And being able to display that data back on the scheduling panel or on a wayfinding kiosk or a digital sign in the lobby when you enter the building, knowing where's the traffic, what's the occupancy rate, what's the current air quality. I think that's bringing another level of value. And as we always used to say in the digital signage world, content is king. I assume you do analytics of some kind and how are they used? Thomas Philippart de Foy: So analytics has always been a big part of administrative users of the Appspace platform to monitor the success of the communication campaign, being able to track which content plays at which time of the day and then when you combine it with tools such as audience measurements, cameras that try eyeball dwell time, then analytics becomes much richer because it's now a communication channel that you can really monitor and track the engagement level, but analytics on the workplace management is as important. How many users came to the office? What's the average use of a workspace or type of workspace? Whether a meeting room is underutilized or overutilized with regard to the number of attendees? All of that data is extremely important. So we've built a lot of analytics and reporting capabilities in the Appspace Admin platform, so you can actually pull your reports, export all the data and view it live into Tableau or Power BI, correlate it with IoT sensor data, so you can now start to see Not only scheduled based data but also live data. So I know this room was booked for six, but my live data tells me only four people are in the meeting room. I'm, therefore, underutilizing the workspace, or I'm running this communication campaign in the lobby, and I currently have 40 people standing in the lobby. That's useful data that you can have. Now, when you add AI to it, AI starts to give us insights and recommendations. It will tell the facilities team whether or not you're about to run out of a certain type of resource. We're seeing a trend of desks with two monitors in the docking station, and we expect that within the next 30 days, you're going to run out of capacity, which will allow facilities to adjust their workplace and anticipate. And the same thing is true with the workplace. We've just released this week. The ability to create content on the signage and to auto-generate a QR code on the digital sign that will link to the origin of the content, whether it was SharePoint, your Appspace intranet, or the employee app. So when you view the content, you scan the QR code, you're redirected. That analytic is captured and now you have true engagement on whether or not the communication campaign is successful. Do you find that all these insights, are inherently actionable, but are your end user customers doing things with it? Or are they just kind of seeing and going, “Okay, this is what's going on?” Thomas Philippart de Foy: No, on the facility side, it's huge because that environment is changing constantly, and they're looking at the best ways to optimize their workplace. So analytics is one of the most important things they want to get out of the Appspace platform. From comms, now that we've re we really have true multi-communication channels, iit is becoming increasingly important for them to monitor their communication campaign. “Hey, I posted a story in the employee app. It was broadcasted on the digital sign in the Microsoft Teams channel in an email newsletter. I can track where users are getting access to that story. Is it directly from the app through an app notification? Is it because they saw it on the digital sign and scanned the QR code? Is it because they saw it in their email inbox and clicked on it?” Most importantly, we allow reactions and comments and shares, and that provides additional analytics and so now that also provides additional value in understanding how people are reacting. But what's exciting with AI is that based on how content is trending, you can actually change the playlist on your digital sign to display content that is trending up or trending down to make sure you're getting the right message out to the user and you're promoting the right message and I think everyone is becoming more hungry for more of that. A lot of what I see on the Appspace site and what we've talked about seems oriented to. white collar spaces to offices. Are you doing much in the so-called back of the house, production facilities, warehouses, factories, that sort of thing? Thomas Philippart de Foy: A lot. I always start all my presentations to customers saying that we treat everyone as a first citizen of the modern workplace, and that's not just marketing. It's true. We want to make sure everyone benefits from the services that the organization's putting in place. Signage for frontline workers is huge in warehouses. It's massive. When we acquired the Marlin company, it was because their number one focus was people in warehouses and manufacturing plants, making sure they were provided with the right safety information, education, material, and so forth. So I think we will continue to focus there. We're just now expanding the user to go beyond just the digital signage in the warehouse to their phone in their pocket. And if you're an employee or frontline worker in the store, you're not in all the time in the back office, you're often in the front office or in the front of the store, helping your customers to still be able to get that information, those important notifications on your phone are important and I think we do a lot there. Again, unlike most of the signage vendors, we don't focus as much on the screen in the store, talking to the consumers. We're focusing more on the screen in the back office or the screen in the pocket of the user, but we, of course, do digital signage for retail as well. What would happen if a retail chain came to Appspace and said, “Hey, we'd love to work with you guys on digital signage for inside our stores, not for employee comps, but to sell sweaters and shoes and so on.” Would you just say, I'm sorry, we don't do that? Thomas Philippart de Foy: No, actually, the two largest retailers in Europe use Appspace in the store and in the back office. The project started in the back store and eventually, customers saw, well, why can't I use that in the front store as well? We even integrated, I can't remember the name, with a little company out of the Netherlands who built an integration with Appspace to allow the sale of airtime in the store. We didn't build this natively in Appspace because that's not our focus. But by partnering with companies who have that expertise, we're able to deliver that. The largest sports brand in the world uses Appspace in all its stores around the world. So we never say no to customers. But what we're very clear about is that we're not building a product just for retail. We're building a product for the workplace and if the features meet your needs, you're more than welcome to use it in the stores. I think we have a lot more than we expected using it. Interesting. Last question. I get a sense from this discussion and previous chats that if you're a company lurking, looking at workspace as a vertical market, you really need to understand that it's a unique ecosystem and all of the different technology companies that feed into it. You can't just say, “Hey, we can put stuff on your dormant screens and you can talk to your employees through our software.” You really need to stitch yourself in with all of the collaboration companies and all the other technologies that feed into it. Is that a pretty accurate statement? Thomas Philippart de Foy: Yeah, I think so. So I think companies are looking to consolidate, that's one thing. They're looking at replacing point products with a platform that delivers all those use cases through features and not point products for use cases like visitor management, room booking, and all. So one login into one app, whether it's a physical workplace app or an employee app on your phone, you have one app, and you do everything from one place. That's for sure. It also needs to be truly integrated with the physical workplace because companies are looking to build up their ROI with the technology they're investing in. So, since the pandemic, everyone has rolled out more video conferencing rooms than before, but they need to justify ROI. ROI is by use of technology for its main purpose. But on top of that, when it's not in use, you can use it to better communicate and engage your audience and provide a better employee experience. There's incremental ROI to the technology. And so we can't be successful without integrating with all the players that exist in the physical workplace, whether they are access control systems to enter the building, how do I know if I have access into the building? When you scan your badge, your badge queries Appspace and confirms that you have a valid reservation and that you're granted access. It starts there, and it goes throughout the journey. The menu boards of your restaurants, the menu needs to be on your personal device before you even get in the office. You could potentially book your lunch using the app. But when you arrive at the restaurant, the menu board reflects the same information As they have always been, but now you are aware you have that link between, “Hey, I saw that there was this on the menu and I can now see it on the digital sign.” And you have that continuity in the experience. All right, Thomas. Thank you very much. I once again, learned stuff, which is what this is all about. Thomas Philippart de Foy: Oh, thanks a lot for having me. It's exciting. I remember the first time we met. I think we had a table at ISE, and now we have a bigger booth I'm glad it caught your attention, but we're super happy, and I'm looking forward to continuing to talk with you over the next few years. All right. Thanks again, and safe travels. Thomas Philippart de Foy: Thanks. Take care!

Integrated Technology in Luxury Homes with Michael Short

AFT Construction Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 16, 2024 58:56

Sponsors:• ◦ Visit Buildertrend to get a 60-day money-back guarantee on your Buildertrend account!• ◦ Design Camp• ◦ Pella Windows & Doors• ◦ Sub-Zero Wolf Cove Showroom PhoenixConnect with Michael Short:Crestron Website | LinkedInConnect with Brad Leavitt:Website | Instagram | Facebook | Houzz | Pinterest | YouTube

technology podcasting storytelling partnership construction automation integrated product development homebuilding superyachts luxury homes lighting design crestron michael short

257: InfoComm 2024 Day 1 with Crestron

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 13, 2024 4:48

Higher Ed AV PodcastEpisode: 257InfoComm 2024 Day 1 with CrestronCrestron drops by the HETMA booth to discuss what they are showcasing at InfoComm 2024. Connect with BC on X, @bchatchett.

bc crestron infocomm

S E668: AVWeek 668: The Power of Data

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 10, 2024 28:19

In this episode of AVWeek, host Tim Albright and his expert guests dive into the latest commercial AV industry buzz! This episode covers Huddly's aggressive pricing for UCC cameras, making advanced AI-enabled solutions more accessible in the SAAS (software as a service) market. They'll also discuss Middle Atlantic's new Crestron-certified module for NEXSYS UPSs with RackLink by Legrand, which promises to simplify AV system integration and managing power consumptions. Plus, we'll tackle the hot topic of noise pollution sparked by Taylor Swift's Real Madrid concerts, exploring the impact on residents and potential solutions. Watch the complete episode.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

ai data taylor swift saas real madrid av legrand ucc crestron middle atlantic tim albright

248: InfoComm Preview with Crestron

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 9, 2024 13:23

Higher Ed AV PodcastEpisode: 248InfoComm Preview with Crestron Joel Mulpeter & John Hulen join us for a preview of what to expect to see from Crestron at InfoComm 2024. Connect with BC on X, @bchatchett.

bc crestron infocomm

The Road To InfoComm 2024 With Crestron

marketing las vegas av crestron infocomm pro av

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 5, 2024 4:28

InfoComm 2024 comes to Las Vegas from June 8-14. This is one of the biggest Pro AV trade shows, showcasing amazing innovations in technology and education for those within the AV industry. We are joined by Crestron's Brad Hintze, Vice Presdident of Marketing. We ask him what we'll see at their booth at C80100 in the central hall, including their focus on hospitality and other verticals.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

S E663: AVWeek 663: Hybrid Experiences

Giants Huddle - New York Giants

Play Episode Listen Later May 6, 2024 38:05

Dive into the latest AVWeek episode where host Tim Albright and guests explore latest updates shaping the commercial AV landscape! Discover the current state of hybrid learning in educational institutions post-pandemic, including insights on classroom technology and the future of AV-enabled classrooms in higher education. Get an inside look at how Crestron's cutting-edge technology transformed the New York Giants' draft room into a fully immersive football and business operations hub, leveraging Crestron control solutions and DigitalMediaTM to streamline operations. Then, step into the immersive world of soccer legend Lionel Messi with the new experiential AV in Miami, produced by Primo Entertainment and Moment Factory. Explore nine interactive zones tracing Messi's journey from childhood to World Cup glory, offering visitors a unique opportunity to engage with the superstar's life and career. Don't miss out how AV innovations are shaping the way we work from anywhere.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

discover miami explore dive experiences world cup lionel messi hybrid new york giants av crestron moment factory tim albright

Giants Huddle: Front Office Edition | Crestron Electronics President, CEO Dan Feldstein and EVP of Marketing Brad Hintze

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 16, 2024 15:18 Transcription Available

Hear from Crestron Electronics executives on the part Crestron played in building the state-of-the-art Draft Room that drives Giants football forward. Crestron is a proud technology partner of the Giants.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

marketing giants electronics front office president ceo feldstein crestron giants huddle

AVNation Special: Innovating The Unified Communication Space With Crestron

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 2, 2024 16:16

In March of 2022, Crestron announced the acquisition of 1 Beyond intelligent video technology. This move was integral to their ecosystem for moving forward with video conferencing solutions. Now two years out, we talk to Crestron's Senior Director of Product Marketing Sam Kennedy about the innovations they have made within the video space. We discuss the best use cases for 1 Beyond cameras, multi-camera experiences, design considerations for IT managers in corporate and more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

space senior director innovating unified communications crestron avnation

ResiWeek 422: Peel The Onion

Friends of Build Magazine

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 13, 2024 24:52

This daylights savings week is the worst one to try and acclimate to, which is why we're doing our best to stay the course and bring you consistent news for the residential space. Joining us to discuss the latest stories is Arlen Schweiger from CE Pro and John Yohanna from Crestron.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

onion peel crestron

Powering Life Beyond (and the dark side) of Tomorrow's Home Automation Innovations with Michael Short of Crestron| Friends of Build Magazine #90

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 7, 2024 48:47

Ted speaks with Michael Short, Sr. Director of Residential & Hospitality Marketing with Crestron Electronics. They explore Crestron's background and reputation as a leading automation company and discuss the challenges of scheduling and dealing with technology issues in smart homes.. The conversation touches on the importance of educating design build professionals and staying on the cutting edge of technology. Michael shares his thoughts on Crestron's growth and expansion globally, as well as the future of smart homes - addressing the potential dark side of technology and the need for security. Listen in to hear how Crestron is thriving in a fast-paced technology industry. LINKSCrestron at 50: https://www.crestron.com/News/Blog/September-2022/Crestron-at-50Crestron Articlehttps://www.forbes.com/sites/davidewalt/2011/11/16/crestron-electronics-george-feldstein-manufacturing/Behind the Scenes Video:https://youtu.be/b7lTq0sbtTQ?si=9C2CdJ-S2FHFAG3I TOPICS DISCUSSED01:04 Introduction and technology in homes05:22 Crestron's Background and Reputation09:18 Educating Design Build Professionals13:23 Staying on the Cutting Edge of Technology16:30 Crestron's History and Growth22:30 The Future of Crestron and Smart Homes26:04 Addressing the Dark Side of Technology40:05 Crestron's Growth and Innovation Mindset30:20 Expanding Globally and Future Challenges34:22 Thriving in a Fast-Paced Technology Industry37:25 Meeting the Expectations of Influential Clients39:30 The Fear of Failure42:32 Differences Between American and British Customers45:27 Staying Focused on the Vision and Mission CONNECT WITH GUESTMichael ShortWebsiteLinkedIn KEY QUOTES FROM EPISODEAnd the good news is we've been doing this for 50 years. Crestron is a 50 year old company, so we have a huge amount of legacy and experience in innovating incredible control technology.You know, the owners of the biggest companies in the world, the innovators in, in this industry and outside this industry, the most famous people they have Crestron in their homes on their super yachts. These people don't sit still. These people expect the best experience. They expect the next thing. They expect everything to get better and improve.Of course, we have all that structure and strategic integration set up, but they don't close off and we don't close off to ideas, to conversations, to people wanting to push the boundaries and that open infrastructure, that open language, that open culture is something that he installs in us to do because us pushing the boundaries and pushing the conversations, that's how you grow and innovate in a company

Modern Work Dynamics: Brad Hintze on Transforming High-Impact Spaces

Futurum Tech Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 5, 2024 30:27

On this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast, The Futurum Group's Craig Durr talks with Brad Hintze, EVP of Marketing at Crestron, about the evolution of workplace collaboration, focusing on the integration of multi-camera solutions in high-impact rooms to enhance communication and remote participation. Their discussion covers: The shift from 'hybrid work' to what is now considered 'modern work' and its encompassing definition that spans enterprises, education, and government institutions. The critical importance of audio and video quality in meetings, where 80% include a virtual participant, highlighting the need for technology that facilitates clear and engaging remote collaboration. The challenges and solutions for outfitting various high-impact spaces, factoring in room architecture, meeting types, and the strategic placement of technology to ensure inclusivity. Crestron's multi-camera solutions, such as Automate VX, which cater to a spectrum of meeting scenarios, from one-touch experiences to those requiring high-impact, dynamic presentations. As mentioned in this webcast, you can read more about the research behind this discussion and the Crestron multi-camera options in the Research Brief titled, “Revolutionizing Conference Spaces: Embracing Multi-Camera Solutions for High-Impact Spaces.” You can hear more on this and other relevant hybrid work topics at Crestron's Modern Work Summit taking place March 19th, in Orlando, FL.

marketing transforming spaces dynamics evp high impact unified communications modern work crestron

AVNation Special: Over A Million Crestron NVX (And Counting)

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 4, 2024 9:56

Crestron now has over a million sales of their NVX AV over IP solution. It has found its place delivering content in many different verticals from command centers, eSports arenas, sports bars and much more. And while a million is a reason to celebrate, Crestron is not going to just rest on their laurels. We talk with their Executive Vice President of Marketing Brad Hintze about what this achievement means for the company, and what lies ahead moving forward.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

ip esports counting crestron avnation

The Road To ISE 2024 With Crestron

barcelona av crestron integrated systems europe

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 3, 2024 4:28

Integrated Systems Europe returns to Barcelona for one of the biggest international shows of the AV industry. From January 30th to February 2nd, attendees will have the chance to see the latest innovations for AV technology. We talk to Crestron Vice President of Marketing Brad Hintze to learn what they will have in store at their booth at H300 in Hall 3. We also talk about what it means for attendees to get their hands on products at shows like this.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

AU #256: Crestron Director Discusses the Need for AV Education Programs and the Future Impact of AI on Programming

Automation Unplugged Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 27, 2023 68:13

During our time together, we discussed:His diverse career at Crestron Electronics, focusing on his various roles and significant contributions to the company and the custom electronics industry.The vital role of training the next generation of Audiovisual Industry professionals focusing on developing their skills and knowledge to meet the industry's evolving demands.The expected impact of AI on the industry and a unique perspective on the potential advancements and challenges AI might bring to the industry.And insights from his experience as a balloon pilot at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade for more than 30 years.To get transcripts, resources of what was mentioned in the show, and more visit: onefirefly.com/au256SHOW NOTESRichard is an industry veteran with more than 35 years of audiovisual experience. He has worked at Crestron Electronics for 23 years in various roles, and is currently the Global Director Pro Community. In his current role, he works to expand the Crestron community through engaging with multiple channels and helping to guide customers to successful implementations of Crestron technology. He is working with AVIXA, BICSI, CEDIA, NSCA and more to help foster audiovisual industry training for the next generation of professionals. He helped to create the Crestron Services Providers program and worked to ensure they have the proper tools to support Crestron clients. He proudly oversees the Crestron Masters event.Richard's favorite personal accomplishment is his hobby as a Balloon Pilot for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. He's been responsible for the inflation teams, launching the balloons, and piloting the balloons since he started as a volunteer in college.About One FireflyOne Firefly, LLC is an award-winning marketing agency that caters to technology professionals in the custom integration, security and solar energy markets. One Firefly is headquartered in Davie, Florida with staff located throughout North America and has been operating since 2007.

director ai north america llc programming thanksgiving day parade davie education programs nsca crestron cedia avixa av education

telecom №130. Сети в шоу-бизнесе. Где деньги?

linkmeup. Подкаст про IT и про людей

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 25, 2023

К предновогодней тусовочной неделе мы подходим со второй частью удивительного рассказа про сети в шоу-бизнесе. Тайный мир, скрытый классическими аналоговыми инженерами и звукарями от глаз обычных айтишников за покровом Данте, проприетарного эзернета, несжатого 4к видео и маршрутизацией, которая на самом деле коммутация и под лицензией вендора. Кто: Виктор Шопин, консультант по AV-системам, производитель бронированных систем оптической коммутации IRON OPTICS и руководитель центра дополнительного образования для шоу-индустрии PRAKTIKUM.SCHOOL Про что: Формы оплаты работ - проект/фикс/фриланс 2 подхода - сеть как искусство высоких скоростей и надежности vs кусок проекта, который нужно сделать на сдачу с поставки основного оборудования Мультимедиа в общем смысле - переговорные комнаты, универсльные залы, медиафасады Интеграционные решения - Crestron, AMX, Aten и прочее Аренда и поставки оборудования и пуско-наладки по разделам звук-свет-видео или комплексы Центры управления и принятия решений Гибридные мероприятия - эфир + локальное аудио-видео в большом объеме broadcast и SMPTE2110 Тематические парки и музеи Проблема интегратора AV vs интегратора по слаботочным системам Переход проектов по мультимедиа к интеграторам типа Ланит, Крок и др Деньги живут или при работе на сложных задачах и высоких скоростях со своей спецификой - broadcast или на стыке технологий Арендные решения для временных инсталляций с передачей данных через публичный интернет по vpn Специфика L2 для работы - L2VPN, vlan от провайдеров и т.д. Сообщение telecom №130. Сети в шоу-бизнесе. Где деньги? появились сначала на linkmeup.

school av aten telecom praktikum amx crestron

Futurum Live! From the Show Floor with Crestron's Sam Kennedy

Futurum Tech Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 4, 2023 6:18

On this episode of The Futurum Tech Webcast – Live from the Show Floor, Craig Durr welcomes Sam Kennedy, Senior Director, Product Marketing for Crestron Electronics for a conversation on Crestron's latest announcements at Zoomtopia 2023 Their discussion covers: The Crestron products that just received Zoom certification Crestron's new product specifically made for the Zoom ecosystem An overview of Crestron's new native Zoom scheduling panel A look at other recent portfolio updates.

zoom senior director product marketing show floor sam kennedy crestron futurum zoomtopia

Episode 147: Michael Short on the Crestron Home OS 4 Launch

launch elan one solution one home crestron panamax michael short cedia expo

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 24, 2023 37:33

On this week's podcast, Michael Short joins us from London, where he is senior director of residential and hospitality marketing at Crestron. It's been almost a year since Jeremy had dinner in Dallas during CEDIA Expo with Michael, along with several members of the Crestron executive team. At that time, they talked about all of the hullabaloo surrounding supply chain challenges and pricing inflation, but then we mostly just unwound and decompressed from a long day on the show floor. This year, the news is much more fun. At CEDIA Expo 2023, Short and his colleagues will roll out Crestron Home OS4.Crestron Home OS 4 is the next evolution for the smart home, featuring a completely new, intuitive interface for the client while further speeding and simplifying installation for dealers. Crestron Home OS 4 offers interoperability and control of both Crestron and thousands of third-party smart devices and delivers a new level of user-friendliness, functionality, customization, and whole home control from a remote, touch screen, keypad, or mobile device for everyone, including residents, children, and even house guests.Today's episode of Residential Tech Talks is brought to you Nice, a global manufacturer of smart home, security, and building automation solutions. Nice is bringing together 30 years of innovation with award-winning products from ELAN, SpeakerCraft, and Panamax, to create a holistic ecosystem for builders, integrators, and consumers. Learn more about how you can create One Home with One Solution at go.niceforyou.com/rtt.

Nathan Potter on the Future of Travel

Future of Living

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 13, 2023 25:14

Nathan leads Wander's product and engineering team. Their core focus is on building and delivering high-quality products that delight customers and help scale business functions. He has previously spent time building established products at Fortune 500 companies and also greenfield products as an early-stage startup team member. Nathan has 7+ years of experience where he has built and deployed systems that have needed to handle scale for eCommerce giants like Target and security constraints for Intelligence Agencies and large financial institutions across the globe. In this conversation, Nathan discusses how Wander is paving the way for a more automated and luxurious travel experience than ever before. Discussion: Background of Wander. Why was having a Tesla onsite important for creating a good experience? What has it been like to integrate with Tesla? How do you choose which smart devices to integrate with? What are some of the surprises of creating a concierge experience? What are some of the processes you have created for your team's back-office system? How do you allocate resources for your client-facing system vs. your back-office system? Is there anything that you have wanted to build but decided not to? How do you approach integrating the whole tech stack? Lightening round questions. Links: https://www.wander.com/ Transcript: Nathan Potter We're working directly with Tesla and our auto insurance companies to basically build out a miniature Turro within our app. So we've gotta go through the onboarding process of signing the agreements for the rental and waiving all of the policies and the auto insurance and everything and then integrating with the Tesla API as well. Blake Miller Welcome to the Future Living Podcast. Today I've got a really exciting episode with my friend Nathan Pottery, the CTO of Wander. Wander is, as I've been describing to a lot of friends, kind of the company that I've got a startup crush on. And I'm excited to bring this one to you as one of our first episodes back for the Future Living podcast because we're doing a lot of similar things, but they're focused more on vacation rentals. Nathan, welcome. Why don't you give everybody a little bit of background on what you guys are doing with Wander? Nathan Potter Hey, thanks for having me on Blake. Love what you're doing over at Homebase. Yeah, would love to. So we're basically building a network of smart homes across the globe. Currently, right now we're located across the United States and looking to expand into Canada, Mexico, and Europe this year. But each home you can imagine as a luxury real estate property. You walk in the lights turn on, the music is playing, and the fireplace is on setting the ambiance for your stay. You can control everything through the app, whether that's the shades, the lights, the locks, the garage doors, really anything. You can control the Tesla through the app as well. So each of our properties comes with a Tesla for you to use. We love it. It's a ton of fun. We've been able to build some really cool integrations with Tesla and have been working with their API team to integrate directly with them and that's been a lot of fun to experience. Blake Miller We're talking about the home and all this stuff and maybe that's something we can start with because what you're describing is something that's just so cool. You guys are designing such an amazing experience for people that are traveling, right? And what I think is so cool too is it's not just for your standard family or couple that's getting an Airbnb, you know. You support this group travel model. And I'm curious with all of that, why was having a car on-site or having a Tesla there so important to creating a good user experience or a good resume experience? Nathan Potter Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of our properties are relatively close to airports and a lot of times people will fly in and get an Uber to the property, and we want to create a travel experience from the future. Like if you're looking 10 years down the line, what does travel look like? You know, and so you can kind of imagine that whenever self-driving cars are to a place where it can be like, okay the car comes and picks you up from the airport and then takes you to the property, and then you can use it during your stay, instead of having to rent the car at the airport. And a lot of times we work with teams, so a lot of remote companies will use our platform and basically rent one of our larger properties. For them, it's like they already have a car on standby if they need to go on trips or anything–super easy. Blake Miller So what's it been like starting there at that integration? I mean, you've got locks and thermostats and all those things inside the house. Starting with that integration of getting somebody access to that car instantly, what's that been like? What's it been like working with Tesla? Nathan Potter It's been a lot of fun, honestly. It's been huge, though. I mean, there's a lot of moving parts. We're working directly with Tesla and our auto insurance companies. So basically we had to build out a miniature Turo within our app. We've gotta go through the onboarding process of assigning the agreements for the rental and waving all of the policies and the auto insurance and everything, so we can send that over to our auto insurance providers. Then, integrating with the Tesla API, as well. So we were working with their business team to get access to their fleet API, and since we were able to get that, it's been a big game changer for us. Now it's kind of fun. We can basically allow the guests to unlock the Tesla whenever they've gone through that flow and then provide them that access throughout the trip, like viewing the battery level and seeing where they parked, all of those sorts of things. And then after their trip is done, it'll automatically lock after the cleaning crew is done cleaning the car up and getting it ready for the next guest. Then it's locked waiting for the next guest to arrive and go through that same onboarding flow—the rental agreement and everything. It's been a big challenge, but it's been a ton of fun, and cool to see the delight that it brings the guests. It's not every day that you get to drive around in a Tesla, so it's been fun to provide that along with the beautiful properties. Blake Miller I think it's probably pretty obvious why you guys chose Tesla to work with on the vehicle side of things. Moving inside the house, or inside the vacation home, how do you, especially as the CTO, choose what devices you're using and how you connect them? I'm kind of jealous because it seems like you probably get to pick just one or two and not have to be spread so thin with several devices in each category like we have to, but how did you go through that process? How do you evaluate the hardware that you're working with, and what are the things that are important to you guys? Nathan Potter Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of that is in partnership with our home ops team. They are absolutely incredible. They're really the boots on the ground setting up these new homes and renovating properties that we bring onto the platform. Blake Miller And you guys have vertically integrated the whole team, right? Nathan Potter Correct. Yeah. So those guys are on the team here at Wander and they travel around the country going to these beautiful locations. Blake Miller That'd be fun. Nathan Potter Yeah, no, it's a blast. They seem to be having a great time. So they will go to a home and–it's interesting, we do have to support a wide range of things. Primarily locks, because some of these homes that we acquire already have smart home setups. So they're either like with Crestron or Troll Four or Savant or otherwise. And so we have to integrate with kind of what's, what's there, and what's available to us to minimize the overhead in terms of like retrofitting or renovating. Blake Miller Oh, interesting. Nathan Potter Yeah. And so we do end up having to integrate with a wide variety of devices, but we've been able to kind of create a middleware on our system that kind of abstracts it away. So all of the locks look kind of the same to our client. Like our mobile app, it's just a lock, whether that's a Dana Lock or a Yale Smart lock, it doesn't really necessarily matter to the client, it just kind of looks like a lock. And so it's interesting. We purchased a passive house in Oregon, which if you're not familiar, it's a super energy-efficient home with three-inch thick doors and triple pane glass windows and all sorts of stuff. It's really, really interesting. But as you can imagine, there are not a lot of smart locks on the market that integrate with that door. So we ended up having to try like five or six different locks. It's just finding ones that fit easily into that middleware that we've developed. It's been fun. You'd be surprised by how many different devices we have to integrate with, but it's been incredible to see all of them come online. Blake Miller That's cool. So as you guys obviously have been, I'm gonna make this number up, but I saw that you had something like a thousand stays. What are some of the interesting things or quirks that you've seen come about because you have this kind of living experience for vacations? I assume there starts to be a lot of feelings of concierge-type stuff. What are some of the surprises and how do you get the feedback too? Nathan Potter Yeah, absolutely. The concierge team is a huge piece of the feedback. It's nice because we have a direct line of communication with our guests before, during, and after their stay talking the whole time with our concierge team usually. And our concierge team is reaching out to make sure that their stay is going okay. Some of the crazier things we've seen are just unexpected hiccups during stays as, as you can imagine. We try to prevent those as much as possible, but they'll happen on occasion. For instance, say we ran out of propane so now we're setting up some propane meters at each of the properties that direct feedback from concierge saying, “Hey, the fire pit's not working, what's going on?” We'll get somebody out there immediately to refill the propane. But now we're taking that a step further on the product side and basically integrating that into to our back office systems to say, “Hey, we're running low on propane at this property, let's get somebody out there to refill it prior to the next guest.” So those optimizations are how that direct line of communication with the guests is helping us optimize and streamline our business. Blake Miller I think being proactive and we've seen it too like, you know, we serve internet in people's apartments and sometimes that internet has gone down. A lot of times that is power outage related and completely out of our control, but being able to send them a notification right away that we know that the network's down and we're working to get it revived goes a long way. So I can imagine that being able to let people know that somebody's got their back with digital touches like that has got to relieve a lot of stress when it comes to that vacation. Nathan Potter Totally, because then they don't have to worry about it as much. I kind of know somebody's working on it. There's kind of an ETA there on when I can expect to be back online. Maybe I can go run and grab a copy or a bite to eat or something while it's down, you know, instead of just being in the dark and being like, “Well internet's down, when is, when is it gonna come back online? Not sure.” Yeah. But totally. Being able to be proactive with the guests is really key. Blake Miller Yeah. I wanna come back to a little bit more of the guest stuff, but you mentioned something interesting about the back office that you're building. You mentioned that your entire team's been verticalized with everything from fixing these places up and getting them ready once you guys acquire them to then operating them. What are the things that you are building for your back office and what's important there? Is it about making sure that each stay goes really well or making sure that the team operates as efficiently as possible? Both? How are you thinking about that? Nathan Potter Yeah, absolutely. I would definitely say both. At first it, it started off fulfilling the needs of our concierge team. Say a guest was in conversation with our concierge team and they wanted to extend their stay, allowing them a quick and easy way through our internal system to extend the stay and charge their card, or place an Instacart order for the guest. We do all of these sorts of things, and just providing these automations for the common needs of our concierge team was initially how it all started and now it's grown into an entire property management suite of tooling. Now our finance team is able to view revenue details and all of the metrics that they're looking for. Our concierge team is able to see what upcoming bookings are coming up, the cleaning crews that are scheduled, and all of those sorts of things. We're able to see an overview of the business so to speak and manage everything from there. And we have an internal name for it, Wander OS, and it's cool to see how it has evolved over time. I mean, it's relatively young, at least six months old as a product, but the efficiencies that it's brought about within the business are huge. We've been able to streamline many manual processes that we were doing before and it's also cleaned up a ton of our data from the manual processes. Now it's going through our system so we're able to track all of those efficiently and provide that to our finance team to allow them to have their reporting for our lending providers. You know, much more clear and easy to put together. Blake Miller We've got some similar behind-the-scenes systems too. Curious if sometimes, like us, you put more of the resources into the resident stuff so the manager kind of acts like kid brother sometimes, and it's always a little bit slower maybe in some ways. How do you divert your resources to be able to help us support that too or how are you thinking about that? Nathan Potter Yeah, definitely. We actually internally treat them as different products, so they have their own dedicated resources in terms of how they're developed and designed, and built out. It makes it really nice because we are our own customer for that product and so that is a pure direct line of communication. Through Slack, there is a constant back and forth on how we can improve, how we can optimize, and what new features we can build out. But since they're basically their own product teams and groups, they move relatively quickly in terms of velocity from a development standpoint. I mean, they all integrate together, but they are treated separately in terms of product teams. Blake Miller Smart probably, especially being vertically integrated, it probably helps, you know, save the bottom line. So I'm curious. We've been talking about a lot of the different things that you're building, and you've been integrating with a lot of different things. Has there been anything that you really want to build or wanted to build that ultimately you decided not to for whatever reason? Nathan Potter Yeah, there are definitely some things that we haven't built that we're excited about. It's more of a timing thing. I would love to be able to build scenes into our smart home system to be able to click the morning scene button and all the shades slowly rise, the coffee machine starts, you know, that sort of experience. I would love to be able to build that. It's on the roadmap. We just have been building other things. We just launched a FinTech product recently that kind of took precedence over that. Blake Miller Let's touch on that really quick because it's fascinating on, again, kind of the verticalization of everything. Atlas is a product that helps fund new homes, right? Nathan Potter Yeah, absolutely. So it's really interesting because it kind of turns guests into owners and so you can kind of see this motion of like you go, you stay at a wander, you're like, “This is awesome, I would love to own a vacation home like this.” And instead of like having to go out and fork out several million and deal with the management and whether you rent it out or not, you can invest in Atlas, which is, is a REIT that is essentially the entire wander portfolio of short-term rentals. And so there's this cool kind of, I think someone was saying if you invested like x number of dollars you could basically live on Wander. I don't really remember the number, but there's that sentiment of incentive investing in a rental property or a vacation. You just invest in that and then from the returns of that, you pay for your own vacation each year. Blake Miller Yeah, it's like a real true new age timeshare. I'm sure you guys hate that analogy. Nathan Potter It's better because with a timeshare, if you don't use it, it's a use it or lose it sort of thing, whereas, with this, it's like, okay, I didn't go on a vacation this year, you're still getting those returns and those dividends. So it's nice in that regard and we're looking to build tighter integrations between the various products. So if you're an Atlas investor and you're a guest, we're building out a point system. It's kind of like a reward system that we're building out with tight integrations between all of these things. Blake Miller You guys are going after everybody. It's like the new Marriott Bonvoy. That's incredible. Nathan Potter Thanks. Yeah, it's been a ton of fun. We like building and we're having fun doing that. Blake Miller Right on. Well, one of the things before moving into the lightning route here, I wanted to talk about if you guys are evaluating Matter at all from a technology standpoint and how you're thinking about that. People ask us about it a lot and it's interesting. In a lot of multi-family, we look at it as something that's gonna help our residents get their own devices connected to the rest of the smart building. I'm curious how you guys are looking at that, because I'm sure with the vacation industry you're thinking about maybe fitness and equipment, and how do all those other things get connected that maybe the resident brings? I'm curious about what you're diving in on, and kind of a secondary question there with Matter is just from an overall tech stack, where do you nerd out? Nathan Potter Yeah, absolutely. I'm super excited about Matter. I mean the IoT industry moves relatively slowly. To get all of those parties in a room to agree on a standard, like Matter, is a huge undertaking. So it takes years and I'm super excited that it's starting to roll out. I think the new HomePod supports Matter, the new Apple HomePod. So I'm excited to integrate that more into our system. I think the way that I look at it is we basically have that middleware that I was mentioning beforehand. So in terms of our client and server and devices and everything, we have this abstraction above all of that because there are so many different things. Like you've got ZigBee, Z wave, Bluetooth, WiFi connection, and now Matter. And so it's just with all of these different elements that you almost kind of need this overlay that abstracts that a little bit and makes it almost futureproof to where whenever the next new thing does come out in the IoT space, it's easy for us to adopt and just plug and play. So that's kind of how I'm thinking about it on our end and we've done a solid job of building it out in that way. Yeah, I'm excited for what comes of that. You know, it's really kind of the next big thing and once the hardware starts getting out there and the chips start getting more prevalent, I think it'll start overtaking a lot of the former connection methods. So exciting things to see. In terms of the middleware, we don't do a lot of direct connections. I know you have Bluetooth connections for your locks, which is really cool. We've investigated that as well, but we just haven't done it. And so we basically have–I'm not sure if you're familiar with NATs, it's basically mechanism. Basically, we have a leaf node at the properties themselves and then it's kind of like a global network where it's nearly peer-to-peer but not exactly peer-to-peer. We use that in terms of the event streaming between the devices and the clients and then we're also able to ingest that data on the server side so that we can start the shades for them automatically to provide unexpected delight. Blake Miller Yeah, that's awesome. I was going to go to the lightning round, but I love the unexpected delight comment. So what is, what's your favorite thing that you've built into the end-user experience that gives that unexpected delight? Nathan Potter I would definitely say the smart home functionality. I know that's kind of a cliche answer to that, but the moment you unlock the Tesla and you click the button and you can open the door and turn it on and drive away. I mean that is super cool. Or you know, you walk into the house and it's automatically playing music for your stay. Those sorts of things that we can do and that the connected home allows us to do are very exciting. I'm looking forward to when we can start allowing people to pick their own playlists to walk into that sort of stuff. Additional things we want to do include our own hospitality TV setup. So there's a lot we want to do that is on the horizon that adds to guest delight and experience. I'm super excited for the future. Blake Miller Love it. Well, before we end here, I've got a few rapid-fire questions for you. We've been talking about a lot of devices that are going into your work. I'm curious, what's the smartest device you've bought in the last few months or the past year that has kind of changed your life and changed things for you? Nathan Potter That is a great question. I would say smart locks in general. The ability to access through your phone or otherwise. I mean, if you have the physical key, that works too. But not having to carry around your keys with you everywhere. Say you want to go for a walk, being able to just take your phone and then unlock the door whenever you get back. I'm sure a lot of the guests and apartment and multi-unit complexes that have Homebase are the same way. Cuz I mean nowadays you can basically walk out with, with your phone, your ID, and your credit card and that's all you need. You're gonna go, yeah. Yeah. And so I think just the access, that access point is, is really big. So we just installed a smart lock recently on our place. It's definitely a game-changer. Blake Miller Love it. Any good books that you're reading right now that changing the way you're thinking? Nathan Potter Yeah, so we do this thing at Wander where we have a book of the month and we just read Happiness by the Dai Lama and I forget who the other author is who went through and interviewed and talked with with him. But it just has a lot of great insights and interesting perspectives that are really valuable. So I enjoyed reading that and would highly recommend it. Blake Miller Dig it. All right. This is my favorite question to ask at the end. What company or service is the next Blockbuster? In other words, who's at risk of becoming obsolete here soon? Nathan Potter That's a million-dollar question, isn't it? I think it may not be like a single company like Blockbuster, but I actually think rural ISPs, especially in the United States. Companies like HughesNet and all of those are really going to be overtaken by Starlink and what SpaceX is doing. I mean, for instance, my in-laws were able to move away from their, I think it was five megabits per point to point that was like $300 a month, to Starlink and improve their speeds dramatically and not have to worry about it going down and also pay a third of the price. I really, really think that's gonna be a game changer for that industry in general. So a lot of the rural ISPs I think are going to be hurting or looking for other avenues to go down. Blake Miller Fascinating. While you're speaking my language, Nathan, this has been an awesome conversation. Like I said, I love what you guys are doing. Tell everybody how to find you guys online. And yourself and I'll make sure that's in the show notes as well. Nathan Potter Thanks, Blake. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. And the same with what you're doing at Homebase. Love what you guys are doing. The best way to find out about what we're doing is to head over to wander.com and check out the website and the app. I invite all of you to come to stay at a property and experience everything that there is to offer on Wonder. Blake Miller Thanks for being on the show, Nathan. Appreciate it. Nathan Potter Yeah, thanks, Blake. Thanks for having me. Blake Miller The Future Living Podcast is produced by Homebase.ai and Erdin Schultz Bever from Homebase.ai. Thanks for listening and checking everything in the show notes.

Solving for all meeting spaces, Crestron ends the meeting room fumble, Podcast

Telecom Reseller

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 10, 2023

Crestron Announces AirMedia Connect Adaptor with One-Touch Wireless Collaboration for Microsoft Teams It's the now familiar and shared experience of our times: the meeting room fumble. People assemble, and it's time to make things and services that were not exactly born to work together, to work together. The AirMedia Connect Adaptor works with various platforms for added flexibility, but the Microsoft Teams software variation adds even more convenience for organizations that have chosen a standard meeting platform. With the press of a button, users can instantly join virtual meeting participants using their device of choice while taking advantage of the high-quality audio and video in-room peripherals. When used for wireless presentation, the AirMedia Connect Adaptor allows for content transmission in up to 4K/30p, so users never have to worry that their image or video quality will suffer. Even more, all content transmitted utilizes encryption, so guests won't have to worry about using new networks, and hosts won't have to worry about unwanted intrusions. In this podcast, Sam Kennedy Senior Director, Product Marketing at Crestron walks us through the product and the announcement. The product is shipping and is available from Crestron dealers. Read the press release Visit crestron.com

ends spaces 4k microsoft teams product marketing fumble crestron meeting room

Five Video Cameras Walked into a Bar...

TalkingHeadz on enterprise communications

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 10, 2023 30:29 Transcription Available

TalkingHeadz is a series of interviews with the movers and shakers of enterprise communications - we also have great guests. In this episode, we check in with Brad Hintze, EVP Marketing at Crestron. Brad beleives that the foundation for marketing success is contingent on the combined strength of one's ability to: a) build (and ship) fantastic products, b) clearly communicate why one's product is excellent, and c) create the right tools to win more customers. While that may sound interesting to some, it's 1 Beyond that got us hooked. Crestron has a built a strong collaborative reputation with its Flex video conferencing systems, and that story got better about a year ago when it acquired 1 Beyond. 1 Beyond has been in business for 20 years, but the past seven have seen exceptional growth. The story got even strong with the when it opted to acquire 1 Beyond. Crestron was demonstrating its new capabilities earlier this year at ISE Barcelona, where seven One Beyond cameras collaborated so effectively that any meeting can become compelling. Crestron's Flex solutions integrate video conferencing, wireless presentation, and smart room control. The company works closely with Microsoft Teams and other platforms as well, and 1 Beyond isn't it's first date to the rodeo either: Crestron has announced partnerships with Huddly, Shure, and Jabra, too.Prior to joining Crestron, Brad served as the Vice President of Consumer and Brand Marketing at SnapAV, where he designed and led marketing efforts and strategies. Before assuming that role, Brad held the position of Senior Director of Product Marketing at Control4 where he was responsible for directing product marketing strategy and development.

vice president consumer senior director flex walked microsoft teams product marketing brand marketing shure video cameras jabra crestron control4

Automation Unplugged Episode #237 feat. Will Gilbert and Greg Michelier, Co-Founders at Bodhi Software

Automation Unplugged Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 13, 2023 55:13

Here are some of the topics Ron had the opportunity to discuss with Will Gilbert and Greg Michelier;Will and Greg's background and what led them to founding Think Simple and Bodhi.Bodhi Software as an IOT SolutionHow they go to market with BodhiTo get transcripts, resources of what was mentioned in the show, and more visit: onefirefly.com/au237SHOW NOTESGreg and Will along with their 3rd partner Rock co-founded Think Simple in 2001 a company that started out in software and hardware design, and ultimately turned into one of the largest residential home automation and AV integration companies serving The Bahamas, Florida and New York with over 100 employees, many of which have been there for 15+ years.Building on their integration experience and software background, the co-founders embarked on their next journey, Bodhi. Bodhi is a software as a service IoT platform that brings together low cost Bodhi thermostats, sensors and other hardware items, along with the capability of communicating directly on enterprise control systems such as Crestron and Lutron. The software has been specified all around the world, with a primary focus of use in Hospitality, MDU, and mixed use properties. Bodhi markets to a professional dealer network and brings a recurring revenue stream to their businesses.Ron Callis is the CEO of One Firefly, LLC, a digital marketing agency based out of South Florida and creator of Automation Unplugged. Founded in 2007, One Firefly has quickly become the leading marketing firm specializing in integrated technology and security. The One Firefly team works hard to create innovative solutions to help Integrators boost their online presence, such as the elite website solution Mercury Pro.About One FireflyOne Firefly, LLC is an award-winning marketing agency that caters to technology professionals in the custom integration, security and solar energy markets. One Firefly is headquartered in Davie, Florida with staff located throughout North America and has been operating since 2007.

ceo new york rock building co founders north america llc software hospitality founded automation south florida bahamas iot av unplugged davie integrators lutron crestron mdu

Episode 129: Troy Morgan on Adapt Energy Home Automation

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 14, 2023 49:16

On this week's podcast, Troy Morgan joins us from North Richland Hills, TX, where he is founder and CEO of PanTech Design, a software development firm specializing in Crestron control systems for commercial and residential applications. Troy has 23 years of programming experience and has earned the distinction of Crestron Master Programmer. He founded PanTech Design in 2005 with the goal of elevating the quality of software and service for audio, video, and environmental automation. Under Troy's leadership, PanTech Design has become one of the top Crestron Service Provider firms in the industry and developed groundbreaking products such as the Adapt for Crestron software suite and Adapt Energy, a home energy automation ecosystem. Adapt Energy applies home automation concepts to energy management applications. Troy sees this as the next evolution to tackle the world's energy challenges, now and into the future.Today's episode of Residential Tech Talks is brought to you by Shelly WiFi Relays by Allterco | Smart home devices designed and developed to provide solutions tailored to your needs. Go to https://shelly.cloud and make IoT simple!

ceo energy tx adapt iot home automation crestron

198: Live from the ISE 2023 Influencer's Lounge, Crestron's Brad Hintze and Catchbox's Mikelis Studers

ceo marketing influencers barcelona ise crestron

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 11, 2023 30:06

Higher Ed AV PodcastEpisode 198Joe Way welcomes Brad Hintze, Executive Vice President of Marketing at Crestron, and Mikelis Studers, CEO at Catchbox, to the ISE 2023 Influencer's Lounge to discuss how their product offerings are essential in the daily success of higher ed tech managers. They discuss the show, Barcelona, and the move post-pandemic to creating products and services to support the higher ed vertical.Connect with Brad Hintze and Crestron: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradhintze/Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/bradhintzeWebsite: https://www.crestron.comTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/crestronConnect with Mikelis Studers and Catchbox:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikelis-studers/Website: https://www.catchbox.comTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/catchboxConnect with Joe Way:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josiahwayTwitter: https://twitter.com/josiahway

Cliff Fong | 406 | Wellness & Design Thought Leadership on The Artistry Behind Design

Convo By Design

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 13, 2022 43:34

I'm Josh Cooperman and this is Convo By Design with a look back at some of the conversations that I feel have shaped my current views of the design industry. Influencers creatives who directly impact the direction of our business. This is Matte Black's, Cliff Fong. Last week you heard from Cliff on a panel and this week, I wanted to showcase him exclusively from our conversation back in 2016. Cliff's ideas about design, taste, style and their direct relationship to the work he does, for whom he does it are inextricably tied together. We speak about him as a design show judge and how that work differs form his views of design in the real world. I would argue these viewpoints are more relevant now than they were then because since the pandemic, haven't most design professionals become a reality design show in some form or fashion? I would argue that most participate actively in the conversation now as opposed to that in 2016. One of the other aspects to this that I hope you notice are the things Cliff does around the work, as in, not the work itself but how he thinks about it and you fill find a certain zen state in his approach that has truly influenced the approach I take to my own work. I can still do way better at that, but this really did help me and perhaps it can help you too, if you're into that sort of thing. Enjoy my conversation with Cliff Fong from 2016, right after this. Thank you, Cliff. Loved hearing this again. I remember it like it was last week at the Crestron showroom in the Pacific Design Center. I don't think that showroom is there anymore, but it is here. Thank you to CXD sponsors and partners, ThermaSol, Article Furniture, York Wallcoverings, Moya Living and Franz Viegener for your continued support. Of course, thank you for downloading, subscribing and listening to the show. Thank you for the emails of support and the guest submissions. I love them and it has allowed me to find some amazing talent to showcase. Please remember why you do what you do and for whom you do it. Designers, architects, artists, product designers, showroom managers, publicists, magazine editors, publishers, set decorators and everyone else that makes our industry stronger by the day, this show is for you. That's why I do it. Thanks for listening. Be well, and take today first.

design wellness influencers loved designers cliff artistry thought leadership fong crestron matte black pacific design center

Dr. Scott J. Allen - Stay Curious

Phronesis: Practical Wisdom for Leaders

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 23, 2022 48:37 Transcription Available

Scott J. Allen, Ph.D., is the Robert M. Ginn Institute Professor for Leadership & Social Responsibility at John Carroll University. Allen is an associate professor and teaches courses in leadership, the future of work, and executive communication. He's an award-winning professor passionate about working with people of all ages. Scott has published more than 50 book chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles. He is the co-author of The Little Book of Leadership Development: 50 Ways to Bring Out the Leader in Every Employee, Emotionally Intelligent Leadership: A Guide for College Students, and the textbook Discovering Leadership: Designing Your Success (2019). Scott's most recent publication is Captovation: Online Presentations by Design. In addition to writing and teaching, Scott consults, facilitates workshops, and leads retreats across industries. Recent engagements include Key Bank, EY, Siegfried Group, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Sherwin Williams, Progressive, NASA-Glenn, FedEx Custom Critical, Toyota, Crestron, Endeavor Energy Resources, Thompson Hine LLP, Southern Methodist University, Cleveland Clinic, and Leadership Cleveland. Scott co-founded Captovation, a services firm dedicated to “Presentation Coaching for the Digital Age.” He is also the co-founder and Board Chair of the Collegiate Leadership Competition. He has served on the board of the International Leadership Association, Association of Leadership Educators, and Management and Organizational Behavior Teaching Society. Allen was named an ILA Fellow by the International Leadership Association in 2021.He resides in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, with his wife, Jessica, and three children - Will, Kate & Emily.Articles Google Scholar About The International Leadership Association (ILA)The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in the study, practice, and teaching of leadership. My Approach to HostingThe views of my guests do not constitute "truth." Nor do they reflect my personal views in some instances. However, they are important views to be aware of. Nothing can replace your own research and exploration.About Dr. Tony Middlebrooks (Guest Host)LinkedIn

184: Supply Chain, Now What?