Here's just a small sample of the incredible educational highlights offerings:

· W2 - Presentation Facility Design & Integration Considerations by Steve Thorburn

This workshop will outline the major issues to be considered in the design and integration of a new Presentation Facility. Issues include sight line and seating distance considerations, control and source options, and room location concerns. There will be a detailed analysis of the integration of audio, video, lighting, acoustics, building codes and ADA issues that should be addressed in the planning and design of a new facility.

· W4 - Connecting to the Digital Network by Scott Sharer

Digital is the future of videoconferencing. Explore the different options and aspects of connecting your videoconference system to various types of networks. Examine conferencing over the LAN, WAN and private networks, along with the details of ordering different types of switched services from the telephone company. Learn to determine the type of network connections that best suit your needs, and prepare to order and establish your connections with a minimum of confusion; this seminar makes it easy.

· S19 - Selling Design/Build Projects by Paul Depperschmidt

Are you tired of giving your design services away just to get the project? Does it always seem that you are competing on price? Perhaps it's just the way you are approaching the design/build sales process. This course will teach the intermediate sales person and the systems integration company how to find and close those lucrative design/build projects. It will cover the strategy and tactics the salesperson and the company must implement to be successful in this market. It will also show how to position your company to eliminate competition. The course will provide specifics and handouts that illustrate the process to follow, and the contents of a winning proposal. This course will assume that the student has a polished background in the basic sales skills, and an understanding of the consultative sales process.

· The Marriage of AV & IT by Janne Fielding and Max Kopsho

AV and IT professionals must learn to work together in the new millennium to better support existing and emerging technologies that affect their industries. It's a marriage made in technology heaven, and during this seminar you're on the honeymoon. Discussions and hands-on demonstrations will focus on operational and organization changes, and how these changes can be channeled into generating new customers and increasing the revenue of existing business. There will be a comprehensive overview of today's audio, video and data conferencing technology as it fits into the IT/Telco community. This seminar will also offer information on the education and certification needed to succeed in this industry; the first steps over the threshold in the marriage of AV and IT.

· Chasm Theory: Marketing & Sales of Modern High Technology by Scott Sharer

Salespeople and managers, discover for the first time why your "best practices" have actually conspired against you and caused your deals to fall through the cracks. Based on Geoffrey Moore's "Crossing the Chasm" and Peter Senge's "The Fifth Discipline," this advanced seminar deals with the context of technology development, sales and deployment in the field of modern communications. Learn how to define market opportunities, how to understand the psychographics making up the user communities in different markets, and how to penetrate and take control of individual market segments.

· The Future of Projection Distribution - ProAV -- A Panel Discussion

What does the future hold for the ProAV dealer? The fastest-growing segment of the ProAV industry has been the LCD and DLP projector market, but over the past two years margins have rapidly eroded; PC dealers and distributors have started to sell projectors, and the Internet is omnipresent. Will ProAV dealers be selling projectors in five years? Attend this seminar and find out. Discuss the future of ProAV with a panel of members from leading projector manufactures like NEC, Sony, InFocus, Proxima and Epson, as well as industry-leading resellers. Each panelist will make a statement regarding their future vision, followed by an opportunity for you to ask questions. Will the projector market remain part of the ProAV market, or become an emerging part of the PC channel.

· Surviving the Change: Staff Training Programs for the Audio-Visual Dealer by Joel Rollins and Bill Sharer

Ideal for any presentation or ProAV dealer, this seminar provides an overview of how to implement an effective staff-training program for any size AV dealer. In the AV industry, knowledge is the key to success, and this seminar will give you the knowledge you need to boost the effectiveness of your training programs. For management, sales, technical, and service personnel, and for dealers involved in the business of selling presentation products and systems. It's survival of the fittest, and only the fittest should plan to attend this seminar.

· Display Systems Exploration (DSE) (formerly the Projection Encounter)

The Display Systems Exploration (DSE) 2001 will focus on the world of Systems Integration and Design of Boardrooms, Conference Rooms and Training Rooms and the skill and art surrounding doing it well. Sure, anyone can design what's commonly called a "Hang and Bang" where you simply hang a projector in the ceiling or a plasma display on a wall, but only a select few can integrate that presentation gear with varying sources and a plethora of signal routing, distribution and control gear - the Systems Integrator. PE2001 will take you on an in depth tour of Systems Integration the way it's done today, the way it will be done tomorrow and the key technologies behind it all.

But, the highlight of the show has to be one of the Keynotes led by Joel Rollins. This is one I would highly recommend that you NOT miss. It's Friday morning at 9:00am and it deals with a topic we are all talking about:

· Facing the Convergence of IT and AV

The last decade of the 20th century brought profound changes to the commercial AV industry. The first decade of the 21st century will bring even more. The advent of digital technology has changed forever the media we use, the products we sell, and our business relationships and practices. In the next ten years, key trends in technology will necessitate even broader changes. In this brief forum, several clear trends in technology will be examined and extrapolated. Experts from key areas of the technology world will give their view of the future, based on their expertise in these areas of convergence. The best way to predict the future is to create it. Meet the creators.

Current technology trends will be examined. At the end of the panel discussion of each trend, the audience will be allowed to ask questions of the panelists. The trends to be examined include networking and the Internet, wireless telecommunication, geometric expansion of digital processing power, and workforce trends. Panelists will represent leading companies in the following business segments: content development & distribution, bandwidth & transmission, hardware & software.

So, there you have it, the real benefit of a show like INFOCOMM: Education, Training and Certification. Don't miss the opportunity to learn, network and stay ahead of the technology curve.

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Gary Kayye is Chief Visionary of Kayye Consulting - a firm that specializes in providing marketing consulting and training development to the professional audiovisual industry. He spent 12 years at Extron and AMX as VP of Sales and Marketing before founding his own firm. He can be reached at www.kayye.com or via e-mail at gkayye@kayye.com.

 

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