Well, last week's column was another one of those that generated a lot of feedback.

And, I'm happy and proud to report that it was ALL positive. Whew.

End users wrote to thank me for addressing the issue and asking for advice on how to simplify systems they've had installed and still don't understand how to work them - in one case, the system took 8 months to install and has never worked.

Dealers wrote to say that they agreed with my suggestion of simplification of the systems world and many of them even sent in examples of things they have tried recently not only to simplify systems for the benefit of their clients but also for the benefit of their own installation teams.

But, one specific example I want to tell you about that totally typifies what I was writing about.

I happen to be in the office last week of the AV director of a very large university - one that purchases millions of dollars of AV each year from two or three AV integration firms. Since this person is very well known in the industry, he asked not be identified by name in this week's column, but if you call me, I will tell you who it is - deal?

Anyway, he had been having quality problems with a computer-video interface for years. This particular interface was being used all over campus, but in this case it was one that was being used in his office for taking an XGA computer source to a projector and to a local desktop monitor. Well, he did exactly what I wrote about last week and traded out the interface (one with a list price of over $900 in fact) for a simple VGA splitter (one that lists for $150).

And, guess what?

It worked perfectly.

What a trade, huh?

OK, I'm certainly not right about this simplification concept in all cases. Certainly you can't simplify everything. Some systems, like Network Operations Centers (known as NOCs or Command and Control Centers) are, by definition, difficult and complex. But, that's less than 5% of the total systems market.

So, to be safe, use the 80/20 rule and simplify 80%. That's all I am asking.

While we were all in school, we all studied history. We were all told that history is something that should be studied, understood and used as a guide to the future. Kind of a yardstick, I guess, that helps us not make the same mistakes twice.

Well, ProAV history has shown us that simplification works, and can dominate. Remember when the first LCD projectors started to ship? All of us used to lugging around, converging and aligning CRT projectors said (myself included), "The quality of that [LCD] will always keep it from competing with the CRT".

Well, 10 years later, when was the last time you sold or installed a CRT projector? OK, they're still used, but the fact is that not only has the LCD (and DLP) blown away the 80/20 rule - making it closer to 98/2.

Sure, the LCD and DLP are far short of the image quality of a CRT in many ways, but they sure are easy to use. Simple.

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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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