Off the Rails Episode 27: Double Devil’s Advocate

Recorded October 1, 2021

“Hey, Classroom: Turn on projector. Turn ON projector. Hey, Classroom: Turn projector ON. Darn this voice control!”

On this episode, the AV SuperFriends share their current frustrations with supply chain issues causing delays in projects. We also share some solid suggestions on how to mitigate those challenges. Justin is Frankensteining systems out of whatever he has on hand, whereas Larry is ordering equipment for summer 2022 already.

Next, who wants to talk about org charts? Trick question— we all do! Marc is currently experiencing adventures in IT reorganization and it has raised the question of where AV belongs in the larger IT structure. Or does it? Regardless of whether your AV team is part of IT Support, Networking, or Academic Technology, we all agree that it's different everywhere.

Finally, we're going touchless. That is, we promise to stop touching... things. Larry doesn't want people yelling into the void to operate classroom systems, Chris wants to schedule every space in order to automate as much as possible, Justin likes Zoom Rooms, Jamie wants to use more arcade buttons, and Marc suggests even if we don't like the concept of touch-free UI, it's coming soon, one way or another.