Line Out: Future Speak
May 1, 2004 12:00 PM,
By Scott Walker
When the folks at Sound & Video Contractor asked me to contribute an article about the state of the industry, I reflexively said, “Sure.” As an independent consultant for nearly 15 years and as president of ICIA, I can pretend to know as much as anyone else about the overarching state of the industry. Then an interesting thing happened when I sat down to write this article. I realized that I didn’t really care as much about what the state of the industry is as I do about what the state of the industry is going to be.
We can’t do much about “is.” By the time you figure out what “is” is (apologies to Bill Clinton), it’s gone. Suddenly “is” becomes “was.” “Going to be”–now that’s something we should discuss. So I’m going to be really adventurous and provide a picture of where I believe this industry is heading.
First of all, even if — and many are saying, “when” — the economy starts booming, it will never be 1999 again, when many in the systems integration industry were fat, dumb, and happy. People talk about the industry or the general economy coming back as if we were simply on an economic merry-go-round. We’re in the high-tech industry, people — we never come back to the same point that we were three or five years ago. When the economy starts gaining serious momentum, the industry may come back to the same point on the compass, but it will have elevated to another level. It’s more of a spiral than a cycle, and it will be a death spiral for those who keep wishing for the good old days and waiting for familiar patterns to reappear.
So what are the rules at this new point on the spiral? Who are the players, and what are their roles? More important, what are those roles going to be in five to ten years?
The industry will become increasingly software based and service focused. As a result, the line between manufacturers, consultants, and integrators will blur, and we will begin to look a lot more alike than we do today. On the buyer’s side, technology managers will become increasingly empowered to play the role of consultant and integrator, or conversely, owners will outsource noncore services (such as A/V) to savvy professionals who can handle all of the client’s needs. Either way change is going to occur.
That is just on the people side of the industry. What about the technology? In order to look forward, let’s look briefly back. If, in 1999, someone from five years in the future had come to InfoComm ’99 and said, “Here’s a sub-$1,000 projector from 2004 that’s the size of a laptop, is sold though the consumer channel, and is superior to much of what’s out here on the show floor. Discuss,” What would we have done? We would have either headed to the bar or put our heads on straight.
If you take that analogy and draw a straight line to 2009, where does that leave us? If the box is dead today, what’s next? It has to be the system. If the system is dead, what are we doing? We had better get busy creating and maintaining the superstructure of tomorrow’s visual communications systems if we want a job in the future. We have to become experts at things that will require expertise in 2009, and we have to start now.
One of the reasons that I became involved with ICIA was to spend time with a diverse group of experienced industry leaders and see what could be learned from that association. For me trade shows like InfoComm have always been as much about networking with people as about seeing new technology. So here’s an idea: let’s meet in Atlanta in June at InfoComm and talk A/V. Sounds boring? Come on, you’re committed–you’re a lifer. Let’s make the A/V industry work for those who have been toiling in the trenches all these years. Consider the alternative. Can you imagine leaving this industry and going into insurance or accounting? We have it pretty good. Let’s make it a lot better. See you in Atlanta.
Scott Walkerhas spent nearly 15 years as an independent A/V consultant and is a principal with Waveguide Consulting, an Atlanta-based A/V, IT, and acoustical consulting firm. Walker is past chair of the ICIA Independent Consultants in Audiovisual Technologies Council and is the president of ICIA.
“Line Out” is the forum forSound & Video Contractorreaders to speak out about industry-related topics from trends to business practices to technology. Contact Mark Johnson at (510) 985-3203 or at[email protected]to voice your opinion.
