Priority Planning: Lessons from the Fire
Joe Way, PhD, CTS
With no ISE to start us off sprinting into 2021, and the normal first-of-the-year email bombardment of new product announcements now completely non-existent, how we start to plan for our summer installs will have to be different. I have always enjoyed ISE—even when I could not attend in person—because of the timing. InfoComm is often too late for anything major to be received and ready for the fall semester, but ISE always served as a primer to start planning and securing the budget resources.
But this year is different. Wow, is it different. As many are aware, on December 15, 2020, my family and I lost our home, three cars, and nearly all our possessions to an electrical fire. I will never get the image of watching all my family’s possession literally go up in smoke out of my head. And to be honest, I’m someone who judges my own self-worth based on my stuff and my accomplishments. Sure, I know the “things” don’t matter in the big picture, because I can’t take them to Heaven with me, right? But it wasn’t that the things were disappearing, it’s that I felt part of me, my identity, what I worked hard and gave my life to was being taken away second-by-second, minute-by-minute, box-by-box, and room-by-room. It hurt at a soul level.
Now that 2020 is literally hindsight, what can be learned from that experience? Talk about a way to knock your priorities into shape. Everything I was worried about before that horrific afternoon all of sudden didn’t matter. The twelve and fourteen-hour workdays to get bids out and line drawings done were instantly placed on the back burner. Safety, security, and help for immediate needs became the only things that were important at that moment. Even while saddened by the loss, I found comfort in safety and community. As our family, friends, neighbors, and #AVTweeps rallied to support us in our time of need, I got filled with the greatest possession possible: love from humanity and the faith that God’s got this. We’ll be ok. No, we’ll be more than ok. One day, we’ll thrive from this experience, because it’ll teach us lessons we could never have learned from a book, even if we “knew it” to be the case.
So now, how can this tragedy inform our campus lives? As we look forward to this coming summer, let’s also take a look back at what is truly important when things go south. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we all learned the importance of UC connectivity and rushed to purchase and install microphones, cameras, and socially distanced rooms for virtual and hybrid learning. And kudos to us as an industry; we rocked it. But what happens now when unexpected major catastrophes hit and we cannot get caught like a deer in the headlights? What can we do about active shooters? What happens if half of our boots-on-the-ground field team comes down with COVID or other issues at the same time? Basically, do we know how to protect our team, campus community, and the interests of the university first-and-foremost?
Business continuity planning (BCP) is often one of those “we’ll create a plan because the boss says so” things, but really won’t ever use it, or even know where to find it when we do need it. We often think that the act of having an idea of what we’d do is enough. We often believe that disasters are things that happen to other people, not us. Even my family, pre-fire, did those little things we were supposed to do for fire and earthquake planning: we had all our important documents (passports, car titles, etc.) in one easy grab-and-go location. But in the panic of the fire, calling 911, and getting the family and pets out safely, guess what we forgot to grab? Yep, the easy grab-and-go document folder. Heck, I even had a fire extinguisher handy: well, ok, sort of handy… in the garage… except… that’s where the fire started… so I could not get to it. Points for trying, though?
Planning isn’t effective unless it’s actionable, practiced, and known to everyone who is impacted by it.
Taking into account what truly became important at the moment, what are my new summer plans for this year?
- Safety procedures in case of emergencies. I don’t just mean making sure there are signs up in the rooms or we know where the earthquake meeting place is for our buildings. Does my institution offer any training programs to certify my staff to help others and protect the students is needed, whether it be in public safety, CPR, or otherwise? Likewise, when we designed our new systems, we planned them to integrate effectively with our department of public safety’s announcement systems: that needs to be bumped up the priority list. Any opportunity we have to use classroom technology, digital signage, and other resources to save lives when needed, must be our first focus.
- Inventory tracking and asset management. We often think of asset management in terms of repair tickets and end-of-life planning. Yet, everything is an asset and has value to our institutions. Do we really know what we own and where it is all located at any moment? What precautions can we take to prevent theft or limiting liability? Sure, we don’t want projectors or displays falling and breaking during earthquakes, but we really don’t want them falling and injuring people, making the situation more dangerous during a time of evacuation. Likewise, do we know the true value with depreciation and total cost of replacement in case we need to assist procurement or campus police with an insurance claim?
- Alternative Accommodations. If the pandemic taught us anything, it is that we can spin up a virtual campus in no time. Yet, we did it out of an immediate global need, not because it was the best option for long-term success. While we could spin up Zoom in a matter of days, what about post-pandemic; how much will our physical spaces still be reliant upon cloud and virtual environments when things are “back to normal?” Do we know how long we would be out of commission if we lost one room, one building, or even our entire campus, and do we have the alternative operational plans available to forward if requested?
- Building relationships. People who know me, know that I preach relationships over tech. We are our people. The tech is easy, team building and culture are not. They need to be intentional. When my tragedy struck, I was in awe of the outpouring of support that came rolling in from so many different sides, especially from my higher ed colleagues and #AVTweeps. At first, I really did not want help, because I felt bad accepting assistance when so many people in the AV industry have lost jobs and are suffering from the pandemic. Yet, I was told: “It’s not your choice, Joe. We’re going to help you.” I am truly forever changed due to your love, kindness, and care. I can never begin to repay it in the littlest other than paying that love forward. AV is a community. Our campuses are a community. Every interaction moving forward will always be an intentional act of helping the person first and letting the tech work itself out.
These four goals will be my focus moving into summer, and I encourage you to do the same. Classroom upgrades will happen, but the priorities that truly matter must take precedence. Finally, do me two favors now that you have made it this far through the article: (1) Before you do anything else, text a family member to tell them you love them; and (2) Send an email, text, LinkedIn, or other note a higher ed colleague (bonus if it’s one you don’t know personally yet) and let them know that you value what they do for their campus and our AV family.
Now let’s go rock this Spring and Summer! #AVLove #AVGivesBack
About the Column
The higher ed AV vertical is over a five-billion-dollar sector of the commercial AV integrations industry. Add in the live events, and higher ed accounts for over ten-billion-dollars annually. That’s significant, and why tech managers in our vertical must treat our departments like big business. Every month, Joe Way, PhD, CTS, explores important aspects of business operations, sales, negotiation, finance, and strategy based on over 25 years’ experience in business development, founding and managing several multimillion-dollar companies in the entertainment industry.
The Author: Joe Way, PhD, CTS
Joe Way, PhD, CTS, is the Director of Learning Environments at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, CA and AV Nation 2019 AV Professional of the Year. He is the host of the Higher Ed AV podcast and co-founder of the Higher Education Technology Managers Alliance (HETMA.org), aimed at connecting the higher ed tech manager community and advocating for their common audiovisual needs. He is the author of the bestselling book, Producing Worship: A Theology of Church Technical Arts, is a regular contributor to leading AV-industry media outlets and podcasts, and serves on the AVIXA Tech Managers and Diversity Councils. Joe is an Orange County, CA, native with over 25 years’ experience in education, technical production and the arts, and organizational leadership and management. Over his career, Dr. Way has received diverse awards in the areas of education, the arts, and business, and is a regular keynote speaker and writer for AV-industry and higher ed conferences and media outlets.