Capitalizing on a Fall InfoComm
Mike Pedersen, CTS-D, CTS-I
“The secret of success is to be ready when your opportunity comes.”
As I expect you all know already, the InfoComm trade show, for years a June staple for many of us in pro AV, has been rescheduled for late October. This is actually great news for North American in-house integrators in higher education! Let’s highlight some of the benefits of a fall trade show and consider how to fully capitalize on this opportunity.
Before we talk shop, let me just quickly say how excited I am for the return of InfoComm! I have been a technology manager now for almost three years. I attended InfoComm and CCUMC in 2019 and started to meet some of you. Since then I have virtually started to meet so many other amazing individuals during AVIXA Technology Managers Council meetings, HETMA, as #AVTweeps, and other events. I’ve attended InfoComm at least 15 times, but I was never more excited to go to the show than I was early last year – looking forward to meeting so many of these new acquaintances IRL for the first time! But you all know what happened then. So, I am again super excited about InfoComm this year! I look forward to at least lots of elbow bumps, but probably some handshakes, too. (And at least two of you owe me a drink!) But enough about me…
Having worked in higher education now for almost three years, I have heard many of my peers talk about how poorly timed InfoComm is for us. First, for in-house integrators, June is one of those precious three months where we get much easier access to our classrooms for summer upgrades, and we are often extremely busy. Second is the fact that having new products announced and released in June is too late to be useful for that current summer’s upgrades – the parts have already been ordered – and it is too early for next summer’s upgrades – it is almost a year away. For those of you in Europe (and those of us in the Americas who are particularly blessed), the winter ISE show in Europe is actually timed much, much better for higher education
summer project planning. Unfortunately, many of us in North America simply can’t get the approval to travel to Europe for a trade show.
With InfoComm in October this year, we get an excellent one-time opportunity to partially ease those two challenges. We will have that extra week in June available to us and our teams. Capitalize on that opportunity and either get one more week of project work done than normal or get one more week ahead and reduce the end-of-summer pressure. We also have an opportunity to explore new and improved hardware and software solutions at the InfoComm trade show floor in a timeline that, while not perfect still, is more beneficial for making plans for 2022.
Looking ahead to a late October InfoComm, if there was ever a year to get an early start on planning for the following summer, this would be that year. Get through your summer rush and get fall classes started, but then in late September and early October really consider planning ahead for summer 2022. While you are looking into next year, think about things like:
- Are there any of your hardware standards that are no longer meeting your needs?
- What aspects of classroom management are inefficient or overly challenging?
- Where are you seeing your highest failure rates or instructor complaints?
- What education or industry trends are you seeing that excite you? What trends would you like to get ahead of?
- Where are there opportunities to reduce system complexity; how could you reduce the overall component counts in your systems?
These are certainly not exhaustive, and questions like these might be able to help you narrow your focus at InfoComm to those areas where there is the best potential benefit to your organization. You’ll also find yourself better prepared to “know it when you see it” as you walk the show floor. Reach out early to your key manufacturers and let them know why this timing is much better for you; help them understand that you will be much closer to buying decisions during InfoComm this year because of the 4-month delay. Connect with your peers to ask about the technology and manufacturer relationships that have excited them recently and why; this may give you some ideas on who to seek out on the trade show floor.
Like so many things in life, what benefit you can get out of InfoComm will in large part be dependent upon how well you plan ahead. While I would encourage everyone in North American higher education AV to lobby to get InfoComm moved to late October on an ongoing basis, the odds are extremely low. So let’s maximize this rare opportunity to actually allow this year’s visits to InfoComm to directly benefit our installs for summer 2022.
Get to know: Mike Pedersen
Mike Pedersen joined Iowa State University in the summer of 2018 as the Audiovisual Experience Manager. Mike has been working in the engineering industry for over 26 years. For the last 21 years, he has been focused on the professional audiovisual (AV) industry where he has become recognized as an expert. He holds both the Certified Technology Specialist (CTS) certifications in Design (CTS-D) and Installation (CTS-I); he is one of the approximately 520 people in the world to hold both certifications. In 2018, the Audiovisual and Integrated Experience Association (AVIXA), the primary industry association for professional AV, recognized Mike as CTS Holder of the Year. He currently serves as Chair of the Technology Manager’s Council and a member of the Certification Steering Committee for AVIXA. Mike is a founding member of the Higher Education Technology Managers Alliance (HETMA) and co-founder of the Big 12 Technology Manager’s Alliance.
At Iowa State, Mike leads a team responsible for maintaining the AV systems in over 200 general university classrooms. The Audiovisual Experience Team (AVXT) also assists with AV consulting, installation, and repairs in college and departmental spaces across the university. Mike spends extensive time meeting with individuals to find out how audiovisual systems can make them better in whatever role they serve.
Prior to joining Iowa State, Mike worked for the AV Engineering and Integration firm Mechdyne Corporation for almost 19 years. While at Mechdyne he served several roles including systems engineer, IT manager, manager of project engineering, research and development, and pre-sales engineering. He taught classes on AV extensively both inside and outside of Mechdyne. He has also previously worked for John Deere and Engineering Animation Incorporated (EAI).
Mike is an active volunteer in the community. He advocates extensively for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. He is currently a governor appointee to the governor’s North Central Iowa Regional STEM Advisory Board. He has served as chair of the Project Lead the Way (PLTW) partnership team for the Marshalltown Community School District and on the advisory board for the Broadcasting/Digital Media program at Marshalltown Community College. He has also been very active in the churches he has attended, serving in many leadership roles including Elder and Technology Leader.
Mike is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) where he served as chair of the Central Iowa Section. Mike is a past invited participant to the National Security Forum (NSF.) In addition to the CTS certificates, Mike holds certificates in ITIL Foundation, Extron Audiovisual Associate (EAVA), and OSHA-10.
Mike is a 1994 graduate of Iowa State University with a Bachelor of Science degree with distinction in Mechanical Engineering and a minor in History.