The HETMA Roadshow at the University at Buffalo wraps up with Part Three of this special Higher Ed AV Podcast series, bringing together even more voices from across the higher education technology community. As the day moves through lunch, the vendor showcase, education sessions, an esports tour, and toward the closing happy hour, Joe Way continues capturing candid conversations with HETMA leaders, longtime members, industry partners, integrators, and higher ed professionals. The result is a final look at what makes the Roadshow experience so valuable: a day built around learning, relationships, shared challenges, and the opportunity to experience another campus firsthand.
HETMA Chair Erin Maher-Moran opens the episode by reflecting on the Roadshow format and why events designed by end users feel different from traditional industry gatherings. The conversation expands beyond AV alone, touching on facilities, IT, registrars, learning management systems, instructional design, and the many other groups now involved in creating the modern student experience. Former University at Buffalo leader and FLEXspace co-founder Lisa Stephens continues that theme, describing the importance of community, collaboration, faculty engagement, and serving as a connector between pedagogy and technology. She also provides an update on the future of FLEXspace and the opportunity to return the platform to its original purpose of helping institutions learn from one another and make better-informed investments.
The episode also features conversations with industry partners who reinforce the importance of listening to end users before designing solutions. WolfVision’s Marta Skopa discusses simplifying collaboration and presentation workflows so technology becomes nearly invisible to faculty and students, while Southtown Audio Video’s Heather Sidorowicz explains why successful integration begins with understanding the institution rather than simply selecting a product. Former higher ed AV leader Steve Borho offers the perspective of someone who has moved from the university side into integration, sharing how events like the Roadshow help industry professionals stay connected to the real challenges institutions are facing and bring better-informed solutions back to their customers.
Throughout Part Three, one theme continues to surface: higher ed AV works best as an ecosystem of collaboration. Andrew Vogel discusses the importance of building relationships across departments, understanding capacity, and learning from institutions that may solve similar problems in completely different ways. From classroom design and faculty workflows to leadership, FLEXspace, regional partnerships, and even the shared experience of Buffalo wings after the show, the Roadshow demonstrates how much value comes from simply getting people into the same room. Part Three closes the Buffalo series with a reminder that the technology matters, but the relationships, trust, shared knowledge, and willingness to learn from one another are what ultimately move higher education forward.
