AN ACCELERATED MASTER’S PROGRAM THAT NONE OF US ASKED FOR.
Craig Shibley, MBA, CTS
Summing up the three- or four years’ worth of experience that we’ve gone through in the last eight months or so can be pretty difficult. Many I’m sure had to put projects on hold while others hit the gas pedal harder than ever before. Some budgets were cut, or disappeared completely, while other funds came out of seemingly nowhere. This simultaneously put an end to some projects while putting others on the fast track.
While so much of what AV Tech managers on campus went through was pandemic specific, there were a lot of lessons that we can take with us on the other side of all of this. Whether these lessons were learned for the first time, relearned, reminded of, or came through like a bulldozer, here is a very incomplete list of things to keep in mind.
1. Hyperbole is the enemy of the truth, or if you prefer, don’t trust anecdotal evidence.
Ever finish a room installation and hear “everyone loves it” or “everyone hates it?” The good and bad news is neither of them is true. When determining the success of, and the amount of usage of an install, don’t trust the anecdotes you will get whether you request the feedback or not. Don’t get me wrong, feedback is very important and something we should be seeking, but relying heavily on small sample sizes and opinions of the people you communicate with the most can get very problematic very fast. Even surveys can’t be trusted at face value as they will most likely have an incomplete sample and be filled out by humans somewhere on the extreme ends of the experiential spectrum.
This seems extreme, but I had this exact experience talking with different groups about the same room. “This gets used all the time” followed shortly after by “no one likes it so professors just work from their office.”
Luckily with our current technology, we can track the use of things and not rely on the thoughts of one or two people speaking for everyone. If you don’t have tracking capabilities and you are communicating with others, make sure you communicate with many users before landing on a solution. Probably the best way to get a clear idea of how technology is being used is to go to the classrooms, see how things are working, and do it again and again. Yes, it’s tedious, but it will help you clear your head of the squeakiest of wheels getting your attention from all angles.
2. Justify future use so you don’t have to do it again (and again).
An issue I think many of us had while preparing our institutions for what school would look like during the pandemic was fighting for what is best against what can be done right now. This is always a tightrope with budgets, timelines, and talent to consider. Throw in a health crisis, and “now” vs. “best” becomes the fight of the century.
There were a lot of question marks at the beginning of the pandemic for how to get classes ready to go, and many of them haven’t gone away. That being said, of all departments, tech managers may have been the best equipped to deal with this issue. Remote learning, streaming, recording, new microphone technology, everything over IP, etc. were all topics that we were discussing and implementing anyway. COVID-19 just changed the urgency.
With that, it is our job to help those we report to and those we serve that what is best ASAP may not be what will best suit the institution three, five, ten years down the road. Yes, mic and camera A will get you through a remote learning semester, but mic and camera B with these accessories will be perfect for this upcoming semester and every subsequent semester for the foreseeable future.
3. Never underestimate the learning curve.
We know the drill. It’s a new technology, but we make it easy with our touchscreens and integration and instructions. We hold trainings and send email blasts. And yet we still don’t get it quite right.
As mentioned above, the technology needed for a pandemic is what many of us were prepared for anyway. That was not the case for many of our end users. Not only may the technology itself be on the difficult side, but teaching with the technology in a different environment with students in 2D on a 4×4 grid is not something they ever signed up for.
As easy as we think we make it, getting used to a different technology will always be a challenge for many of our end users. I encourage all of us to never think of it as someone not wanting to learn the technology or that they are stuck in their ways, but to remember that when they dreamed of being a teacher, the technology used to do it was never included. It’s our job to get teachers teaching, now more than ever. Previously it may have been getting a microphone turned on, and now it’s that plus getting signed into a video conferencing platform and making sure their share screen is coming up correctly.
As we prepare for whatever our lives look like on the other side of pandemic life on a college campus, how we work with those we serve will be of the utmost importance. That was true before March of 2020, it’s true now, and will be true as long as we do this wonderful job. We will still need reminders to do the above but hopefully, all three won’t hit us at the same time as they are now. Get correct information on what your technology is doing and how it is being used. Be prepared to justify what is right over what is wanted right now. And no matter how easy you think you make it, never let that interfere with you stepping in and helping your end-users however they need it.
Craig Shibley
Founding Steering Committee Member
Craig Shibley has been in the AV industry for twenty years, and in higher education for ten. He currently serves as the Director of Multimedia Services for California Baptist University in Riverside, CA. Craig is a HETMA steering committee member and the founder of CheckMyAV.com, an all in one AV testing resource and blog. Feel free to reach out to him on Twitter.
ABOUT HETMA
HETMA is an advocacy organization focused on the higher education AV industry. The goal of HETMA is to raise awareness of technology issues unique to the higher education community by communicating with manufacturers, vendors, and higher education administrators on the needs and challenges that technology managers face. HETMA is also dedicated to providing educational and networking opportunities to our members so that we can empower and grow our influence as an industry.
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