FEED ME TACOS AND TELL ME ABOUT CLICKSHARE

Last week a friend and I went to check out Taco Tuesday at a new hotspot down by my favorite watering hole in Lauderdale by the Sea.  I expected to enjoy dinner and a drink surrounded by sunshine and music at the open-air bar.  I did NOT expect the chance to geek out after hours with an AV/how to create stress-free collaboration chat, but that’s just what happened.

He’s a sales rep for commercial grade office furniture, and had a big meeting coming up that week.  “You work in PowerPoint, don’t you?” he asked. Ah-ha!  An ulterior motive!  I fully expected him to ask for help with his transitions or animation.  He followed up with, “how do you show your PowerPoint on a TV in a conference room?”  I ignored my initial instinct to correct him on the term “TV” and instead reveled at the chance to talk shop.  He rattled off the familiar complaints about meetings we are all familiar with. People unengaged and even checked out. Meetings can never start on time because it takes too long to set up presentations and project to the displays or screen.  And on and on.

Well!  Isn’t this right up my alley?  As the resident Barco ClickShare expert for the Florida office I am a big fan of the simple technology that makes sharing content and collaborating easy for anyone in any meeting.  I was more than happy to launch into the features and benefits of ClickShare, and how Barco has been changing how meetings are conducted for the past few years with full BYOD support and zero obstacles for downloading software.  IT departments pretty much anywhere can jump on board thanks to the 3 levels of security built into the technology.  And now that they have the CSE-200+ and CSE-800 that does touch back, annotation, and blackboarding for touch panels, the sky’s the limit when it comes to presenting and collaboration.

My friend was intrigued. One device that can easily alleviate all the meeting issues he described?  Not a mythical unicorn!

Unfortunately the company my friend was calling on did not have a ClickShare-enabled conference room, so he was left tethered to the display via an unattractive HDMI cord draped from the conference room table.  Great for impromptu limbo parties, but cumbersome and awkward for presentations and sales pitches.  Fortunately, he still landed the sale.

If he keeps inviting me for dinner on Taco Tuesday I’ll invite him into our office for a personal demo.  In the meantime, he’s going to have to keep wowing his customers with his winning personality

I’m Ready to Geek Out

I’m an aspiring techie.  As a marketing manager in the Pro AV channel I marvel daily at what you guys and gals (girl power!) can do.  While I’m at home battling my wireless printer you’re out there day after day beaming Cecil the Lion onto the Empire State Building in New York City.  Well, maybe you don’t do that every day, but what you do on a daily basis is still quite impressive.

old school projectorI was a high school student in the 90’s.  (You Gotta Fight! For Your Right! To Partyyyy!)  We had the old school projectors that shined the lesson written on multiple sheets of clear plastic onto a pull down screen, or even a cement wall in some classrooms.  Teachers would walk away with colorful smudges on their hands from the ink they were using to illustrate their points.  Imagine how Mr. Flammond would teach me the DNA sequence of an amphibian these days!

But, I digress.  I haven’t walked the halls of BHS since back when we were sporting Members Only Jackets and fluffy Love Eric socks, but I see now what you the installers and integrators are putting inside those classrooms.  And I’m downright jealous.  I want to go back and learn the way children of today are learning!

And education isn’t the only way you are changing lives.  Making meetings more productive with amazing technology like Sharp AQUOS BOARDS and the InFocus Mondopads and Barco Clickshare in boardrooms and conference rooms is changing the way companies think and do business. Even Almo Pro AV!

Don’t even get me started on retail right now.  I just can’t.  Because if I start talking about that LG Dual-Sided Curved OLED display and how many pair of shoes that thing could sell me I may have to run to the Galleria Mall immediately.

The point is… the dealers and resellers and installers and integrators that trust Almo Pro AV with their technology needs are pretty impressive folks.  And I’m going to be lucky enough to meet some of them in person this coming Tuesday in Dallas, Texas, where our E4 AV Tour makes its last stop in 2016.  If you’re close-by, come check it out.  You can register here.  There are classes and other educational opportunities for CTS Renewal Credits and a super-cool experience by Samsung of their outdoor displays that Paris Hilton would actually describe as “that’s Hot”.

Yes, I’m going because it’s my job.  But don’t think I won’t be walking away all geeked out and excited over the technology we’re showcasing.  And when I come home I’m going to beat that pesky wireless printer!

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