This weekend there was an event on campus that involved a presenter bringing their own laptop. I got a panicked call on Saturday night, because it was not working. Luckily, I was only minutes away from campus, so I was able to stop by and see what was going on. The VGA input for the laptop had been damaged by a previous user and therefore was not working. As I scrambled to find a solution, a couple thoughts came to mind.
1. On the inside of every rack should be a schematic drawing. In an emergency trying to trace back a wire, without a schematic gets to be very stressful. Having a schematic would have allowed me to relax a bit and have the time to work through the rack properly. I imagine that I am one of the last people to think of this, but better late than never!
2. Is all the Cat5 we are using for installations really an advancement? On Saturday, my saving grace was disconnecting the VGA from the rack, at the wall plate and plugging the laptop in there. In all of our new installations, this connection would not have existed. All that would be at the wall plate was a Cat5. I could try all night, but I don't think I could have plugged the VGA into the Cat5. While these installations are certainly easier to install and design, they also take away a lot of our learned experiences on how solve problems in emergencies!
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Can AV Managers Learn from their IT Counterparts?
A/V technology has rapidly changed over the past several years. The technical changes have been blazing fast and demands from our users grow at an almost equal pace. In the education world, A/V shops have transformed from staff who push around A/V carts to highly trained technicians, system designers and programmers. Despite these changes our basic charge has stayed the same, "provide the technology that I need and make sure it works when I need it". Many technology managers feel immense pressure to somehow manage all of this change, manage the exponential growth in equipment on our campuses and provide the same level of service that we did when we had more staff and less equipment. Bates College, for example, has experienced a 400% growth in A/V equipment and installations over the past 6 years, while losing one full time position. Unfortunately, many of the leaders of our institutions are unaware of how quickly A/V has evolved and still view the position in A/V departments as low skilled. At this critical point in the growth and importance of A/V in our institutions we can learn a tremendous amount from our colleagues in IT. After all, they went through, and continue to go through, similar changes with computing. Don't forget there was a time when the IT group was considered the "techies" whose only charge was to keep the computers working. Rightfully so, IT now has a role in almost all aspects of campus life.
At Bates College we have moved towards a model that borrows from the IT structure. Our first and most significant step towards this transition has been developing statistics on usage and problems. Talk to your IT guys, they can tell you how many e-mails come into campus on a day, how many help desk calls were made during a given time period, how many computers exist on the campus and they use this information to gain support for their work. At Bates, we are using Crestron RoomView for our reporting needs and the results have been phenomenal. Every month I am able to report detailed statistics to my staff, administration and faculty about A/V use on campus. Frankly, the usage blows us all away and makes us realize A/V is in constant use and is remarkably reliable. We currently have 50 classrooms on campus with full A/V installations. In those 50 rooms the A/V systems were used over 5,000 unique times in the fall semester of 2009. We had a total of 70 trouble calls during the first semester that were technical problems, resulting in a 98.9% success rate of technology in our classrooms. I don't want to lessen the importance and significance of the 15 problems, any time there is a problem it is serious, but I also use this data to point out to our administration the incredible job that is being done in keeping the equipment running. Compare this to what goes on in the IT side. If your CIO got 15 e-mails a month from people complaining about computing problems (and he/she probably does) they would simply chalk it up the fact that technology does not always work the way users expect it to, realizing that 15 calls is a pretty small number considering the usage of the network and computers. However, 15 e-mails to that same CIO about classroom technology problems would probably raise a "why does this stuff never work" response. If your CIO has this response, but has no frame of reference for the complaints, then what other reaction could be expected? You have to provide the data on a regular basis whether they ask for it or not. If done right, this data should be readily available for you to provide to your superiors without much of a time commitment on your part.
Another issue we grapple with on a regular basis is user support. For so long our mode of operation has been to drop everything, run to a problem and do anything you possibly can to fix the problem. I believe this can be traced back to the early days of classroom technology in which the equipment was a mix match of various technologies, much of which was custom built, and frankly, did not work consistently. Clearly, the technology has gotten to a level where this is not as much of a problem. Equipment is more reliable and many of our users are more comfortable with the equipment. However, there are still some problems that occur and training still needs to happen. Again, I suggest we look to IT to see what they have done that is successful and borrow what works. Most of us have borrowed the idea of a help desk from the IT side. I don't know of any institutions that don't have some form of an A/V help desk. How about classroom troubleshooting? What does a person do after hours when they can't get their laptop to work or there is no sound from the computer? Many institutions I have talked with either have no support for this type of situation, or they have paper printed and put in the classrooms. When was the last time you saw your IT department give a manual to a person when they delivered them a computer? They don't, instead they use the tools at their disposal, namely, helpsheets on the web. Use the same resource, or better yet, use the resource that may already be in the room, namely the touchpanel. In our classrooms, our touchpanels themselves are the troubleshooting tools. They tell the user whether the laptop is outputting a signal, and if not give the user the option of reading steps on how to ouput video from their laptop. Using current sensors we can detail some simple troubleshooting, such as whether the dedicated computer or the document camera is on, yes, we too get calls from people saying something didn't work only to find they had not turned it on. If someone presses the help button to report that there is no sound from the computer, the touchpanel shows instructions to check the volume on the computer, as well as the volume level on the touchpanel.
There has been a lot of talk on the A/V channels over the past few months about the digital transition and the host of problems that come with these changes. Particularly, how do we deal with super-high resolutions and connection types that are not standard in the classroom (i.e. HDMI, DisplayPort). While well intentioned, some people jump to conclusions like, let's have an emergency kit of every adapter type in every classroom. Again, that feeling of "we must make anything work" stirs in us. Yet, we know that we can not possibly achieve this goal and trying to will only result in more failure. A pile of adapters looks very messy, they will disappear and likely the users won't know how to use them. By making all these adapters available, you would be declaring support for all of them. We followed the lead of our IT department in this area as well. IT has a very clear list of software that is supported by the college. For example, we support Microsoft Word. If you choose to use Google Docs, Open Office or some other word processing application, the help desk will not support you. In the A/V group we published a list of supported input types (DVI, VGA, etc.) along with supported resolutions (XGA, WXGA). When someone brings a visitor to campus, we point them to this document and let them know what we support.
Finally, the last big thing we can learn from IT is about budgeting. This is a sensitive issue at the moment because everyone is getting their budgets slashed. However, I believe that IT does a very good job of letting people know exactly what it means to cut parts of their budget. Our network folks make very clear that cutting the preventative maintenance budget means they will not be able to replace switches and servers, and that it WILL result in more down time. Our desktop folks make it very clear that stretching out the desktop replacement cycle would mean that you end up with machines that are not under warranty, creating more work and costing more money. If the budgets in this area are cut, and there are failures, again, the network and desktop people do not "take the fall", and rightfully so, they point out that the failures are a direct result of budget cuts. Are we explaining very well what it means to skip a year on the replacement cycle for displays or control systems? Have you talked with your CIO about the change to digital interfaces that is well underway? Do they understand clearly that not replacing projectors and internal A/V system parts, that they will not be compatible with say, DVI or HDMI? Do you take it a step further and show them how this will affect faculty, staff and visiting presenters? If not, then it makes perfect sense that they cut your budget when the fiscal knife comes out. There are many resources available to provide you with data on the transition to digital. Use these resources to learn about these changes and talk with your superiors about why the equipment needs to be part of a regular replacement cycle. As technology managers, it is our responsibility to educate people in our organizations about the technical changes that have taken place in the industry and the correlation to change in job skills, responsibilities and fiscal support needed to provide reliable A/V on our campuses.
At Bates College we have moved towards a model that borrows from the IT structure. Our first and most significant step towards this transition has been developing statistics on usage and problems. Talk to your IT guys, they can tell you how many e-mails come into campus on a day, how many help desk calls were made during a given time period, how many computers exist on the campus and they use this information to gain support for their work. At Bates, we are using Crestron RoomView for our reporting needs and the results have been phenomenal. Every month I am able to report detailed statistics to my staff, administration and faculty about A/V use on campus. Frankly, the usage blows us all away and makes us realize A/V is in constant use and is remarkably reliable. We currently have 50 classrooms on campus with full A/V installations. In those 50 rooms the A/V systems were used over 5,000 unique times in the fall semester of 2009. We had a total of 70 trouble calls during the first semester that were technical problems, resulting in a 98.9% success rate of technology in our classrooms. I don't want to lessen the importance and significance of the 15 problems, any time there is a problem it is serious, but I also use this data to point out to our administration the incredible job that is being done in keeping the equipment running. Compare this to what goes on in the IT side. If your CIO got 15 e-mails a month from people complaining about computing problems (and he/she probably does) they would simply chalk it up the fact that technology does not always work the way users expect it to, realizing that 15 calls is a pretty small number considering the usage of the network and computers. However, 15 e-mails to that same CIO about classroom technology problems would probably raise a "why does this stuff never work" response. If your CIO has this response, but has no frame of reference for the complaints, then what other reaction could be expected? You have to provide the data on a regular basis whether they ask for it or not. If done right, this data should be readily available for you to provide to your superiors without much of a time commitment on your part.
Another issue we grapple with on a regular basis is user support. For so long our mode of operation has been to drop everything, run to a problem and do anything you possibly can to fix the problem. I believe this can be traced back to the early days of classroom technology in which the equipment was a mix match of various technologies, much of which was custom built, and frankly, did not work consistently. Clearly, the technology has gotten to a level where this is not as much of a problem. Equipment is more reliable and many of our users are more comfortable with the equipment. However, there are still some problems that occur and training still needs to happen. Again, I suggest we look to IT to see what they have done that is successful and borrow what works. Most of us have borrowed the idea of a help desk from the IT side. I don't know of any institutions that don't have some form of an A/V help desk. How about classroom troubleshooting? What does a person do after hours when they can't get their laptop to work or there is no sound from the computer? Many institutions I have talked with either have no support for this type of situation, or they have paper printed and put in the classrooms. When was the last time you saw your IT department give a manual to a person when they delivered them a computer? They don't, instead they use the tools at their disposal, namely, helpsheets on the web. Use the same resource, or better yet, use the resource that may already be in the room, namely the touchpanel. In our classrooms, our touchpanels themselves are the troubleshooting tools. They tell the user whether the laptop is outputting a signal, and if not give the user the option of reading steps on how to ouput video from their laptop. Using current sensors we can detail some simple troubleshooting, such as whether the dedicated computer or the document camera is on, yes, we too get calls from people saying something didn't work only to find they had not turned it on. If someone presses the help button to report that there is no sound from the computer, the touchpanel shows instructions to check the volume on the computer, as well as the volume level on the touchpanel.
There has been a lot of talk on the A/V channels over the past few months about the digital transition and the host of problems that come with these changes. Particularly, how do we deal with super-high resolutions and connection types that are not standard in the classroom (i.e. HDMI, DisplayPort). While well intentioned, some people jump to conclusions like, let's have an emergency kit of every adapter type in every classroom. Again, that feeling of "we must make anything work" stirs in us. Yet, we know that we can not possibly achieve this goal and trying to will only result in more failure. A pile of adapters looks very messy, they will disappear and likely the users won't know how to use them. By making all these adapters available, you would be declaring support for all of them. We followed the lead of our IT department in this area as well. IT has a very clear list of software that is supported by the college. For example, we support Microsoft Word. If you choose to use Google Docs, Open Office or some other word processing application, the help desk will not support you. In the A/V group we published a list of supported input types (DVI, VGA, etc.) along with supported resolutions (XGA, WXGA). When someone brings a visitor to campus, we point them to this document and let them know what we support.
Finally, the last big thing we can learn from IT is about budgeting. This is a sensitive issue at the moment because everyone is getting their budgets slashed. However, I believe that IT does a very good job of letting people know exactly what it means to cut parts of their budget. Our network folks make very clear that cutting the preventative maintenance budget means they will not be able to replace switches and servers, and that it WILL result in more down time. Our desktop folks make it very clear that stretching out the desktop replacement cycle would mean that you end up with machines that are not under warranty, creating more work and costing more money. If the budgets in this area are cut, and there are failures, again, the network and desktop people do not "take the fall", and rightfully so, they point out that the failures are a direct result of budget cuts. Are we explaining very well what it means to skip a year on the replacement cycle for displays or control systems? Have you talked with your CIO about the change to digital interfaces that is well underway? Do they understand clearly that not replacing projectors and internal A/V system parts, that they will not be compatible with say, DVI or HDMI? Do you take it a step further and show them how this will affect faculty, staff and visiting presenters? If not, then it makes perfect sense that they cut your budget when the fiscal knife comes out. There are many resources available to provide you with data on the transition to digital. Use these resources to learn about these changes and talk with your superiors about why the equipment needs to be part of a regular replacement cycle. As technology managers, it is our responsibility to educate people in our organizations about the technical changes that have taken place in the industry and the correlation to change in job skills, responsibilities and fiscal support needed to provide reliable A/V on our campuses.
The IT guys did this years ago, now it is our turn.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Lecture Capture - Why So Expensive
Over the past year or so, I have been investigating Classroom Capture systems. There are some great systems out there, but they are SO expensive. I truly don't understand why. Sure, there are some systems that are free, and others that are not incredibly expensive but require LOTS of configuration and in-house programming. And most of those systems require some work by the professor to get them running.
I guess that the other systems are so expensive because the market will bear the cost, but I wonder why. How can it make sense to pay $10k or more for one of these systems. Ok, ok, I know why it makes sense to pay that much money, it makes sense if you are turning around and making a profit off the recordings that are made.
What about the rest of us? What about those of use who want a system that fits the following requirements:
- no software on the computer, recording is done via an inline box
- simple to use
- no more that 1 day of server install time
- less than 5k per unit
- NO recurring software costs? Why should I pay for something I already own!!!!!
Beyond the blatant (and powerful) use of this technology as a way to review class sessions there are so many other uses that smaller colleges, like the one I work at could explore. Here are some examples:
- pre- lecture modules: a professor puts up a recording of a particularly difficult subject, from the previous year's lecture and lets students review it before coming to the current year's lecture.
- learning modules: a professor records himself/herself lecturing on a specific topic, with examples, and posts it in the school's LMS.
- learning differences. There are so many examples here. Students who have learning differences have oppurtinities to focus in class, without taking detailed notes, knowing they can review the lecture later.
- students with illness: During the recent swine flu outbreak, we learned that the best way to avoid illness is to stay away from others when we are sick. Serious students may have a hard time not coming to class. They may be more willing to stay home and get well, knowing that the lecture would be captured.
Because these examples don't bring in revenue, there is no way a small college can make this technology widespread at current costs of the equipment. Plus, what is so complicated about this technology that makes it so expensive? They are essentially computers, with a piece of software on them.
There is a big market out there for someone who figures this out and sells the product at a reaonsable price. When that happens, I hope they call me first!
I guess that the other systems are so expensive because the market will bear the cost, but I wonder why. How can it make sense to pay $10k or more for one of these systems. Ok, ok, I know why it makes sense to pay that much money, it makes sense if you are turning around and making a profit off the recordings that are made.
What about the rest of us? What about those of use who want a system that fits the following requirements:
- no software on the computer, recording is done via an inline box
- simple to use
- no more that 1 day of server install time
- less than 5k per unit
- NO recurring software costs? Why should I pay for something I already own!!!!!
Beyond the blatant (and powerful) use of this technology as a way to review class sessions there are so many other uses that smaller colleges, like the one I work at could explore. Here are some examples:
- pre- lecture modules: a professor puts up a recording of a particularly difficult subject, from the previous year's lecture and lets students review it before coming to the current year's lecture.
- learning modules: a professor records himself/herself lecturing on a specific topic, with examples, and posts it in the school's LMS.
- learning differences. There are so many examples here. Students who have learning differences have oppurtinities to focus in class, without taking detailed notes, knowing they can review the lecture later.
- students with illness: During the recent swine flu outbreak, we learned that the best way to avoid illness is to stay away from others when we are sick. Serious students may have a hard time not coming to class. They may be more willing to stay home and get well, knowing that the lecture would be captured.
Because these examples don't bring in revenue, there is no way a small college can make this technology widespread at current costs of the equipment. Plus, what is so complicated about this technology that makes it so expensive? They are essentially computers, with a piece of software on them.
There is a big market out there for someone who figures this out and sells the product at a reaonsable price. When that happens, I hope they call me first!
Monday, January 4, 2010
2010 - Is it the year you WILL deal with HDCP?
High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) has been around for a few years, but many Technology Managers have not had to deal with it. Will 2010 be the year that you finally have no choice but to understand HDCP and install compatible devices? We are at a time of year for predictions and resolutions. I have one of each. I predict this is the year that you will have to deal with HDCP in some way, and I suggest we all make learning about HDCP our resolution.
First, let's quickly recap HDCP. HDCP is a form of digital copy protection. Watered down, it essentially is a communication protocol, based on keys, between a video source (i.e. Blu-Ray player) and a display device (i.e. LCD projector or TV) often referred to as a sink. The source is in constant (multiple times per second) contact with the sink to ensure that nothing has been placed in line between the two devices. Essentially the source says "are you a display device that does not record" and the device responds, "yes, I am". In home installations this is a pretty smooth setup with minimum problems because most people have a direct connection from their Blu-Ray player to the their display.
It becomes more complicated in commercial or educational environments. For starters, we often have multiple sources, going to a single, or multiple displays. This requires us to put a device in that manages the HDCP keys and lets the system know that it is allowed to pass the video. So, we look at something more along the lines of a source, confirming with a video extender, that is is an extender and only an extender, and it is connected to only a display device. Obviously, there is more to the technology than this limited post can supply, but this is the basic idea.
The concern for technology managers is not just the Blu-Ray player. I think we all need to be concerned about the "other" devices that we don't think of as needing HDCP support. For example, for over a year Apple laptops have enforced HDCP restrictions on some HD movies downloaded from iTunes. So, if it was common practice for a professor to show a movie from his/her laptop in class, they are going to have problems with the newer movies.
Our school has a student run filmboard. The board gets films that are out of theaters, but not yet available on DVD. Currently, the company they deal with sends VHS tapes (seriously) of these movies. I guess they figure that no one would want to copy it! However, they are pushing to have schools purchase an online device that downloads the movie from their servers (think NetFlix On Demand). However, this device requires HDCP compatability at the projector, which we don't have in this space.
In our academic worlds HDCP may be an excellent way for academics to protect their intellectual property and companies to be sure you are not stealing from them. On occasion, we have presenters come to campus who do not want their presentations recorded. I think it would be a fair assumption that Microsoft will soon incorporate a feature that allows you to turn on HDCP protection for any video coming out of your laptop. Unless you have systems prepared to handle this, you may be stuck with a presenter who will not show their presentation. What about applications such as ArtStor or Naxos music server? Will they begin to incorporate HDCP requirements into their systems to protect copyrights? What about your classroom capture equipment? Have you considered how HDCP will affect it? What about our faculty who dutifully subscribe to fair use regulations? HDCP has killed our ability to take clips out of movies.
The change to digital systems has been a challenge for Technology Managers, but I believe the impact of HDCP is what is going to really force us to re-think our installs, and soon. We have been converting DVI to VGA for years, with no clear loss of image quality. However, as HDCP is now standard in our video out connections (HDMI, DisplayPort) that will no longer be an option, we will have to move our installs to support HDCP. This is about more than just wires and infrastructure. We need to be thinking about the devices we are installing as well. If you hang a projector this summer that does not have a digital input with HDCP, then you will be replacing it sooner than expected.
I have found a few resources for learning more about HDCP - Feel free to leave comments if you know of additional resources:
- Wikipedia HDCP - http://bit.ly/WikiHDCP
- Detailed Specs for the really techno-savy http://bit.ly/hdcpttp
- Extron White Paper on HDCP - http://www.extron.com/download/files/whitepaper/hdcp_wp.pdf
First, let's quickly recap HDCP. HDCP is a form of digital copy protection. Watered down, it essentially is a communication protocol, based on keys, between a video source (i.e. Blu-Ray player) and a display device (i.e. LCD projector or TV) often referred to as a sink. The source is in constant (multiple times per second) contact with the sink to ensure that nothing has been placed in line between the two devices. Essentially the source says "are you a display device that does not record" and the device responds, "yes, I am". In home installations this is a pretty smooth setup with minimum problems because most people have a direct connection from their Blu-Ray player to the their display.
It becomes more complicated in commercial or educational environments. For starters, we often have multiple sources, going to a single, or multiple displays. This requires us to put a device in that manages the HDCP keys and lets the system know that it is allowed to pass the video. So, we look at something more along the lines of a source, confirming with a video extender, that is is an extender and only an extender, and it is connected to only a display device. Obviously, there is more to the technology than this limited post can supply, but this is the basic idea.
The concern for technology managers is not just the Blu-Ray player. I think we all need to be concerned about the "other" devices that we don't think of as needing HDCP support. For example, for over a year Apple laptops have enforced HDCP restrictions on some HD movies downloaded from iTunes. So, if it was common practice for a professor to show a movie from his/her laptop in class, they are going to have problems with the newer movies.
Our school has a student run filmboard. The board gets films that are out of theaters, but not yet available on DVD. Currently, the company they deal with sends VHS tapes (seriously) of these movies. I guess they figure that no one would want to copy it! However, they are pushing to have schools purchase an online device that downloads the movie from their servers (think NetFlix On Demand). However, this device requires HDCP compatability at the projector, which we don't have in this space.
In our academic worlds HDCP may be an excellent way for academics to protect their intellectual property and companies to be sure you are not stealing from them. On occasion, we have presenters come to campus who do not want their presentations recorded. I think it would be a fair assumption that Microsoft will soon incorporate a feature that allows you to turn on HDCP protection for any video coming out of your laptop. Unless you have systems prepared to handle this, you may be stuck with a presenter who will not show their presentation. What about applications such as ArtStor or Naxos music server? Will they begin to incorporate HDCP requirements into their systems to protect copyrights? What about your classroom capture equipment? Have you considered how HDCP will affect it? What about our faculty who dutifully subscribe to fair use regulations? HDCP has killed our ability to take clips out of movies.
The change to digital systems has been a challenge for Technology Managers, but I believe the impact of HDCP is what is going to really force us to re-think our installs, and soon. We have been converting DVI to VGA for years, with no clear loss of image quality. However, as HDCP is now standard in our video out connections (HDMI, DisplayPort) that will no longer be an option, we will have to move our installs to support HDCP. This is about more than just wires and infrastructure. We need to be thinking about the devices we are installing as well. If you hang a projector this summer that does not have a digital input with HDCP, then you will be replacing it sooner than expected.
I have found a few resources for learning more about HDCP - Feel free to leave comments if you know of additional resources:
- Wikipedia HDCP - http://bit.ly/WikiHDCP
- Detailed Specs for the really techno-savy http://bit.ly/hdcpttp
- Extron White Paper on HDCP - http://www.extron.com/download/files/whitepaper/hdcp_wp.pdf
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Setting Expectations, Part 2: What are the User's Responsibility in A/V?
In my last blog post I questioned what reasonable expectations are for the reliability of AV systems. This time I am considering reasonable expectations of people who use these systems. Specifically, how much should people be expected to know about an A/V system?
I have previously discussed the not so distant past of A/V, and how we are still trying to get beyond the "reputation". In particular, for a long time A/V was not professionally integrated in our spaces and frankly, did not work very well. The behind the scenes AV was not close to the systems we have today and it was confusing to use. Remember, it was not that long ago that a professor may have used a mixing board to increase volume in the classroom! AV techs NEEDED to be available to help run this equipment. Clearly, with the saturation and usage rates of equipment, this is no longer possible. We simply can not be everywhere anymore.
At Bates College we have begun to change support expectations. The first step in this process is to develop systems that are easy to use, reliable and well maintained. For example, if you have touchpanels, you should seriously consider using Dashboard for Controls. Choosing a standard like this helps your staff, my staff and all the presenters who travel from one location to another.
One test that I have used to determine how simple a room is to use, is to bring someone in who has never used a control device before. I point them to the touchpanel or button pad and ask them to turn the projector on and select the dedicated computer. If they can not do that, then the system is not easy enough to use. As a side note, I am looking for more people to be my test users, so far my wife, brother and father have all been used. Would enlisting my 8 year old daughter be wrong?
After we were comfortable that our systems were easy to use and reliable we started offering training (during regular work hours) as opposed to on-site support during usage of the system. At Bates we believe that the money we spend on touchpanels is returned by not requiring technicians at every event. If you are going to send an AV tech to press the two buttons on a touchpanel, then why did you put in the touchpanel to begin with?
At first our users worried about us not being at every event. They were worried about their presentation failing, and that makes sense, it is a fear that all presenters have. However, after several successful events (507 events in the fall semester, with 2 reported problems) the users realized they can use the systems on their own. By the way, the two reported problems turned out to be matters of convenience, neither stopped the presentation from moving forward.
Under the right conditions, I will sometimes joke with a nervous presenter and remind them that the A/V system in the room is much easier to use than a photocopier, fax machine and their cell phone (and likely more reliable than any of those) and they manage to use them everyday. We developed these changes as policy and posted so all our clients could have access to them.
Our second struggle is with outside presenters. Too many times we have seen problems with presentations because no expectations or responsibilities were made clear in advance. Presenters show up with all types of various computers, media and peripherals. We have had events in which we were told no AV was being used, and the presenter showed up with a laptop that had a proprietary video output, and they did not have the adapter. Because no expectations were set in advance, solving this problem became the responsibility of the AV staff. Of course, we did not have the adapter, so the presenter could not use their laptop. While this unfairly made the AV staff look bad, more importantly, the event did not go off as well as it could have and should have.
After a couple of these occurrences, we set expectations and responsibilities. We made it clear that outside speakers have responsibilities to know how to use their own technology. We went around campus talking with people who sponsor outside speakers and made sure they were aware of our new policy. As current practice we send the previous link to everyone who is a guest speaker at the College. Again, this was a change and people were not fully comfortable with the change, but after a full semester, it is clear (the aforementioned 507 successful events) that the policy has made events flow more smoothly.
The point we try to get across to users of the system is that our responsibilities include providing you with reliable, easy to use rooms and training on how the rooms work. Your responsibilities include taking the time to learn how the system works, and only bringing your own devices if you know how they work.
I have previously discussed the not so distant past of A/V, and how we are still trying to get beyond the "reputation". In particular, for a long time A/V was not professionally integrated in our spaces and frankly, did not work very well. The behind the scenes AV was not close to the systems we have today and it was confusing to use. Remember, it was not that long ago that a professor may have used a mixing board to increase volume in the classroom! AV techs NEEDED to be available to help run this equipment. Clearly, with the saturation and usage rates of equipment, this is no longer possible. We simply can not be everywhere anymore.
At Bates College we have begun to change support expectations. The first step in this process is to develop systems that are easy to use, reliable and well maintained. For example, if you have touchpanels, you should seriously consider using Dashboard for Controls. Choosing a standard like this helps your staff, my staff and all the presenters who travel from one location to another.
One test that I have used to determine how simple a room is to use, is to bring someone in who has never used a control device before. I point them to the touchpanel or button pad and ask them to turn the projector on and select the dedicated computer. If they can not do that, then the system is not easy enough to use. As a side note, I am looking for more people to be my test users, so far my wife, brother and father have all been used. Would enlisting my 8 year old daughter be wrong?
After we were comfortable that our systems were easy to use and reliable we started offering training (during regular work hours) as opposed to on-site support during usage of the system. At Bates we believe that the money we spend on touchpanels is returned by not requiring technicians at every event. If you are going to send an AV tech to press the two buttons on a touchpanel, then why did you put in the touchpanel to begin with?
At first our users worried about us not being at every event. They were worried about their presentation failing, and that makes sense, it is a fear that all presenters have. However, after several successful events (507 events in the fall semester, with 2 reported problems) the users realized they can use the systems on their own. By the way, the two reported problems turned out to be matters of convenience, neither stopped the presentation from moving forward.
Under the right conditions, I will sometimes joke with a nervous presenter and remind them that the A/V system in the room is much easier to use than a photocopier, fax machine and their cell phone (and likely more reliable than any of those) and they manage to use them everyday. We developed these changes as policy and posted so all our clients could have access to them.
Our second struggle is with outside presenters. Too many times we have seen problems with presentations because no expectations or responsibilities were made clear in advance. Presenters show up with all types of various computers, media and peripherals. We have had events in which we were told no AV was being used, and the presenter showed up with a laptop that had a proprietary video output, and they did not have the adapter. Because no expectations were set in advance, solving this problem became the responsibility of the AV staff. Of course, we did not have the adapter, so the presenter could not use their laptop. While this unfairly made the AV staff look bad, more importantly, the event did not go off as well as it could have and should have.
After a couple of these occurrences, we set expectations and responsibilities. We made it clear that outside speakers have responsibilities to know how to use their own technology. We went around campus talking with people who sponsor outside speakers and made sure they were aware of our new policy. As current practice we send the previous link to everyone who is a guest speaker at the College. Again, this was a change and people were not fully comfortable with the change, but after a full semester, it is clear (the aforementioned 507 successful events) that the policy has made events flow more smoothly.
The point we try to get across to users of the system is that our responsibilities include providing you with reliable, easy to use rooms and training on how the rooms work. Your responsibilities include taking the time to learn how the system works, and only bringing your own devices if you know how they work.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Dragon Dication: May make you do something you are not used to...
After reading David Pogue's glowing recommendation of Dragon Dication, I decided I needed to download it. I installed it on my phone and started playing immediately. I was confused at first, it did not seem very accurate. For example, I dictated a message to my wife, "Hey, if you remember to stop at the Y and pay the bill, I can pick up some groceries on the way home." What I got was, "Hey I do remember to stop at the Y. and pay the bill I might come get some groceries on the way home."
Hmmm she would get the point of the message, but likely question whether I really did go to college. After playing some more I began to realize the problem...I had not thought about what I wanted the message to say. If I was going to call my wife and give her the message, or send her an e-mail, text or even voice mail I could compose the message on the fly. Yet, if I wanted to dictate the message, and have it converted to text, I had to THINK in advance of what I wanted to say.
I don't think composing an e-mail or text message on the fly is a bad thing. Composing at the keyboard is fine, because you have time to re-read and/or edit before sending. I think it is how most people in the thirty something generation tend to work. However, with Dragon Dictation, that just does not work. If you need to go through your message to fix all the errors, it may be easier to just type in. I think I will be using the application for short, well thought out text messages, e-mail and twitter updates, but nothing more than a couple of sentences.
Hmmm she would get the point of the message, but likely question whether I really did go to college. After playing some more I began to realize the problem...I had not thought about what I wanted the message to say. If I was going to call my wife and give her the message, or send her an e-mail, text or even voice mail I could compose the message on the fly. Yet, if I wanted to dictate the message, and have it converted to text, I had to THINK in advance of what I wanted to say.
I don't think composing an e-mail or text message on the fly is a bad thing. Composing at the keyboard is fine, because you have time to re-read and/or edit before sending. I think it is how most people in the thirty something generation tend to work. However, with Dragon Dictation, that just does not work. If you need to go through your message to fix all the errors, it may be easier to just type in. I think I will be using the application for short, well thought out text messages, e-mail and twitter updates, but nothing more than a couple of sentences.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Setting Expectations, Part 1: What are reasonable realiability expectations of an A/V system?
Setting Expectations, Part One:
What are reasonable expectations for the reliability of an A/V system?
Bates College has been keeping careful track of the usage of our A/V systems, including failure rates, for the past several months. The results of this exercise have been intriguing. In particular, I was surprised at the reliability of our A/V systems. Over the first three months of classes this year, we have had 4,285 individual uses of A/V technologies in our classroom, with 42 reported technical problems. That is slightly better than a 99% success rate of the systems. While that makes me want to scream success from the rooftops, I can not ignore the fact that there were still 42 times that that the technology did not work. If you happened to be the presenter or instructor one of those 42 times, then the 99% success rate does not impress you very much. After all, it did not work when you needed it!!!
This leads me to one of those rare moments for me when I go back and forth on how I feel about an issue. As a technical person, who understands that sometimes technology fails, and that it's nobody's fault, I think that a 99% success rate is remarkable. Yet, as a person who has given presentations and taught classes, I understand the devastation of having your hour plus talk threatened by failing technology.
In environments like colleges and corporate settings, where there are multiple rooms with A/V that are used very regularly, what are reasonable expectations of the reliability of an A/V system? I think that the expectations will be different for every institution with budget and staffing playing a role in setting expectations. However, here are some thoughts to keep in mind while thinking about expectations:
1. Electronic equipment will fail at some point. So, unless you are willing to install redundant systems in every space, then you have to accept some rate of failure.
2. You have to look at hard data not empirical data. You can not let the person who yelled the loudest when something broke cloud your judgment. You need to develop a tough skin and remember that when A/V fails, it has the potential to ruin an event and make the presenter/lecturer very upset. Therefore, just because six people called your boss over the past six months to scream about A/V not working, does not mean that campus-wide, A/V does not work.
3. If AV and IT have integrated on your campus, leverage that partnership. Talk to end users to help them realize that A/V is IT. Reasonable users recognize that their computers will sometimes malfunction, that is why there is a help desk. They also realize that sometimes the network will have hiccups, phones won't work perfectly, etc. Talk to your IT colleagues about how they set user expectations.
4. Be very open about failures and your plans on how to avoid them or fix them if they happen. Just like a power supply that dies in a computer is not the fault of the computer tech, a power supply in a projector that dies is not the fault of the A/V tech. We should not hide that this has happened, but be very clear about what has happened and how you are prepared to repair or replace quickly.
5. Finally, be very clear about what the costs of higher expectations are to your organization. If more preventative maintenance is required to lower the numbers of failures, then that costs staff time. If you are expected to have hot swaps on hand, then that costs money to purchase the extra equipment. You have to make sure your organization is being realistic in terms of budgeting when setting these expectations.
When this work has been done, make sure that you talk publicly and regularly about expectations, and the reward for this work will be realized. You will have bosses who look at failures as rare occurrences, rather than as regular occurrences. You and your bosses will have actual data to share with presenters/instructors when they experience a failure. Last, but far from least, you will have the satisfaction of knowing the expectations of your campus, and being able to meet those expectations.
Next time, Setting Expectations, Part 2: What are reasonable expectations of end users of A/V systems?
What are reasonable expectations for the reliability of an A/V system?
Bates College has been keeping careful track of the usage of our A/V systems, including failure rates, for the past several months. The results of this exercise have been intriguing. In particular, I was surprised at the reliability of our A/V systems. Over the first three months of classes this year, we have had 4,285 individual uses of A/V technologies in our classroom, with 42 reported technical problems. That is slightly better than a 99% success rate of the systems. While that makes me want to scream success from the rooftops, I can not ignore the fact that there were still 42 times that that the technology did not work. If you happened to be the presenter or instructor one of those 42 times, then the 99% success rate does not impress you very much. After all, it did not work when you needed it!!!
This leads me to one of those rare moments for me when I go back and forth on how I feel about an issue. As a technical person, who understands that sometimes technology fails, and that it's nobody's fault, I think that a 99% success rate is remarkable. Yet, as a person who has given presentations and taught classes, I understand the devastation of having your hour plus talk threatened by failing technology.
In environments like colleges and corporate settings, where there are multiple rooms with A/V that are used very regularly, what are reasonable expectations of the reliability of an A/V system? I think that the expectations will be different for every institution with budget and staffing playing a role in setting expectations. However, here are some thoughts to keep in mind while thinking about expectations:
1. Electronic equipment will fail at some point. So, unless you are willing to install redundant systems in every space, then you have to accept some rate of failure.
2. You have to look at hard data not empirical data. You can not let the person who yelled the loudest when something broke cloud your judgment. You need to develop a tough skin and remember that when A/V fails, it has the potential to ruin an event and make the presenter/lecturer very upset. Therefore, just because six people called your boss over the past six months to scream about A/V not working, does not mean that campus-wide, A/V does not work.
3. If AV and IT have integrated on your campus, leverage that partnership. Talk to end users to help them realize that A/V is IT. Reasonable users recognize that their computers will sometimes malfunction, that is why there is a help desk. They also realize that sometimes the network will have hiccups, phones won't work perfectly, etc. Talk to your IT colleagues about how they set user expectations.
4. Be very open about failures and your plans on how to avoid them or fix them if they happen. Just like a power supply that dies in a computer is not the fault of the computer tech, a power supply in a projector that dies is not the fault of the A/V tech. We should not hide that this has happened, but be very clear about what has happened and how you are prepared to repair or replace quickly.
5. Finally, be very clear about what the costs of higher expectations are to your organization. If more preventative maintenance is required to lower the numbers of failures, then that costs staff time. If you are expected to have hot swaps on hand, then that costs money to purchase the extra equipment. You have to make sure your organization is being realistic in terms of budgeting when setting these expectations.
When this work has been done, make sure that you talk publicly and regularly about expectations, and the reward for this work will be realized. You will have bosses who look at failures as rare occurrences, rather than as regular occurrences. You and your bosses will have actual data to share with presenters/instructors when they experience a failure. Last, but far from least, you will have the satisfaction of knowing the expectations of your campus, and being able to meet those expectations.
Next time, Setting Expectations, Part 2: What are reasonable expectations of end users of A/V systems?
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