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Wired In: Kontek Conversations is for leaders who want to get technology right. From universities and healthcare systems to corporate enterprises, each episode delivers practical insights to help you navigate complex projects, avoid costly missteps, and design environments that truly connect people.
Through candid conversations with Kontek executives and industry experts, you’ll discover why projects succeed or fail, how to balance innovation with usability, and how bold ideas become reality. Along the way, we share perspectives on the evolution of AV technology, the impact of employee ownership, and the culture of accountability that drives lasting results.
With almost four decades of expertise, Kontek invites you to think bigger, dream bolder, and imagine what’s possible when technology and vision come together.
Brandon Giella: Hello, and welcome
back to another episode of Wired
In, the Conntact podcast, with
our special guest, Marcus Manning.
we're gonna talk about classrooms,
the classroom that works for everyone.
And what's important here when we
think about higher ed AV is that
it is such a fragmented context in
which you're designing and installing
and implementing AV solutions.
Because of course you've got a university,
but that university is made up of multiple
colleges, and within those colleges you've
got different, um, call them audiences,
which you've got your staff, you've got
your professors, you've got your students.
And then within that you've
got hybrid learning models.
You've got folks that are at home.
You've got folks that are commuting.
You've got folks that
live there permanently.
You've got grad students,
undergrad students.
You've got accessibility requirements.
There's a lot going on in a university
context, which creates quite a challenging
model for a lot of AV projects.
So Marcus is gonna walk us
through what is that issue?
Tell me about the fragmentation,
and then we'll talk a lot more
about some of these topics in depth.
So Marcus, first question for you is:
how do you think about a campus-wide
AV project or a college-wide AV project
within a larger university, given all
of that fragmentation, and how do you
make the classroom work for everyone?
Marques: That is a very loaded question.
Um, so,
Brandon Giella: I knew
Marques: you know, because for the
listeners, you know, if you're on
the outside looking in, you see your
favorite university, you think, "Oh,
ABC University, I love those guys."
For the AV guys inside of that university,
it doesn't exist as one entity, right?
There's ABC Law School, ABC Broadcasting
School, ABC Engineering School.
And so what we walk into is you have to
understand how does each school teach?
So it starts with, you
know, instructional design.
Okay, what do these professors need?
All right, so you kinda gather
that information because it
could be slightly different.
That, that makes sense to me, right?
You know, how I'm teaching sales and
marketing would not be the same as how
I'm going to teach advanced calculus.
Totally makes sense.
But where it gets a little trickier
though is, okay, well, what are the
underlying technologies and the standards?
So we have a great episode on standards.
Uh, but what are the standards
we wa- we can deploy so that
from building to building we can
create a similar environment?
So if I have a professor or student
going from, you know, building
one to building two, it shouldn't
be completely foreign to them.
And so I say that, you know, I don't
wanna kill the creativity and the
independent spirit of all these schools
because again, ABC Law School is a brand.
Totally respect that.
Uh, ABC, you know, School of Nursing is a
brand, and so they're gonna have their own
key elements, their own personality, that
own, you know, flavor of the building.
It should always tie back
to the global, uh, entity.
But just because you're gonna, you know,
have some standards doesn't mean you're
gonna lose that individuality is what
that school represents and stands for.
So I'd say, you know, it's
tough because how do you pull
together a global team as well?
Is there a global team?
Every university may not have that.
Every college, every university doesn't
have a global team that, you know,
may advise across all of its various
schools that make up that campus.
So you really have to start at the
highest of levels to understand,
okay, who is, who is involved here?
Who all is involved?
Do we have a plan for standards, and
can we, you know, create something?
And then we start to push down to
like, okay, how does each school teach?
You know, how are you instructing?
What do you need?
Um, and then from there we start
figuring out, okay, what is the best
way to transport this, you know, from
room to room, from, uh, the presenter's
computer to the students, or how do
the students present content back?
And then you can kinda start
building that, that map.
But I really stress, you know, it's so
decentralized that sometimes you're losing
the power of the brand, the global brand,
uh, when it comes to negotiating deals
with manufacturers and things like that.
But it really does start with,
let's get our standards down, then
let's go to the manufacturer side
and then, you know, not only so we
can create a standard experience.
So again, you don't wanna start over
every time you go to a room because
that room's in a different building.
But also, how can you save some
of the financial resources for the
university that it can then go back
and reinvest, um, as it needs to?
Brandon Giella: It is a loaded question.
It is so-- That, what
Marques: Is
Brandon Giella: is so complex.
I mean, I'm thinking even as a student,
when I was an undergrad, I was a writing
major, and the writing building was small
and old and, you know, had your writing
professors there, if you can imagine that.
And
Marques: Yeah
Brandon Giella: across campus to the
business school for some business
classes, and it's brand new, shiny, you
know, they have all the labs that built
the thing and, you know, professors
in suits and that sort of thing.
And then I go to an astronomy
class that was in a 400-person
lecture hall that was on the other
side of campus in an auditorium.
And all those AV setups needs, the
classes, the professor types, the
student types, in-person, not in-person.
It's, uh, yeah, it's quite a challenge.
Marques: Yeah, it's like the Wild
West and you're thinking like,
"How is this even possible?"
And some classes are online, some are not.
It's like, what, what is happening?
Why is there any class at this
point in time that's not online?
If it's, you know, advanced
wrestling, I get it.
You kinda gotta be there.
Um, you know, or I don't know,
maybe you can watch videos.
But other than that, you know.
But everyone, every school within that
university or college environment may not
have the same even remote capabilities.
And as we look at it some days
we're like, "How is this happening?"
Like you're not, you're not unified.
Again, it doesn't mean unified,
um, design theory does not mean
identical and no creativity.
Doesn't mean that.
You don't lose the brand of
the individual, uh, college
within the greater university.
It just means, hey, when I go from room
to room, from building to building,
I'm gonna have a similar experience.
I'll understand the technology right away.
Like, you know, how I start
my presentation, that should
be the same in every room.
There's no reason for that to be different
Brandon Giella: I will say I
have not had that experience.
So to your point about hybrid learning,
I wanna, I wanna go there next.
So when I was an undergrad, again, I did
some classes online, some in person, even
though I was there on campus living there.
then when I got to grad school,
my first grad school, I was-- I
did half in person, half online.
One of my professors was
ninety-eight years old.
He was doing nothing online.
No PowerPoints, no nothing.
You know, he just stood up
at a lectern and talked.
He was, he was wheeled up
to the lectern and talked.
Um, and then I did another grad school
where I did half online, half in person.
So I, I've gotten a mix of seeing these
different-- There's different softwares,
there's different professors that do it
differently, some live, some recorded.
just a whole gamut.
So how do you guys think about when you're
going to a college project and thinking
about that kind of university model?
How do you think through hybrid learning
in those different contexts like that?
Marques: Yeah.
So the big thing for me is, you know,
what is this model going to look like?
Because hybrid means something
different to so many people.
Um, first and foremost, you have to
define it, you know, for that individual
school, university, what have you.
'Cause to some people, it just means,
"Hey, I've got a camera in here,"
and they can see the professor.
To some folks, it's
content only and audio.
But if you really want an immersive,
fully capable space, we always
start from the side of, "Let
me tell you what's possible."
So it means why have one camera?
Why not have two or three or four?
Because with capabilities now, we
should be au- uh, doing auto switching.
So if I have a student with a
question, for the real-- If I really
want a good experience as a remote
viewer, I should see the student.
Like, why am I seeing the professor
looking very intently at the student, and
I hear the student, but I can't see them?
So, you know, as you're trying to
flesh out this, this environment and
really say like, "Okay, how do you
really bring your remote people in?"
Okay, we have multiple cameras.
We have audio pickup.
Can everyone be heard clearly,
including the professor?
Um, if I'm the professor, how do
I see all my remote attendees?
You know, what does that look like
from displays around the room?
Um, what have you.
What's the platform?
You know, some colleges are in
Zoom, some colleges are using Teams.
I don't see a lot of Google Meets.
Not knocking Google Meet or anything, but
I don't see too much of, of those guys.
But, you know, typically, it's
gonna be, for what we see in
our markets, uh, Zoom or Teams.
Okay, that's fine.
Do you have the same capabilities in both?
How are you doing your recordings?
There are so many online cloud recordings.
So we also have to work through how
are we gonna build that up, because we
have to make sure students, if they're
watching it asyncre- uh, asynchronously,
synchronously, then they have to make
sure they have access to it when they're
at home, and they can still easily
get to it, view it, pause, start.
Can they see the transcript?
So all these things need to be talked
through and, and really dug into in the
background, so as you start building out
your systems, you can kinda build in that
consistency and that overall experience.
Because at the end of the day,
you know, higher learning is--
it's about learning, right?
It's about making sure that
you can consume the content,
so I can understand it.
But also, you never wanna forget
that students are the customer.
When you're talking about the higher
learning space, if you can't attract
students or serve them the, the
education the way they need it, at
some point, that's gonna catch up to
you, and you may have lower enrollment.
You may have people that, you know, your
reputation gets a little bit of a ding.
It's like, "Oh, they're great, you
know, but a little behind the times.
I had to go to every
single class in person."
And, you know, that
starts to go out there.
So, you know, college is extremely
competitive from a business standpoint,
and how do you stay on that front end?
You don't have to be on the bleeding
edge, but how do you stay in front
as far as making sure students can
access, um, the, the educational,
uh, content however they need to?
Brandon Giella: That's a great point.
I, I've, I've been in, I, I-- And the
complaints I've had, and I've had other
students and peers think the same way,
is sometimes these recorded lectures are
like 10 years old, you know, and it's just
using different technology when they're,
like for their Excel spreadsheets,
you know, just work differently than
a common, a, a normal, you know,
modern spreadsheet, things like that.
'Cause it was recorded 10 years
ago, 15 years ago, whatever.
So that's, that's keeping
that up to date and,
Marques: Yeah
Brandon Giella: for the student.
I like that you said the
student is the customer.
Marques: There's the customer
Brandon Giella: That's great.
So thinking about, um, the
different class structures.
So we talked about hybrid learning, but
inside a class when you are, um, trying
to capture the sound that you need from
the actual lecture, from the professor
in this case, and then of course the
student as they're talking, how do you
think through that in different classes?
Because sometimes, like my
writing classes, there's only
eight students in the class.
We probably didn't need a whole
lot of, you know, big AV setup.
But then you've got tiered classes
with, say, 50 or 100 students, and
then you've got au-auditoriums.
You know, uh, there's, there's such a
range of what a class size looks like.
How do you think about that?
And maybe this relates to an older
episode that we did on Peg-neg?
Peg, Peg-neg?
Peg,
Marques: Pac-Mac, oh yeah
Brandon Giella: Okay, so I know
there's some, there's a lot of math
involved, there's a lot of physics
Marques: Yep
Brandon Giella: listen to that episode
to, to get into the details there.
But Marcus, how do you think about
the different classes themselves
when you're thinking about AV?
Marques: Yeah, so the class size
is, oh man, that it is critical
and it can sometimes be limiting.
So this is where your architecture
and your infrastructure and your
technology have to be in sync, right?
So what we see sometimes, let's go large.
We'll go large or small.
When you have your huge auditoriums,
400 people, what does that look like?
How is the lighting?
'Cause if I'm doing multiple
cameras, cameras need light.
If you don't have a well-lit space, you
know, you're gonna have a dim image.
It's not great.
It's not a great experience.
So that's first and first thing.
Like, okay, if we're doing
remote, how's the lighting?
Okay, well, here's the
other funny part about that.
You need lighting for cameras.
However, your lighting
will hurt your projection.
So the more lights you have, now
it's going to wash out your projected
image if you're using a projector
How do you fix, like how do you
com, you know, have those competing
priorities, and how do you resolve that?
Technology's changing, so you
see a lot more LED walls and
displays, but at the end of the
day, they're still standards, right?
And I can't get past this point,
standards and math, because on this
front wall, I'm gonna have an image.
I need students to see it.
It's a tiered classroom.
It's gonna affect how high that
image sh-should be sitting, 'cause
I don't want folks having to
look up too much or look down.
This, you know, it's actually bad for you.
And so however the room was
built is gonna really dictate
how large can this image be.
Now, unfortunately, this is
where you, you know, get at odds
on math from the architecture
side versus the technology side.
The height is what it is in some cases.
If it's a new build and you have time to
catch it, maybe you can add some height.
But oftentimes what we see is a
room may not actually have the
height for the proper size display.
So then it's like, okay,
well, what do you do?
So we have to start thinking,
okay, can students see it?
Can we get multiple displays?
Or that's when some of your remote
capabilities immediately kick in, because
most, most students nowadays, they'll
have a laptop, they'll have a tablet.
If you have a big enough space, if you're
streaming and you can capture correctly,
a student can sit near the back of the
room, pull the lecture up on their laptop,
and that way they can actually see that
content up close versus trying to strain
to see the screen, because for whatever
reason, we just couldn't get an image
that was large enough in the space, um,
to, because again, that's a constraint
to the size, the height of the room.
So that's something to think about.
That also plays into your audio.
It's the same, same thing you're fighting,
you know, in these huge auditoriums.
I've gotta capture the professor.
So gotta make sure the professor
can be heard throughout the room.
Pretty easy.
Put him on a microphone.
But what do you do when you have
the professor that says, "I'm
not going to wear a microphone"?
You still have to make
sure you can hear them.
Um, so there's different styles.
That's when you look at, you know, what
are the different styles of microphones.
You would hope you could really educate
your staff, um, and your professors to
get them to agree, you know, because it's
for the better good and the, you know,
better experience for, for the students.
'Cause it's not just reinforcing their
voice in that room, it's also how you're
gonna get their voice out to the recording
or to the live stream or what have you.
So that comes into play.
What we talked earlier about, you know,
how do you capture the student voice?
Your huge rooms, it's
always a challenge, right?
You, you can do microphones and
things like that, but now we're in
PAG MAG, and can I do voice lift,
and, you know, how is this gonna work?
So it, you have to really fall and lean
in on the standards of technology, and
then just have discussions, because
if you can't meet the standards for,
you know, minimum or maximum viewing
distances, how do you compensate?
Which means by default now I'm needing
to tie in more technology options
to make everything work, so I can
actually give a student that walks
in the best experience possible.
Your smaller classrooms get a little
bit easier, but what we then see in
smaller classrooms, a lot of group-based
learning We've done some really
advanced spaces where it needs to beâ¦
My favorite thing is I want it
to be advanced, but easy to use.
So there's a lot of brain power
that has to go into that, but we'll
do classrooms where if we're doing
group-based learning, maybe there's a
few displays on the front wall, a few
displays on the sides and the rear.
Well, that room can at any point
in time go from a professor at the
front of the room giving a lecture,
push a button, it's in breakout mode,
and every display hosts a group of
students, not just in that room.
Each and every single one of those
displays is now a mini Zoom room where
they can actually bring in remote
breakouts directly to their location,
and then you have all the audio tuned
just right so it can all be happening
in the same room at the same time.
Uh, this is not theoretical.
It exists.
We actually have a, a sample
video of it, um, on our website
Brandon Giella: Yo, that's so cool.
What kind of, uh, I, I'm
just curious, what kind of
classroom or, subject is, is a,
Marques: This was actually for
a university's, um, their school
of education, and it's how they
would go about, yeah, it's how
they go about teaching, and it
was a custom room we did for them.
And like, literally, it's, uh, I think
two, um, projection screens at the front.
There are multiple displays at the rear.
There are displays down the sides.
There are microphones in the ceiling,
basically above every single display, um,
speakers at every display in the ceiling.
And at any point in time, when they
go into breakout mode, they can
then go to their individual pods, we
like to call them, and each pod now
becomes its own dedicated Zoom session
Brandon Giella: Incredible.
Marques: Yeah.
And then anything you're working on,
you're writing up, you can share it
from your pod back out to the room.
Professor can pull it
up to the main displays.
Yeah, so it's all, um, it's all
possible, and it's, and it's really
when I look at-- We talk about HyFlex
a lot, which is hybrid flexible models.
This room is one of the more advanced ones
we had pushed out at that point in time
that really incorporates every learning
scenario possible in terms of, you
know, l- in-person, remote, synchronous,
asynchronous, everything blended into one
space with as much flexibility as possible
Brandon Giella: Man, I love that
idea, and I, I love hearing that
y-you can actually implement that.
And I-- this is a tangent, but I think of
with AI able to distribute information so
quickly, I, I think often like maybe a,
a college model would be better for like
these kind of breakout things or tutoring
or, or kind of just like a different
model than like your standard lecture.
And so having like an AV implementation
that can actually match where education
may be going over the next 10 years
is actually really fascinating to me.
Marques: Yeah, it is.
And it's, like, they, they love it.
Um, the university loved it.
Like I said, we actually have it as
a, um, a white paper on our website.
Uh, if you go to our resources, there's
a video on it, and you can actually
watch this particular university and how
they're using it and what's happening.
But yeah, they, they were
over the moon with it.
And then we take those, you
know, as other folks come in,
they'll see what's possible.
And that's my thing, right?
We're about the art of possible.
Like, you know, there's no
reason to come into a discussion
thinking about what can't be done.
Let's hear what you're trying to do.
Who are the clients, the students?
How do they need to learn?
How do they need to work together?
And then we just keep pushing from there.
Like, okay, well, how are you teaching?
How do you want to teach?
You know, do you want them to teach?
Because that's one of the benefits
of group-based learning, is you
can have others sharing and, uh,
bringing people along in the project.
And then you just kind of keep pushing
from there to design, you know, go into
the design side of it, the manufacturers
and the protocols involved, you know,
getting from point A to point B.
But it always starts with, "Hey,
what are you dreaming about?
What are you thinking about?
How do you think you want a room to work?
How do you think you want to teach?"
You know, there's really no restrictions,
um, at the beginning of the process,
and then you end up with a room that's
capable of doing just about anything
Brandon Giella: Fascinating.
I love that.
Okay, so related question to that.
Um, because of the fragmented nature
of the, the students and the model
at universities and all the different
constituents that you have at a
location like that, how do you think
about accessibility and ADA compliance
and things like that, that, that
universities need to adhere to and
think through, uh, when it comes to AV?
Marques: Yeah, absolutely.
So that is, uh, in the forefront
of a lot of this because
again, we're all different.
We all have different physical
needs, different, you know, physical
capabilities, and how do you serve, you
know, everyone in all these markets?
And so there are hard guidelines, right?
So there are federal mandated guidelines
that do exist, but sometimes you
wanna go beyond that because, you
know, why do the minimum, right?
If you can make it a really high-quality
experience, why wouldn't you?
So in terms of understanding
guidelines, that's first and foremost.
You know, I mentioned, uh, about
architecture and how that will control
some of the options in the room.
That also applies to ADA.
So there's one ADA regulation, right?
Your displays cannot be further
than four inches off the wall.
So if you just think about what that
really means, we have really large
displays that have mounts behind them.
Some displays are
already two inches thick.
A mount, you know, even a thin one may
be two, two and a half inches thick.
Well, I'm already at four and a
half, pushing maybe five inches.
I have a maximum, you know,
protrusion of four inches.
What do I do?
Do I add pieces?
And so there's all those things you
wanna think about because again, that's
keeping people safe as they walk by.
You wanna think about the
heights of items, right?
There's a minimum, uh, clearance you
need to have vertically to make sure
no one's gonna, you know, bump their
head on a camera or something crazy.
But also, you know, how do you
serve those that may have, uh,
listening differences, right?
So when we start talking about that,
we talk about, okay, well, are we
doing some kind of listen assist?
Uh, a cool protocol that's out, it's
really catching on, Auracast, right?
How can I be broadcasting the audio so
that I can capture what the professor's
talking about and actually bring it into a
Bluetooth-style environment so that now I
can have an app on my iPhone or if my, um,
you know, my hearing devices are capable
of doing it via Bluetooth, they just
pick the stream up and you're good to go.
So all of that is in play and possible
Um, there's even more with like just
visuals, and that's why I say like,
"Hey, let's stream things to a laptop."
Because if I can't see, you know,
due to contrast, um, just my
eyesight is, you know, I am older,
my eyesight is fa- is fading itself.
It's easier for me to look
at something on my laptop.
Same thing for a student, right?
So instead of making them, you know,
squint or really exert all this effort,
hey, let's make sure we can get them,
you know, this content so that they just
pull up their tablet or something on
their local device that's really close to
them, now they can easily follow along.
So all of that should be really first
and foremost, because again, I can't
stress it enough, when you're in higher
education, you know, the, the, the
student is who you're trying to serve.
That's your clientele,
that's your customer base.
Um, if you don't have students, whether
they're remote or in person, you won't
have much of a university, right?
So I mean, that's just something to think
about and how do you best serve them.
And you ha- you also have to remember
that the technology and some of the things
that kids are experiencing through their
younger years, through middle school
into high school, when they show up at
the university level, if you say you
can't do something or it's not online,
the first thing they will say is, "Why?
Everything in my life has been online,
now you're telling me I can't have it?
Like this doesn't make any sense."
So how do you really stay in front
of that curve where you have all
these technologies that kids are
seeing when they're younger that
are just part of their life now?
Brandon Giella: Hmm
Marques: now I've gotten to the
college phase, I expect that same
accessibility across all phases.
And if you can't, you know, do it,
especially when kids are going on these
tours of universities and campuses,
they may say, "Oh, beautiful campus, but
it's a little weird in the classroom."
It's not what you want, you know, for
the experience for your customer base.
Brandon Giella: That's so fair.
That's so true.
I, I was at a coffee shop yesterday,
and I was taking a call on my iPad.
My wife called.
I picked it up on my watch, then I g- all
of that and walked home and picked up that
call from my iPad to my phone and walked
home, and my connected to each of those
devices to have those different calls
like that without even thinking about it.
And I can imagine what you're
saying about like, um, folks with
hearing difficulties in a classroom.
I can't tell you how many times I've
been in a classroom, and I leaned
over and I say, "What did they say?"
You know?
'Cause I can't, I can't hear anything,
you know, that they're saying.
And so having these kind of like Bluetooth
devices that I, uh, you have on the
consumer side in a university that can
help improve your experience, I know
it's extremely challenging, but it, it,
it can make a huge difference, I'm sure,
to the experience and, and therefore
to the, the, the experience that the
students have and the that they wanna
pay for that or the kind of longevity
Marques: Right
Brandon Giella: at the university,
the brand that you're building.
I think, yeah, that's,
that's really important.
Marques: Yeah.
Uh, yeah, the goal is to serve
as many people as you can.
So, you know, luckily that as
technology evolves, we just
have more and more capabilities.
You know, it, it's a tough spot some
days because on the consumer side,
it just feels like the Wild West all
the time, and you're trying to mix
that into this commercial environment
and you still have to be secure.
But it, it has, you know, allowed for
some things to be done a lot easier
and make sure everyone, you know,
everyone has an opportunity, you know,
if they wanna, they wanna take it
Brandon Giella: I love that, yeah.
Okay, last question for you briefly.
What would you say to somebody who is a
decision-maker on a project like this?
They're dreaming about the space,
um, and they've got-- Let's say
there's, they're over, you know, one
college, but it does have different
constituents or different audiences.
It's got different classroom
sizes, different use cases.
But then they also, let's say they are
dreaming about that, and they do want
other deans or other decision-makers,
you know, uh, uh, staff at the
university, leaders of the university
to get in on a project to, to create
this kind of vision that you've got
where things are more standardized.
What's your advice to them?
Marques: Man, have a lot of patience.
It's like herding cats sometimes.
No, it's just anytime you have a lot
of decision-makers, right, you have
competing priorities, uh, potentially
different visions, um, within each school.
But I think most importantly, if
you can have a global vision Right?
That kind of ties everyone
together and can be a unifier.
So if we think about it from a
business case, right, there's a real
opportunity first and foremost to
say, "Hey, by having a unified vision,
and if we can settle on standards and
maybe agree to manufacturers," itâ¦
Again, it doesn't mean your style has
to change, but if we could do that,
well, now you have purchasing power.
The purchasing power of the collective
is always greater than the individual.
And so I think some universities,
I don't, you know, I don't know if
they lose sight of that or it's so
decentralized that they just have a hard
time with it, but I'd say start there.
And then, you know, if you c- can have
one centralized group that is that IT
technology team that then consults with
all the others, that way you have someone
that is that glue that keeps everyone
together and going in the same direction,
and you know what's going on, versus every
individual school having their technology
person, and everyone collaborates.
So, you know, I, I would hope, uh, that
all those schools will still collaborate
and have an idea, but when you do
centralize some of that, even if, if it's
just as a advisory role, they can give
advice, they can be listening, they can
say, "H- oh, by the way, the engineering
school, you know, they're working on this.
Maybe you all should collaborate."
Because long term, and we see it
happening in some universities
right now, you know, there are
bigger pictures and bigger plans.
We see more and more universities
connecting all of their buildings
via fiber, and my thinking is always,
well, if they're connecting via
fiber, what is the logical next step?
That's content.
You know, it starts with IT and
data, but eventually it turns into,
well, wait, I can send content from,
you know, building A to building B.
And can you say, you can say all day
long, "Oh, I can do that right now,
you know, with conferencing, with Zoom
or Teams or BlueJeans or whatever."
True, you can, but in terms of the lowest
possible latency and the most, you know,
together style experience, so I can ask
you a question and you're hearing me
in basically real time and having that
conversation back and forth versus that
uncomfortable, we all know it, that
web conferencing lag you get sometimes.
You know, that's a different experience
and a different way to, to help people.
So I'd say, you know, having someone
that does see that bigger picture
from the technology front and can help
corral and put it all together, bring
them in as soon as humanly possible.
You know, if you're doing master
planning, then y- you should
be having those conversations.
As you're looking at the vision and the
future of the campus, talk about that.
Because again, it's not just for teaching.
And that's why I think s- some
people don't see this bigger
vision and this bigger picture.
Imagine there's an emergency,
and yes, you have your apps.
You know, we get alerts from
some of our university clients
when something's going on.
Well, now if I have a emergency in
building A, I can immediately send an
announcement to every single building
nearby Like how fast can that reaction
be that we have something happen and
now at the push of a button, I can
hit all the displays in the nearby
buildings saying shelter in place
or lockdown or whatever's happening?
So I think that's some of the benefits
that folks need to think about.
You know, not just, yes, we think about
education and teaching and learning
styles, but this technology can serve you
in so many different ways and help you
in so many, uh, different fashions across
the campus, but they need to be tied
together, and it needs to be that vision
of like, okay, how is this all going
to work in the grand scheme of things?
I think that's a, a huge point,
um, where universities can
really take advantage of that
Brandon Giella: So smart.
So smart.
Think big, think early maybe
Marques: Yeah, absolutely
Brandon Giella: to summarize.
Yeah, I like that.
'Cause to your point, are a range
of things you can always do, just
depends on have we thought about that?
Have we been brought in
to have that conversation?
Yeah, it's
Marques: Yeah, absolutely
Brandon Giella: So smart.
Well, Marcus, thank you again.
Uh, if you're listening to this
and want more of these kind of
resources, especially in different
industries or different ways that the
team at ConTech thinks about these
things, please go to contech.com
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