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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: Today we're talking
about documentation and deadlines,
and both of those integrate with each
other, are important for each other.
Uh, and so Marcus, you had some
great anecdotes about why it is so
important to document everything.
And an example is when you buy a house.
Marques: Absolutely.
Brandon Giella: Okay, so when you buy
a house, you're supposed to receive
a binder of all the specs for the
home, the, maybe the floor plan,
the maintenance schedule, and so on.
Some people, I'm not gonna name anyone
on this podcast, has not made that
before for their previous homeowners.
I'm sorry if you're listening.
Uh, but you're supposed to do
that, and the same works with AV.
And the reason is, it saves you a lot of
time and money on these large AV projects.
So when you're dreaming big and you get
a half-million-dollar project, shave
a big chunk of that off by documenting
well and planning realistic deadlines.
So Marcus, talk to us about that.
Why is that so important?
Marques: Yeah.
So, yes, when I got my
house, I did get my binder.
So if I need to replace the dishwasher
or something's going on, guess what?
I go to my binder, I know
what it is, I can order parts.
AV is not far from that,
Brandon Giella: Okay
Marques: when we're getting these projects
done, these high-level projects, you
know, you're closing it out, it should
just be a process and a standard.
For us it is a process, but for
any client out there, you know,
you should ask for all the as-built
drawings, you know, all the final
documentation, any, um, manufacturer,
uh, warranties, uh, any user guides,
and most importantly, all of your files.
So DSP files, programming files, all of
that should be bundled and turned over.
You know, our view on it is always,
it's the client's project, it's their
equipment, this belongs to them anyway.
And we wanna make sure that whether we
support them in the future or someone
else does, can they have a good baseline?
Do they know where to start?
Do they know where to look for things?
And are they gonna be able to
support this going forward?
Because again, this is
a long-term investment.
You know, you're spending this much
money, you know, a quarter million,
half a million dollars on this project.
This is really a long-term investment
that you wanna see through and make sure
it's good to go in three, four, five
years before you have to refresh it.
But again, things happen.
There's turnover, there are
changes in leadership that may
lead to changes in manufacturers
that are desired or partnerships.
As a client, you should still
have your binder, right?
You should have it
electronically, of course.
I'm not one for giving people
a lot of paper nowadays.
But, uh, you should still have this
binder so that you can go through and
say, "Okay, guys, a new team's coming in.
Here's an as-built drawing so
you know how this is set up."
Because if you don't have those
things You know, in our case, what
we do is we'll pre-commission a room.
If we're not familiar with it, if we
can't find any information on it, we
go through, we're pushing all buttons,
looking at the cabling, making sure we
understand, you know, what's going on.
And this is a, a paid service, you know,
because it eats up time and resources.
And on a complex space, you may spend
almost a day just documenting, so
you understand exactly what you're
getting into and how to deal with it.
So, you know, you're saving yourself
some, some time and some pain down
the road by making sure when you're
doing a project, you close it out,
you have all this documentation
Brandon Giella: So in the analogy of a,
of a home, you're looking for the breaker
box and what all is tied to the breaker
box, and there's no labels there, or you
don't even know where the breaker box is.
So you're spending time wandering
through this house, opening up all
the closet doors, trying to figure out
what's going on when you could have just
gotten to work first thing, first hour
Marques: Exactly.
Is
Brandon Giella: Okay
Marques: Is everything there?
Do I have the final documents?
That's all it is
Brandon Giella: Okay.
So you mentioned, uh, an example is,
um, like if there's uncompiled code.
If there, if there is, uh, you know, a
code base to do a lot of this kind of
stuff and you can't find it, there's
no documentation for it, you gotta
rewrite it, which of course adds
time and, and money to, to do that
Marques: Yeah.
So either we're rewritingâ¦
You may be able to go out to the
manufacturer and, you know, maybe they
have a copy of the code or they can pull
it out of the box or some other way.
But either way, you're talking
about either time or expense or both
for something that you should've
had from the very beginning.
And, you know, if you really have
a great partner, then they should
have a way of tracking that for you.
So we have clients, they've
called up about systems that
may be three or four years old.
had a internal process change.
They were moving more
things to in-house support.
Cool.
Sounds great.
They said, "Hey, could you send
us the files for these rooms?"
Absolutely.
We just package it up, send them a
link, they get access to all their files
Brandon Giella: So helpful.
How common is this that either you
do or do not have documentation?
'Cause, like, for me, you know, we
were, we were talking earlier, I did
not know that people give new home
buyers a doc- a binder for their house.
So I did not keep up with anything,
and I didn't h- I didn't receive one,
A, on this house, but B, I did not
give one 'cause I didn't know that
that was a thing that people do.
So is this common knowledge
that people do this?
How, how common is this?
I don't know.
Marques: I don't wanna
call it common knowledge.
I
Brandon Giella: Okay.
Marques: it's pretty standard.
It's a pretty standard thing.
Um, yes, I, I had a binder.
I think my parents have binders,
and all the folks I know
that bought homes had them.
Brandon Giella: Okay.
Well
Marques: of AV, you know,
been hit or miss for us.
Um, it just depends, and a lot
of it's driven by the individual
company and their policies, I
suppose, for each, uh, integrator.
a lot of times you'll see in a
large-scale project it's dictated, right?
It's in the specifications and the
requirements of the project turned
Brandon Giella: Mmhmm
Marques: But as we're doing various
projects, you know, throughout, uh, or
outside of a large-scale project, for
us, again, it's common, but we have taken
over several rooms, no documentation.
Like there's nothing.
There's no drawings.
You know, we can't get access to code.
There's noâ¦
So we're like, we can still handle it.
We can take it over, but it's just gonna
take some time for us to make sure we
understand all the functionality, the
connectivity, you know, what's what."
And we've also run into situations
where, you know, things, right?
The, the bend radius wasn't followed
for the cables, 'cause there
was a complaint about an issue.
We're like, "Oh, the
cables are being pinched.
We think you're losing
signal because of it."
So there's a lot that has to happen for
us to take over a room when we have,
you know, zero materials to start with
Brandon Giella: And the details required.
I mean, that's, that sounds
like a very detailed thing.
I mean, I, I'm thinking there's
miles of cables in a lot of your
projects, and you're talking about
a corner bend on one of them.
Okay.
Okay.
Marques: and it
Brandon Giella: Good to know
Marques: problems, right?
So a lot of times that's what we're
looking for, is everything working, right?
If we're, if we're going to
rip it all out, all right,
we're not too worried about it.
It'd be nice to know the cable pathways,
because on occasion, you know, you
have a display on the wall, I'm
sitting at a desk, and I'm thinking
conduit goes from the desk to the wall.
And I've, I've mentioned this in one of
the previous podcasts, there are instances
where instead of going, you know, 20 feet
from the table to the wall, it's going
100 feet down a hallway, looping, coming
back, and then going to the display.
Well, you wouldn't know that
unless you have the drawings,
the electrical drawings, right?
So it's just something you have to find
out through the process of discovery,
which can be painful from time to
Brandon Giella: Expensive
from time to time.
Marques: time.
Brandon Giella: Yeah.
Marques: It's
Brandon Giella: Okay.
Marques: that you didn't need
Brandon Giella: So talk to me about,
uh, how this impacts deadlines,
and we'll segue to kind of the
second half of that equation, where
you've got documentation on front.
You're, you're dreaming
about a big project.
You, you need to make sure that you
have the processes in place at least
to start documenting if you don't
already have that, and it's, you
know, and then you're starting to
build out the project file and so on.
But then it comes to the, the deadlines.
Where is a room finished, and what does
that mean that the room is finished
and ready, and why that matters because
those two things are, can be connected.
If you have really good documentation
or a good process to create that in
the project, then presumably you'll
have a realistic plan of how you're
gonna get to a finished room, and
that may or may not always happen.
But at the point of that being
finished, it's very important that
you hit your deadlines because
Marques: Yeah.
So deadlines are dollars, right?
And so, yes, you want your building
to open, um, especially if it's
a revenue generating space.
It's something for rental, what have you,
you're doing events, you need it open
so you can start recouping that cost.
There are clauses oftentimes in some
of these agreements and some of these
projects, um, liquidated damages.
So on the integrator side, all integrators
know this, and they've seen this before.
It means that if you don't finish
on time, you are paying someone.
You're paying the GC, you're paying
the owner, and we've seen fees
fifteen hundred dollars a day,
twenty-five hundred dollars a day.
So right, very important
to stay on, on task.
So the documentation up front in the
beginning of the project, you know, the
specifications, the drawings need to be
pretty accurate and match what's actually
happening in the building so that you
don't run into any kind of delay that is
unforeseen or you couldn't have predicted.
So as you have that, those
things happening, you know,
what are the finishes?
What are the materials being used?
You know, how high is the ceiling?
Like, make sure all that is
accurate in the early documentation,
and that allows you to stay on
schedule for your installation.
Because people don't know and realize,
you know, AV is the last trade pretty
much going in most of the time.
We need a clean environment.
What that actually means, there's
no more construction happening.
Nothing.
There's no cutting, no
painting, no patching.
HVAC is balanced.
Everything is done.
'Cause what you don't want to happen
is, number one, you don't want
anything damaged by another trade.
Uh, we've done projects where we've
had our cables cut multiple times.
We've had a display get, uh, crushed.
We've had all kinds of things happen.
Um, and that costs money, right?
Someone's paying to replace
that stuff or redo the work.
But, you know, in addition to
that, you just wanna make sure
that the long-term, uh, support is
gonna be there for the equipment.
So when you're doing a new construction
project especially, you know, there's
a lot of debris and dust that may be
in the air, um, as you're balancing
HVAC, doing all these things.
Well, all these devices
are purpose-built PCs.
They have fans.
So as they're sucking in air,
well, now they're sucking in all
this additional debris and this
material that may be in the air.
So next thing you know, you put up a
display and a few devices behind it.
You come back the next day, everything's
covered in a layer of dust, right?
Because you were there too early.
And sometimes, you know, we know
when we should be in the project,
and we'll tell folks like,
"Hey, you're not ready for us."
And there's, there's often pushback
because, you know, AV is not new, but
a lot of folks just don't really have
a great understanding of what the needs
are and what really is happening on the
back end with some of this technology.
But that's the last thing you would want
is to have an early failure from a box.
A manufacturer opens it up, and there's
just caked-on dust and debris, and
they said, "Hey, you're supposed to
be operating in a clean environment.
This obviously wasn't doing so.
Your warranty is voided."
Like, that's a real risk
of going in too early
Brandon Giella: We should call
this episode Documentation,
Deadlines, and Details.
These, these details of getting these
things right is so critical, but it's--
If I'm, you know, if I'm the dean of
a university or leader of a hospital
or a corporate environment, and I'm
thinking about this big project, I
would never be thinking about dust
in my, you know, projection system
that now the warranty is avoided, and
I gotta get a new one or whatever.
Like, I would never have that in my mind.
Marques: Yeah.
Brandon Giella: so
Marques: don't think about that
Brandon Giella: yeah.
So I'm glad y- professionals who have
done this before and lived through
those experiences can do this right.
Um, because th- it's, it's probably
sounds like just a, a small thing,
but you do enough of those for a
big enough project, and that is aâ¦
That can get real expensive.
I mean, you're talking probably, you
know, huge percentages of these, the
project budgets go to this kind of thing.
Marques: Oh, absolutely.
Especially when we're talking about
sensitive pieces of equipment, you
know, LED video wall processors or some
of the, the more higher end things.
Again, you just don't want,
you don't want a failure that
could have been avoided, right?
You don't wanna bring things in early.
And yes, someone's gonna replace it,
but if you can avoid that, you should
Brandon Giella: Yeah.
And it's, and i-it's a long-term
decision as well, like you're saying,
like warranty, service, the manufacturer
relationship, the kind of, m-you
know, maybe you had a systemâ¦
I don't know if this has ever happened to
you, but what comes to mind is like you
have a, a, a piece or a room or something
that's configured one way, and then
say a year later it doesn't work right.
You've gotta replace that, but then it
means you gotta replace five other things
that connect to it that now are outdated
or have changed software or whatever.
yeah yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Marques: will tell you that they've
lived through that experience where, you
know, we have interconnected systems,
you know, especially when we have, say,
a control room environment, you may have
five learning spaces, high-profile spaces
that may pull back to one control room.
So yeah, there's no just I'm just
gonna update this one part of it.
Like, uh, well, that part is
tied into this other part, so we
kinda need to do all these orâ¦
You know, you could
Brandon Giella: Ish
Marques: end pieces, like yes, updating
a display is no big deal, but if I'm
updating anything about the control.
And I say no big deal, but I've seen
a client update their own displays,
and they didn't think about the fact
that they went from, say, NEC to LG.
Well, guess what?
Now your code needs to be updated
because the same control language for
NEC, those commands don't work on LG.
So they didn't-- They, they got
them all changed out, and they're
like, "Hey, can you guys come out?"
Because, yeah, none of
our displays are working.
And as soon as we saw it,
we knew what happened.
We're like, "Yeah, you can't
just change manufacturers."
They have different control
commands, different language,
basically, that's controlling them.
So some are similar, but you know, if you
stay all within the LG family, maybe, or
all within, you know, one manufacturer.
But the second you go from one
manufacturer to another one, you can't
assume, you know, all your code and all
your programming is still going to work
Brandon Giella: And this is
the part of the episode where
I say, "Call Marcus early.
Call me early
Marques: Just,
Brandon Giella: to get this."
Marques: call us early
Brandon Giella: If you're about to update
all your displays, just give me a call.
Marques: Just
Brandon Giella: Like
Marques: you know, and it's--
We'll just talk through it,
Brandon Giella: Yeah, Yeah,
Marques: sit and talk like,
"Hey, what do you have planned?
What do you want to do?
What are you trying to do?"
And we'll just give you advice sometimes
like, "Sure, you could do that.
Keep in mind, this, this,
and this will be impacted."
Right?
That's, that's just what it is.
Or the, the biggest one is people that
want to go to consumer-grade displays,
and that's-- It will immediately
get me to shake my head, and any
integrator in this space that hears
this would shake their head as well.
of folks don't realize that some, not
necessarily some, maybe some majority of
consumer-grade displays, so just going to
Best Buy to get some displays, you can't
always control them effectively, right?
Maybe do some CEC control, but we
don't do a lot of that, um, because
it's not always the most reliable.
It's improved greatly.
you know, if we want direct
feedback, we want to know for a fact
something's on or off or the state
it's in, that's one of the benefits
of using commercial equipment.
It works correctly with the control
system and is set up for that.
So it's, you know, details like that.
So we always say, "Hey, if you want
to change it, Let's document it,
and let me give you some advice
about what you, you should look out
for," and then we go from there.
But most importantly, please document it,
'cause you may come into the room later
like, "Well, according to the drawing,
you should have five displays, but I'm in
the room right now, and I see 10 displays.
Hmm, something's not right here."
Brandon Giella: Yeesh.
This is the difference
between an amateur and a pro.
Somebody's done this before.
Um, okay, so talk to me, uh, uh, given
the last five minutes here, give me
some practical advice for somebody who
is either starting a project, they're
dreaming about it, they got some- one in
mind, or they're, they're, let's say, a
third of the way through and they wanna
make sure it finishes well, you know, on
time, under budget, that kind of thing.
Like, what would you say to them,
you know, practically speaking?
Whatâ¦
Who should they talk to?
What should they be doing right now?
What, what's the takeaway here?
Marques: I say number one, a realistic
timeline for when you want to complete
your project, and say, a new building.
When do you wanna move in?
Are you having a special event?
That's one of the things
that creeps up all the time.
Like, "Oh, you know what?
We're doing a grand opening."
Did you tell anyone?
Does anyone know?
Is it reflected in the scheduling?
Um, because what happens, what I see
a lot, is that, you know, the general
contractor will come out, they'll give
you a construction schedule, right?
They're, they're making it up.
They'll try to reach out when they can.
So they'll reach out to various, uh,
trades to get the information, but
oftentimes we'll see something and we'll
say, "Hey, this schedule's not realistic."
Like, you know, you've got 42 rooms
and you're saying you wanna install all
the audiovisual systems in five days.
Could it be done?
Yeah, maybe.
But you're not really realistic as far
as getting it all installed, cables
pulled, everything up and running,
everything's tested, commissioned,
turned over to a client, training.
So we see that quite a bit.
Or you're not thinking of the fact that,
you know, they'll have dependencies
and overlaps in the scheduling,
and it's like, no, you can't do
that for AV and technology, right?
We need to go in when it's finished.
So you can't say, we're dropping
in the ceiling and we're gonna
be painting, but you guys can go
ahead and get started installing."
No, we can't.
You know, AV doesn't come in at that time.
We can pull cabling, most likely, but
you don't want parts and pieces and
devices going into that environment.
So I'd say, you know, have an
honest conversation about the
schedule, make sure there's clarity.
Bring in your provider, your technology
solutions provider, so they can just
give you feedback on the timing.
Um, because I think, you know, you don't
wanna get to the end of the project,
everyone's rushing, everyone's run--
"Oh, we have to have our grand opening.
It's already scheduled.
We have an event."
You know, that could have been avoided by
having some, you know, clear discussions
earlier to make sure everyone's on the
same page about what needs to happen,
what state the building needs to be
in in order to complete these systems
Brandon Giella: Okay.
Which, of course, documentation
is important to do that.
Marques: The argumentation.
The argumentation
Brandon Giella: Okay.
Okay.
And of course, grab a great
team that can help you that's
been there a million times.
Uh,
Marques: 100%.
Brandon Giella: Contech.com.
Please go check these guys out.
Yeah, uh, any final words?
Any kinda, uh, you know,
advice for anybody thinking
through this or wisdom orâ¦
You said, uh, I, I love this
line: "Deadlines are dollars."
Marques: Deadlines or
Brandon Giella: I love that.
Marques: I said, it's bringing
everyone into the, into the table
early, you know, deep discussions.
People always tell us we
ask a ton of questions.
Yes, we do, because
there's a lot going on.
We wanna make sure we get it right.
You know, if you're dealing with a
team that's not asking you questions,
that would be a point of concern.
You know, do we really
understand the project?
Do you really grasp what needs
to happen and what's going on?
So bringing folks together early,
talk through things, um, just
discuss it early on in the process
cycle, and you should be good to go
Brandon Giella: Perfect.
We'll leave it there.
Marcus, thank you so much.
Uh, again, please get in touch
with the team at kontek.com,
K-O-N-T-E-K.com.
There's tons of resources there that walk
through a lot of these kind of issues that
come up during a project, especially if
you're in the dreaming phase and you're
thinking about, uh, this new kind of,
you know, building or new AV setup that
you want to bring your dream to life.
Uh, but Marcus and the rest of
the team have been there 100
times, and it's great to have your
wisdom and experience as always.
And with that, we will see
you on the next episode.