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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: Marcus, today
we're gonna talk about the hidden
cybersecurity risks in AV systems.
And we were talking earlier this week
about how this is becoming a lot more
prevalent for a lot of different reasons.
AV and IT are increasingly converging,
which, uh, increases the attack
surface, the, the vectors, all the,
the fancy cybersecurity language.
Um, and so I know that this is,
uh, the risks and the incidents
are rising partly due to AI.
And this is not related to AV, but I
wanted to give this really quick story
of something that I heard, um, or that I
experienced in the last couple of weeks
where I had a colleague who's another,
uh, uh, a marketing firm, reach out to
me via email from their email address,
and it was a fully built website where,
uh, it was asking for an RFP for a
quote, and it was gonna give me secure
materials, and I had to just click this
button and log into my Google account
to access these secure materials.
And I know your brain's already on fire
because you're like, "Don't click on that.
Please don't do that.
Don't log in."
Marques: anything
Brandon Giella: But I say that
to say it was so realistic, like
my colleague's brand, his email,
his, uh, almost his web address.
It was very, very close, and it was
all AI-generated, fully baked website
with a link, and it looked great.
I say all that to say with AI, these, uh,
risks are dramatically increasing, and I'm
sure you're seeing this in AV, and I know
you're gonna see it more in the future.
So we can talk more about that.
But, um, what's your, what's your hot
take on AI right now before we jump in?
Marques: Oh man, my hottest take
would be I'm all out on AI, Brandon.
Brandon Giella: All out?
Oh, come on.
Why, why, why, why, why?
Marques: That's, that's over the top.
Um, I'm mostly out, not all out.
Brandon Giella: Okay.
Yeah
Marques: So for me, from the very
beginning, you know, it's, it's a lot
of over-promising and under-deliver.
So
Brandon Giella: Yeah
Marques: to have gone through
the, the tech bubble of 2001.
Brandon Giella: Mm.
Marques: college, I
remember it very vividly.
You know, there was so much
hype, and then it's, you know,
not quite what everyone thinks.
I'm old enough to remember the internet
really picking up when it was coming into
homes more, getting more access and things
like that, and you know, heck, I'm still
waiting on my flying car from The Jetsons.
But all that aside, it's, you
know, so much hype, but the
hype is outpacing security, it's
outpacing just quality boundaries.
You know, you seeâ¦
Well, I've heard of so many cases of folks
having kinda rogue AI bots and things
going on in their workplace, and people
aren't thinking like, "Hey, do you really
want this on your network to have access
to your sensitive materials, your data?"
your story is a perfect example of
how, you know, I hate to say good
guys and bad guys, but for ease of
understanding, you know, your good
guys that try to defend your network,
your bad guys trying to get in.
Uh, everyone has the same tools, right?
And it just seems like the, the threat
complexity has just skyrocketed.
I mean, your example is perfect.
Phishing and spoofing
and all of these things.
Social engineering was always
one of the better attacks, right?
Um, it really gets at things
that people want to do.
I want to respond fast to a colleague,
or I want to respond to this email.
I want to believe that, oh, I've
got this great RFP I tell everyone
in our company, and I go by it, and
we've had, you know, these challenges
as well, but if I don't expect it
from you, I'm not responding to it.
I'm not clicking on it.
I don't answer the phone if
I don't recognize the number.
And it just feels like, you know, for
all this promise, you know, where is the
enhanced security and the guardrails to
keep up with, you know, what's happening
on the negative side of this, right?
They're, the phishing campaigns now are
kudos whoever's putting them together.
They're amazing.
But
Brandon Giella: I said
Marques: a little bit of the case.
Like, people don't know that, I
hate the term dark web, but I'll
just use it, dark web, okay?
But you can actually go out and
just buy attack kits, right?
It's not like
Brandon Giella: Hmm.
Marques: some guy living in his
basement trying to invent everyâ¦
No.
This is actually a store where
you can buy these things, and
folks just don't really know.
So I'm like, "Well, how did AIâ¦"
Yes, it's improving some security
and analyzing att- uh, things coming
inbound, things like that, and that's
great, but it just seems like the rate
of attack or the rate of breach is
increasing year over year over year.
I mean, the breaches now are justâ¦
The, the scale of them
is just astronomical.
You know, people, I don't know if they
remember, like, the Target breaches
and, um, in our area, North Carolina,
there's a thing called PowerSchool.
breach.
It's just data breach after data
breach, and it really is accelerating
with, you know, AI tools because
again, AI tools are for everyone.
They're not just for the folks that work.
But aside from the extreme cases,
you know, it's just users not being
careful, um, or letting things go
without quality controls, right?
It's one thing if you can use it as,
know, a way to enhance your own work.
Um, ma-make sure you verify the
outputs, because too many times when
I see some mistakes is someone threw
something in AI, they didn't verify
the output, they just let it rip.
It's incorrect.
It's wrong.
It's, I don't like the term
hallucinate, but I know it's
the term people understand.
Oh, these hallucinations.
And that's just wrong information.
And I, I put it in terms of an employee.
If you hire a new employee,
you're training them up, they're
continually giving you work or
work product that's incorrect.
Okay, maybe you get them on a
performance plan, or you try to
help them, and you try to train
them more, and you get corrections.
At some point in time you say,
"This is not working out," and
you're gonna let the employee go.
That's how I feel about AI is like,
you want me to my time double-checking
every single output coming out of this
that just tells me it's not quite ready.
And it's also, you know, for people
that don't know, you know, what
is AI versus what is automation
versus, you know, things that
already existed and were really just
automation, now they're branded as AI.
And again, marketing is important.
It's very important.
But what is the, what is really happening?
Brandon Giella: Yeah
Marques: having more education about
that and really understanding is just
one of the big things I would love
to see more of, because there are
camera tracking technologies that
have been around for, say, a decade.
Now they're branded as AI, and I'm
like, "Wait, what's the difference?
It seems to perform the same way it
did last year or the year before."
And I was like, "Am I
missing something here?"
Brandon Giella: Yeah
Marques: I get off my soapbox on that,
but I, I think it could be very powerful.
Um, it could really be a, a multiplier
if you can use it correctly.
Um, you know, like I said,
double-check your outputs.
If it can help you with equations, uh,
help you with, I don't know, any kind
of design work or just even your own
thinking about a problem, I think it
does have some huge potential, um, to
be a multiplier on the work you can
get done and things you can accomplish.
But, you know, one little just
snarky comment and I'll let it go.
If AI on its own is so smart, why can't it
design its own eco-friendly data center?
Brandon Giella: that.
I like that.
That is a problem for, for, for somebody
with a lot more money than me to, to
figure out how to build one of those.
Um, no, yeah, no, I'm with you.
I'm with you.
I, I, I will confess, I was guilty
of shipping a bad output on AI, and
I realized, like, how easily these
things can slip out, and you gotta,
you just gotta be very careful.
So yeah, that is, it
is, it is a real thing.
Quality control is definitely,
definitely a very serious thing.
But I found it's most, most helpful in
communication and project management.
If you can stick within that,
it does a phenomenal job.
I love it for that.
Otherwise, yeah, it's tough.
It's tough.
Marques: Yeah, and it's early, you know?
I don't wanna
Brandon Giella: I know, yeah.
Marques: you know, and that's
the case of everything.
Everything, you know, is early,
and there's the hype cycle.
"Oh, it's so great, it's so great."
And then it tails off a little bit, and
then you get into the actual utility
of, okay, what does it really do?
Brandon Giella: Yeah, yeah, yeah
Marques: you know, for me, it's just kinda
living through that hype cycle right now
and then figuring out what it really does.
Brandon Giella: yeah.
No, that's helpful.
Um, I, I brought up that story because
it, it was, uh, it was so good.
I'm usually not a victim of
any of these things, and I
wasn't ended up being a victim.
I didn't log into anything.
But it was so good, and I, I was so
impressed that I almost did fall for it.
But I say that to say, um, I
wanna, I wanna hear from you,
like, what are you seeing on the,
the, the conversion betweenâ¦
convergence between IT
and
AV nowadays?
Like, where are these things
overlapping more and more within
your industry, and how do you see the
security vulnerabilities within that
convergence popping up now more, let's
say, in the last year or two that
you haven't really seen previously?
Marques: Yeah, I'd say, you know,
so when it comes to convergence AV,
in some places it lives under IT.
It coexist really, really tightly now.
As more things, uh, become
network-based via protocols and just
transports of signals, things like
that, was always going to happen.
You're gonna have this just crashing
of, uh, AV and IT and what the rules
are and what you need to have happen.
Um, and I think the biggest thing is
that's continuing to push forward, right?
So AV over IP and all these methods
that are coming out and all these
protocols, whether it's, you know, ST
2110, um, IPMX is coming out and all
these, they're all relying on a network.
And so for a user, you know, or an
environment, now we're really thinking,
"Okay, are we gonna handle this?"
Right?
How is this gonna go?
I gonna create a separate network?
Uh, I'm a fan of these.
It's just what I like.
I, I like control.
No shocker there, I guess, if I'm
in the AV sector and I wanna be
able to control all my devices.
But, um, honestly, it's, it's
a deep conversation about,
okay, what is the IT policy?
do I adhere to it?
How do I do my part to
be secure on the network?
And are we doing a complete AV network?
Meaning I've got redundant, you know,
not redundant at that point, but I
have a secondary set of switches, all
the cabling is dedicated for just AV.
Or am I doing just one consolidated
network where, hey, this
network already exists, right?
And that's one of the promises of
AV over IP is I can make this ride
on the existing client network.
Yes, you can.
just in terms of functionally
understanding the protocols involved
and how to optimize it for this
much bandwidth and traffic that's
being added to a network, but from
a security standpoint, you know, if
all these devices are now touching
this, how do we segment it, right?
Are we doing VLANs?
Are we doing virtual
routing and forwarding?
Like, what are we doing to protect
not just users, but sensitive
corporate data from being accessible?
Um, on the bright side, you know,
in the AV sector, we've seen more
of a, a, an increase in companies
taking security more seriously.
Um, there's some manufacturers out there
now allow you to basically run almost
like a pen test or a penetration test
within their stack, um, just to make sure
you're not leaving passwords exposed,
you don't have Telnet active if you
don't want to, or SS- SSH capability in.
You know, as that, I think becomes
more and more to the forefront on
the AV side, will really help, uh,
create a really strong bond between
your AV and your IT to make sure, you
know, we're not the point of entry.
There would be nothing worse than,
you know, getting a call from a,
a CIO or CISO, and you're getting
called into the office because some
random black box sitting on the
corporate LAN is serving up malware.
Or got, you know, accessed, and
it had no password in place.
Admin, admin, right?
I can't think of how many times
and how many boxes are admin,
admin or admin, password.
Uh, for some of you at home
listening, if that's your router
password, please change it.
Um, it is not secure.
But I think that's the,
the biggest thing, right?
Is as more of these devices are
all network-based, there is a deep
discussion that should always be
happening early on so that we can
plan on not just connectivity,
but also how do you secure it?
How do you keep the environment secure?
And if you need to, how
do you segregate it?
How do you keep these things
from even touching one another?
And all of that should be happening,
you know, early on because, again, you
don't wanna put something on a device
next thing you know, it's gone rogue.
Someone got access to it.
You know, anything is
happening, and you have no idea
Brandon Giella: Okay, I wanna get
more into the, the, uh, uh, kind
of things that you would do before
you sign a new contract for an AV
provider or something like that.
But first, I'm gonna go buy a tractor,
and I'm just gonna quit all my job and
just sit and mow the grass out in the
farm, uh, to get away from technology.
Marques: Hey, dude, farming is high-end.
I
Brandon Giella: I,
Marques: some work for, uh,
Brandon Giella: I'm
thinking of a small one.
Yeah.
Marques: it's wild
Brandon Giella: That is true.
That is true.
The, uh, I, I've been reading a
lot of Wendell Berry lately, and
he talks about mass agriculture.
Anyway, it doesn't matter.
Um, so I wanna hear from you.
Um, do you, do you have a story that
you have seen recently, let's say
in the last six to 12 months, where
you saw a very serious security
vulnerability that is probably more
commonplace than people would imagine?
Is there something that, like, that you
saw either a client or a colleague or
just somewhere in your network that you
realize this is a major issue that AV can
help with, uh, you know, securing that
with IT, but, uh, maybe something that,
that comes to mind that it's actually
pretty common that this happens, and
people should be on the lookout for it.
But is there anything like
that that comes to mind?
Marques: I think two things come to mind.
Uh, one is more severe.
So I'll start with the severe one.
Uh, we have, uh, someone we're
working with massive network, right?
Multiple sites, multiple floors
in a building, highly sensitive
equipment is on the network.
There's also an AV network.
And one day I'm trying to find a
device, um, for whatever reason, I'm
just, you know, looking for something,
and I run, will get this, arp-a right?
It's a way to send out, uh, a request
for devices to respond to you.
And I do this looking
for one of my AV devices.
The next thing I know,
Brandon Giella: I
Marques: am getting responses from,
like, six-figure scanning devices,
medical equipment, all these things.
I'm like: What is happening right now?
Like, there's no way these things
should be talking back to me.
then, now I'm interested.
At first, I was on the AV network,
and so I say, "Okay, let me jump
on the guest network."
Hop on the guest network, repeat
the commands, same result.
know there's a problem, right?
And so for those that aren't in the
network side of things, if I run this
command, in an ideal world, I don't
really get anything back, right?
Maybe a few, a few IP addresses will
respond back, but not very much.
If I am on a guest network in any
environment, and I run this command
and I see computers and servers and
scanning devices and everything is
responding back to me, and I know that
the, the network should be segmented,
I know there is a configuration issue.
Um, so this actually did happen.
Again, this is a real story.
This actually happened.
So being a good Samaritan, you know,
I'm, I'm reaching out to our contact
and saying, "Hey, just wanna alert you.
I was searching for a box on the guest
network, ran this command, and, you know,
all these devices are responding," and I
started-- gave him a list of IP addresses
that were responding, took a screenshot.
man.
So anyone that has tried to have a
meeting with more than, say, five
people, you know that scheduling,
getting scheduling done can be tough.
You know, getting everyone to align,
and I have never seen twenty people
get on a meeting so fast in my life.
Um, that's how serious this was, right?
And I don't think, you know, if
you're outside the IT world, you won't
really get why this matters so much.
But imagine being in a hospital
or a government building.
Imagine a hospital
Brandon Giella: And
Marques: MRI machines, scanners, echo,
uh, cardiograph machines, and all these
things are just randomly accessible.
imagine that happened.
And this is the kind of level we're
dealing with, so immediately within,
like, probably was, I think it was in
twenty-four hours, I was on a conference
call with up to twenty people representing
different facets of IT, IT 'cause
some couldn't believe it was possible.
Some s-- someone didn't care.
You know, they were like, "Hey,
I don't want to hear what's
possible or not possible.
I want to hear how do we make sure this
is not going to happen beyond today."
And I mean, it was wild, but, you
know, we spent the next, you know,
thirty minutes, me just reve-revealing
my findings, going over how I did it.
Again, it's like I'm not
running a VPN in your network.
I don't have a, you know,
company-issued computer from you.
I'm literally on my personal device And
all these devices are responding to me.
So wasâ¦
And all it was, was it really
was just a misconfiguration.
I don't know how it didn't
get caught in testing, right?
Because when you're doing this,
you're segmenting your networks.
You're trying to make sure that
you don't have the capability
of, you know, one device talking
to another across your network.
So that was a pretty big deal, right?
And it started from, you know,
I'm just testing AV devices.
I'm justâ¦
And was told, and we were told that, "No,
there's a completely separate segment
for AV, so feel free to do what you
need to do and, know, go from there."
So it was, it really blew my mind when
I saw these devices responding back
to me, and I could see them clearly
and pull IP address information and
ping them and do all these things.
So that one was,
Brandon Giella: For those of us who,
Marques: the top
Brandon Giella: who don't have, you
know, IT backgrounds, I'm sure there's
a lot of leaders on this call that,
or on this, um, uh, listening to this
podcast that, uh, you know, don't have
this kind of background that you do.
What does that mean?
Like, what, what was
this, the vulnerability?
What could potentially
happen because of that?
Like, break that down for me
Marques: Yeah.
So put it this way, um,
imagine your neighbor could see
everything on your network, right?
Imagine not just your, your one
neighbor, every neighbor, anyone near
you can see everything on your network.
Not just see it, but if I-- because
keep in mind, if I can see it,
then I can interact with it, I
can potentially intercept it.
So I can gather your keystrokes,
I can see, you know, what
are you communicating with.
I can figure out where you're banking.
I can figure out all these things
about your day-to-day just from
seeing your network traffic.
Brandon Giella: So like I could
log into like an MRI machine and
see what the images are or like
what people are clicking and
the data transferring out of it?
Marques: thatâ¦
Yeah, or you could start just even
hammering that machine with random
packets of data and shut it down.
So
Brandon Giella: Yeah, that'd be a problem.
Yeah
Marques: you're dealing with an MRI,
and you just-- someone just starts
hammering it with data packets,
and they are able to cause it to
malfunction other machine where you're
in the middle of a procedure, right?
So I don't, I'm not in the, the medical
space with IT, so I don't know what
is or is not possible with that.
But I do know if you flow to-- flood
a network with traffic, it, it stops,
Brandon Giella: Yeah, yeah.
Yeah
Marques: So that's some of
the, the biggest risk when
you see a situation like that.
And again, it's, it blew me
away 'cause I'm like, "Man, I'm
on a wireless guest network.
This should absolutely not beâ¦"
And as soon as I saw it happen,
I knew it wasn't correct.
So that's why I went ahead and
alerted someone so they could,
you know, take whatever steps they
Brandon Giella: Cheers
Marques: Um, and then for us, it meant,
you know, we, we helped them by going back
in, reconfiguring all IT devices, getting
a new network set up, new IP scheme, um,
and rolling that out as fast as we could.
So it's, you knowâ¦
And again, it's just one simple
misconfiguration, and you have that happen
Brandon Giella: I feel like
that alone was worth hiring you.
Just like you found this thing.
It's like, "Hey man, you
saved us a bunch of money.
This is great."
Marques: It's, it's just
one of those things, man.
We try to help where we
Brandon Giella: Yeah, yeah.
Marques: yeah,
Brandon Giella: funny.
Marques: that's an extreme,
Brandon Giella: Yeah.
Marques: this isâ¦
And again, it's just a misconfiguration
that I just, you know, we were told
we're on a separate network, uh,
virtually separate, not physically.
And, you know, through just discovery
and some testing, I realized we weren't.
And so another one that was not us,
but I, I got an earful about it.
We're doing a project for a university
and, you know, it was their first
AV over IP deployment as a pilot.
So we said, "Great."
We have a manufacturer we trust.
We have some best practices.
We, we share it with them.
And soon as we got to the room, they
said, "Hey, listen, we have to make sure
we have the network nailed down," because
the way their network is structured,
of universities may have what they call
a core, and so all the traffic goes
from any building back to the core,
and that's how they do their routing.
Apparently, another AV team had come in
and they put a device on the network, and
again, simple misconfigurations, right?
They had this device set up
for DHCP, and in this case, it
was acting as a DHCP server.
So for those of you that aren't in this
world, what that means is this box is
giving out IP addresses to devices.
It's really helpful if it's
the only box doing that.
But when you have a, a routing, uh,
solution, a server or whatever, you know,
your preferred solution is, is actually
issuing or serving up IP addresses,
well, now you causing a conflict.
And what my, my contact told me is
the team before us, when they did
this, it was a complete accident.
They just forgot to switch it
off before they connected it.
Uh, it actually shut
down an entire segment
Brandon Giella: of
Marques: campus Campus-wide network
dropout because of a box being added to
a network with the DHCP server activated.
So,
Brandon Giella: My gosh
Marques: heard that story and
it was an immediate, "Hey, guys.
Let's in our, in our just normal
process, let's make sure any device
that functions as, uh, the ACP server,
make sure it is off unless we have
a clear, like we are not serving."
And then, you know, there's different ways
we deal with it on our end, and anyone in
AV, you know, maybe do it from a switch.
Maybe you do have a processor,
but you're a dedicated network.
So there's other ways to deal with it.
But when I heard that story,
I just kinda chuckled.
I was like, "Oh, man.
It getsâ¦"
again, it's tough because historically,
some AV teams don't have a lot
of IT background, but IT teams
don't have a lot of AV background.
Now, you really do need both of those
things, you know, on your team to
understand, number one, how do you
even have the conversation, right?
First and foremost, what are the
things I need to watch out for?
What are the items I'm
gonna need help with?
I don't wanna just go put
anything on anyone's network.
That's just, you know, bad form.
Um, and then helping the clients
understand why it's so important because
sometimes I think IT gets a bad rap
Users don't always love their IT team,
because, you know, the IT team is tasked
with keeping everything protected,
and that's a really hard deal when
the number one, you know, weakness in
any environment is the user, right?
So I wanna come in with my iPhone,
or I've got my, my personal phone
I wanna use for X, Y, or Z thing.
I've got my personal laptop I wannaâ¦
Well, IT won't let me do it, so I'm gonna
figure out a way to do it on my own.
And it's just one of those
things where, you know, IT is
oftentimes playing defense.
They'll try to educate and try to share.
And then, you know, on the AV
side of things, "Hey, I just
need my stuff to work, right?
I'm in this meeting room.
I need my things to work all the time.
I don't want calls randomly on Thursday
that the system's offline, and then
I find out, oh, we did a, a switch
reboot, or we changed our IP scheme and
I was getting my IPs from the IT team."
So that's the most important
part to this, is those teams have
gotta be connected at the hip.
What I advise every- if you're in
the IT space, you know, understand
the protocols that are popular in AV,
uh, where the segments are headed.
And if you're on the AV side of the
equation, you should absolutely, if you
don't study up on it, have someone on your
team that has an IT background or has some
level of comfort, switch configurations,
understanding protocols, things like that
because we're not going backwards, right?
We're not putting the
toothpaste back in the tube.
We're just gonna continue to go
forward and accelerate, so we need to
know how to have these conversations.
And as more of this merges,
how do we deal with it safely?
Brandon Giella: It's always a trade-off
between security and convenience, right?
We've talked about that
before on some episodes, yeah.
Okay, so given all that, given those
stories, and you kind of alluded to,
to some of these things, give us really
clearly process step one to step whatever.
What would you recommend people do to make
sure that their AV and IT setup and where
those connect, that that's a very secure,
very good best practice place to start?
Where, where do you even begin with that?
It sounds overwhelming.
Marques: So if we start on the AV
side, that's the easy way to do it.
Um, first and foremost, with
manufacturers, If a manufacturer
has any device that has to be on the
network, they should be able to offer
white papers, uh, security information.
Um, gather all that.
All right?
Make sure you go through it and have
a basic understanding of it yourself.
Share that with the IT team.
You know, when you have a project, usually
IT is not the first person there, so you
have to re-request, like, "Hey, we're
gonna need this many ports, this many IP
addresses," whatever may be happening.
But if you're touching someone's
network, everything you learn from the
manufacturer, share that with the IT team.
That way, everyone's on the same
page because one of the issues you
may run into, hardware that you're
first looking at may require a
protocol that IT does not allow.
You know, multicast traffic
is one of the biggest ones.
Some IT spaces say, "We
don't allow multicast."
Okay.
unicast only or blah, blah, blah.
Well, if you're having a camera, video
switching system, whatever, and it
requires that, you didn't have this
conversation, you didn't check, you
didn't share the materials, when you
go to set it up, now it's not working.
Well, it's because they're
blocking that traffic.
So first and foremost, you know,
again, check with the manufacturers,
make sure you understand, validate
your own, uh, your own design,
um, internally on the AV side.
But then again, share that.
Your direct client probably
is not on the IT team.
Make sure they can get you in contact
with the IT team so you all can sit
down, understand what is the plan, how
are you planning to deploy it, what
network are you touching, you know, how
our devices need to communicate, what
all needs to happen and, and what all
is possible and what's not possible.
Because you may-- We've had cases where
we changed manufacturers you know,
one protocol wasn't gonna be allowed.
We went to another manufacturer where it
was allowed, and we moved on from there
Brandon Giella: Okay.
What about on the IT side?
I mean, obviously, like step one is if
you're gonna have this conversation,
bring both, both parties to the table.
You know, you got obviously leadership
at the, uh, healthcare institution
or the, the, the university.
Bring them to the table, take IV
and AT, uh, IT together
and, and make them talk.
I mean, justâ¦
Yeah.
Yeah.
Marques: On the IT side,
I'd say it's really helpful.
Um, have standards.
Have standards that are, you
know, publishable, shareable, you
know, expectations, and friendly.
Be nice to your users, right?
Make sure youâ¦
It's, it's hard to create that
relationship 'cause, again, your
job's to secure the environment, but
make sure it's not an adversarial
relationship because now these projects
are happening behind your back.
So, you know, invite users in, help.
I'd say educate, 'cause a lot of
times if you can educate the user
Brandon Giella: I like that
Marques: they can't do something, it helps
them to understand a little bit better.
You know, if they understand the threat
that their phone poses to the network
and why you don't allow it to get on,
or even, you can give things where
you give, uh, you know, agreements.
I've seen, uh, places that say, "Sure,
you can bring your personal devices.
We have to run, uh, a package on it, and
so that, just so you know, if anything
goes wrong or awry at any point in time,
we can potentially wipe your phone.
If you sign up for that and you're good
with it, then we can move forward."
But it's
Brandon Giella: Wow
Marques: you know, from I-IT side
things, what is this project, right?
When is it happening?
Why does it need to happen?
What do you need from IT to support this?
You know, that's the biggest thing from
the IT side of the equation is making
sure there's, you know, a publishable
set of documentation that you can share,
whether it's the kind of cables you're
requiring, the color scheme of the cables.
That's very common.
Like, "Hey, all your
cables need to be blue.
All of mine are gonna be yellow.
You know, jacks are this certain color."
So anything like that
that forms a standard.
And if you don't have one, go ahead and
create one, because again, as you'reâ¦
If you look up in the ceiling and
all you see is a bundle of blue
cabling, how do you know what's what?
So that's, um, something we, we share
with folks as well as far as, like, color
codes, uh, just common things like that to
make the process easier for both parties
Brandon Giella: You help create
those kind of protocol standards?
Like let's say there's a new building
being created and you get to be
there at the very beginning, you
help create some of those, like,
"Okay, we're gonna use yellow cables.
You guys use blue cables," and you
kind of set that, that standard?
That's right.
Okay.
That's really helpful
Marques: We do.
We're in the design phase.
Those were some of the
questions we asked right away.
Uh, we standardize you know,
category cabling, ca- Cat6.
So I always ask folks, "Do you have a
spec- uh, specified color for AV already?
And if not, what colors are you using?"
We are doing a project for a hotel chain.
I think they're using almost
every color available right now,
but they, they had standards.
So they shared and said,
"Hey, here are the colors that
we're using for our cabling.
You have to adhere to this."
It was great because, again,
you don't wanna pull all this
cabling, connect everything, and
then have to do it over again
Brandon Giella: And then last
but not least, don't check your
bank account at the coffee shop?
Please.
I mean,
Marques: Ever.
Brandon Giella: kidding.
Marques: it's-- So my, my
go-to is don't use free Wi-Fi.
It sounds counterintuitive, and it's
like, man, everyone has free Wi-Fi.
Yes.
Yes, they do.
Um, you know, even when I'm out and
about, if I, um, if I need Wi-Fi
for some reason, I'll even fire up
a VPN to connect back to my home.
Um, it's just, or
Brandon Giella: Really?
Marques: VPN, but
Brandon Giella: Huh
Marques: there's so many things that can
happen on public Wi-Fi and, you know,
the person helping to get your coffee
order put together, it's not their job
to worry about is their network secure.
That's someone else's, you know,
dealing with someone else's problem.
And a lot of these, you know, networks,
someone just goes, buys a basic
router, throws it in and, here you go.
Here's free Wi-Fi.
So, you know, and a lot of people
are more complex than that.
I don't wanna undersell those
teams that are out here.
You know, I know hotels have great
IT teams supporting them, and
some restaurants have it as well.
But no, I'm, I am anti-free Wi-Fi.
I get on my family about it.
They don't listen, but I even tell my
family, "Please don't use the free Wi-Fi.
Or if you do, let's do
it in a secure fashion."
Brandon Giella: Yeah.
Okay, I'm gonna Google this later
to figure out how to do that.
Somebody told me that once, and
I was like, "Ah, I don't know
how to do that," but I should
listen to my, my friend Marcus.
He,
Marques: um,
Brandon Giella: he,
Marques: easier.
Brandon Giella: yeah, yeah.
Marques: than it used to be
Brandon Giella: Yeah.
Interesting.
Okay.
Well, Marcus, any final words of advice?
Any kind of, uh, anything people should,
should check out when they're thinking
about the IT and AV and how these
work together with the security side?
Marques: Yeah, we're no
longer separate teams, right?
We're really joined at the hip.
Um, the whole goal is to produce
this vision, you know, transform
this vision into reality and
deliver on an awesome project.
To do that, you've gotta have
partnerships, and those partnerships,
you know, you got your internal
clients and your external clients,
and treat everyone like a cl- treat
everyone like a client, right?
Everyone should be a partner in the
process, and that's how you work through
these things to make sure that at the
end, everything's working as expected
versus now you're trying to go back and
fix some issue or, you know, spending
additional dollars and time trying
to deal with an issue that could've
been resolved early on in the process.
So again, they're not adversaries,
um, they're partners in
delivering on solid projects
Brandon Giella: Well, thank you so much.
If you are interested in more resources
like this, please go to kontek.com,
K-O-N-T-E-K.com,
and you'll see lots more from Marcus
and the team putting together, uh,
great resources for you guys to
build your dreams into reality.
Marcus, thanks.
We'll see you next time
Marques: See ya