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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 are talking
about AV for particular industries.
So each industry that contact serves has
its own unique challenges and constraints,
but also IT unique dreams and solutions
to those constraints and challenges.
So Marcus, if you're talking
to a healthcare leader who
wants to build an AV space.
What is a common dream that you
hear about, a common constraint or
challenge that they should think about
ahead of time in some ways that maybe
you've resolved that in the past?
Marques Manning: Yeah, absolutely.
Um, one of the most common things,
'cause again, we stay out of the clinical
spaces, so we think about the, the non
procedural spaces that are in healthcare.
Number one constraint
is flexibility and use.
So you need to be flexible,
but also have a standard.
Um, what happens is there may be doctors.
Nurses, clinical physicians,
clinical engineers, and they
actually go between hospitals.
So one of the, you know, biggest
constraints is how do you work
with independent systems to create
a system that will make sense and
kind of mirror another system.
So there's competition
between the systems.
So, you know, no, no, A healthcare
system a does not wanna say,
you know what, we have the exact
same thing healthcare B does.
That doesn't help them in
the business of healthcare.
What you do see is when there's a
doctor that serves both entities,
okay, well I'm coming to give a speech
now in healthcare, you know, system,
B site, I don't know what I'm doing.
I don't know how to connect.
This is all foreign.
And so we have, there's so many, um,
interconnection points in healthcare now,
especially in our state, North Carolina,
where, you know, so many folks have
been purchased and merged and everything
else that we do share so much of this.
So we'll look at it and
to solve it, we say, okay.
Where can we make commonalities?
You know, if I'm gonna do a web
conference, some of this is gonna be
the same no matter what just about,
but how can we make the, the graphical
user interface, the gui, how can we
make that similar but not identical?
How can we make sure that we're paying
attention to, you know, the overall,
uh, system design in one space?
So if we know someone else has a similar
auditorium coming up, we can say,
okay, here's the design we did here.
There's over overlap
in these organizations.
We know that they have doctors
that go back and forth, let's
use this as our base design.
And so a lot of it becomes, you know,
how do you reference another design?
So you still wanna give them some
individuality, some of that branding
that's specific to that system, but
make the overall experience be almost
universal so that if a doctor goes
from one site to the next, they just
jump in, they can present, they're very
comfortable, you know, you don't wanna
waste, you know, 15 minutes of a meeting.
With folks trying to figure out the av.
That's one of the worst
things you can have happen.
The best, the best AV system is the one.
No one notices.
They didn't need a
technician to help them.
They just patched in and they got to work
Brandon Giella: I love that.
I love that.
Okay.
So for them, help them focus on their
job between different sites and, uh,
and, and so you're, you're saying
flexibility of use, but creating at
least a standard enough that they can
get in and do their job quickly, keep
taking care of the patient and keep
taking care of their team and just move
Marques Manning: exactly.
Brandon Giella: That's
the main thing for them.
Okay.
Okay.
Interesting.
Okay.
Okay.
I wanna, I wanna circle back to this,
but I kind of want to hit at least all
the industries so that we can keep.
Moving.
Next one, academia.
You're a dean at a university,
you've got a major project, an
auditorium, something like that.
What are some common dreams,
constraints, and solutions that
you hear in that environment?
Marques Manning: Yeah, so this one
can get deep really, really fast.
So.
The pedagogy has changed so
much over the years, right?
If we think about our time in school,
our time now, and the changes that
have happened, well these are all
students, and again, this is, these
are competitive enterprises, right?
You know, college is trying to recruit,
recruit kids, bring more and more kids in.
Well, how do you reach a
19-year-old today, an 18-year-old?
You know, how do you teach
them in ways that make sense?
Hey, there are teachers on TikTok.
There are universities that are launching
things like on TikTok and YouTube and
you know, we always joke about YouTube
University, but more and more, um, higher
ed spaces, we'll put things out like that.
'cause that's the biggest challenge.
You know, as the, the learning style
changes for kids, you know, what deans
and professors are seeing now is nothing
like what they were seeing 20 years ago.
You know, kids nowadays come in, they're
used to, you know, I can be remote, I
can swipe, I can have it on my phone,
my tablet, I can learn anywhere.
And so how do you now
take your university?
And, you know, COVID really hammered
this point home for a lot of people.
Um, if you did not already have
a remote learning plan, you
had to get one really fast.
But from there, also, you think
about physical constraints.
You know, the campus is
only so large in most cases.
Unless you're building up, you're not
gonna always be able to build out.
So how do you get, you know,
more students in more seats?
Well, guess what?
You do it virtually.
Okay, well now how do I make sure I
have a really seamless experience?
Whether you're using teams,
zoom, BlueJeans, whatever you're
using doesn't even matter.
It's how are you capturing all of this?
And then, you know, with the rise of
High Flex, which is probably around 2015
or so, it really started taking off.
Hybrid flexible learning.
So that means you can be synchronous,
asynchronous in person or remote and
you have all those options, right?
So it's how do you build a classroom so a
professor can still teach, still reach the
students, they can be engaged, they can
interact, they can do all these things.
Um, and it makes sense, right?
It works in a way.
It's gotta be seamless for the instructor.
They've gotta be able to come
in, drop in their laptop or
just start typing on a keyboard.
But I can zoom and I can see a person on
a display and say, okay, I can see their
facial expression, their understanding,
or, oh wait, this person in the gallery,
they look like they're confused.
Are there questions?
Do I need to recover, uh, over a point
again, or what needs to happen here?
So I'd say that's one of the biggest,
you know, constraints you have is
with the, the teaching changing.
And that's where instructional
designers are really, really important.
And have them working with your AV
team, your technology teams, to make
sure you understand how are you gonna
teach in the space now, how do you serve
the in-person folks, the remote folks?
How do you capture it so I can
watch it, you know, on demand.
Um, and for us, that's what it really
came down to is designing systems
throughout the years that just kept
expanding, kept having more and more
capability to capture all these things.
Um, and then you go from there.
Brandon Giella: That's interesting.
I, uh, did my MBA, it was a hybrid
MBA, so I started some of my, my core
classes, you know, your, your financial
accounting was prerecorded videos that
I would watch asynchronously and then
interact with a professor through a.
Portal or via email.
And then I did a hybrid approach where
more advanced finance classes would
be like a, you know, online with a
live, you know, synchronous instructor.
But in this one he was at home on
Zoom or some kind of equivalent.
And then I had in-person
classes that did not have any
video online component at all.
And then also in-person classes
where, uh, there were people
at home on a Zoom equivalent.
And we had the in person and it was
so difficult to have the person at
home speak and not interrupt people
in the classroom and vice versa.
'cause if you're at home, sometimes
you can't hear a student at all and the
professor doesn't recap the question
and so you, they're just moving on.
You have no idea what anybody just said.
So it's a really, really
difficult, uh, challenge
Marques Manning: That is something we
see, you know, currently and for us,
what we started doing is we incorporate,
you know, more microphones, right?
And different types of microphones
because we have these huge
auditoriums especially are difficult.
You nailed it.
If someone in the class is saying
something, if I'm remote, I
have no idea what just happened.
So I'm immediately disengaged
from the class because I
don't know what's happening.
So that's when you get into more of
these systems and we've done some, it's
not to be too technical with it, but
you know, you'll take your microphones
and integrate them in a way so they
can automatically switch cameras.
So now if I have a student
in the back row speaking.
Not only will a microphone pick
them up, but another camera will now
switch and have them on the video.
So that way if I'm watching, I
can see the person, I can hear the
person, and I feel more in tune
with what's happening in the class.
Brandon Giella: That would've
been amazing as a student.
Marques Manning: Yeah,
Brandon Giella: to have that.
I, I know it's very, very complex.
We talked in the last
episode about P Neck.
Is that is, I get that right.
Yeah.
Marques Manning: You got it.
You got it.
Brandon Giella: Yeah.
Okay.
Um, so yeah, it is very complex,
but the experience as a student
would've been incredible.
Marques Manning: Right, because, and
as things get, you know, better and
better with on the technology side,
you know, you can really drive down
latency, latency, jitter, those are
the things that really make a online,
you know, session just terrible.
Brandon Giella: Yeah, I agree.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a great point.
Yeah.
Marques Manning: So they have
to all work together, right?
So your network has to be working.
You have to then design your
AV network to make sure you're
keeping those things down.
You don't wanna introduce devices
that are gonna increase that latency
'cause everyone's been on the call
where you think someone's finished.
So you start, but wait, they're
not quite finished and you're kind
of going back and forth and all
that distracts from the experience.
Brandon Giella: Yes.
Especially if you're talking to me.
'cause I'm one of those that like, I
kind of, I try to like fi not finish
the sentence, but I'm like an active.
Conversational partner.
I'm the worst when there's
like slow internet anyway.
Yeah.
Okay.
Um, cool.
Okay, so I love that.
So, uh, what would you maybe to
be more pointed, because I, I love
this topic just 'cause I've, I've
been in school for my whole life.
Um, but what are some things that
you wish, let's say a dean, uh, of
a university, uh, thinking about
a project like this, what do you
wish they would know ahead of time?
We've talked before, like.
Hey, bring us in as early as
possible when you have the, you
have that dream in the shower.
We want to be there the next day.
You know, that kind of idea.
Uh, what, what else would you,
would you want them to know about
some of these constraints that you
face and some of the solutions that
you've, you've put in place before?
Marques Manning: I'd say realistically
also think of, take a holistic view
of the student experience, right?
Because you don't just have one
type of student anymore, you
have all these types of students.
So when you're thinking about your
spaces, how do you serve every
student that you may encounter?
We think about, you know, we went over
the, the big components of HyperFlex,
but the other thing to think about is
also, um, diversity and inclusion for
others that may have physical differences,
may have learning differences.
You know, we think about it with
a DA and ramps, things like that.
But are you thinking about it also
with the size of your display?
Or do you have listen assist systems?
You know, how are you as
inclusive as possible?
'cause at the end of the day.
You know, students are paying money to
go to college and all these other things,
or even in K through 12 environment,
you know, I'm trying to come, I'm trying
to learn, I'm trying to be engaged.
So really take a holistic view of how do I
serve all of the students and start there.
Brandon Giella: Interesting.
I, my professor in my accounting
class had a very poor mic.
I could not hear him very well.
My accounting skills are terrible 'cause
I have an auditory processing issue I
was diagnosed with when I was younger.
Uh, which is funny now 'cause
I'm, I'm on a podcast with you.
But, uh, um, but having really high
quality, good audio actually probably
would've helped my accounting skills.
They, they're terrible now
because I, I feel like I just
didn't learn it very well.
Marques Manning: You are a hundred
percent correct though, right?
If they had a listen assist and
nowadays they're getting more
advanced, you can do it over Bluetooth.
But if you could just have AirPods in and
be picking up, you know the microphone
more clearly directly in your ears, how
much would that have helped you focus?
Or if you have displays that are
undersized, which is actually common.
We see this a lot.
Um, you know, I can't
engage in the class, right?
If I can't read the spreadsheet on the
screen, then am I just sitting here
kind of coasting through and I don't
really understand what's happening?
I'm not going to be as engaged in the
conversation and learning process.
Brandon Giella: Been there.
Yep.
Been there.
Literally, especially for
a spreadsheet, you know?
'cause the numbers are tiny
and you gotta see the whole
model and all that kinda stuff.
And yeah, there's so many
times I just couldn't see.
Marques Manning: Yeah.
And it's really, I.
Brandon Giella: I couldn't understand.
I couldn't see what
they were talking about.
Yeah.
Marques Manning: We've
talked about it before.
It's just math, right?
At the end of the day, it's not,
you need a bigger display because I
said so, it's because math said so.
Math said you need this size display.
And, and some of that also, you know,
realistically gets into budgetary issues.
'cause we see all the time when
folks will say, oh no, we totally
don't need that 98 inch display.
That's just too big.
It's too much.
No it's not.
You're sitting 35 feet away.
I promise you, if you use something
smaller, and even that's undersized
for this example, but if you use
something smaller, no one can read it.
So what are, what are we doing?
If you're in a classroom, I'm sitting
here and I can't really take notes.
I can't really, or does everyone try to
push forward like what is happening to
actually accomplish the goal of learning?
Brandon Giella: That would be a really
interesting, uh, uh, discovery process is
like, okay, you go sit in this auditorium,
you sit in the back row and I'm gonna show
you a spreadsheet and see what you can
tell how, how that experience is for you.
And, and, and it'll be
like, ah, interesting.
Yeah.
Marques Manning: Again, there's
more than one way to tackle it, you
know, could you do larger displays?
Absolutely.
But again, that's where streaming and
all these new technologies come in
handy because kids can kind of come in
with their laptops, with their tablets,
and they could actually join a, a, a
remote session and see it up close and
personal right there on their device.
So if you're incorporating all that
into the classroom, again, it gets
back to what's the holistic view
of how do I serve all the students?
Brandon Giella: I love that.
I love that.
So we have the patient experience
say, and then the uh uh.
The student experience, like thinking
about these things in these different
industries, what that means for
you, what that implications are,
what the, what that entails in
the dream and then the solution.
Interesting.
Okay.
Next one I wanna talk about
a, a corporate environment.
So an enterprise environment.
Thinking about their AV solutions.
We've talked about this a lot.
You know, we talked in the last episode
about, uh, coming into a glass boardroom
and your, and, and Marcus starts sweating,
you know, as you enter that room.
Um, but what are some other things
that, okay, common dreams, common
constraints, and common solutions that
you think about, uh, in that environment.
Marques Manning: What we see, uh,
in enterprise space, first and
foremost, people want technology that
their employees are going to use.
There is nothing more frustrating that
I hear from, you know, CTOs and CIOs is,
Hey, we spent all this money on this room.
No one uses this.
Either they don't know how, it
doesn't work correctly, something
going on with it, and we feel
like we just wasted our money.
So that's number, number one.
Number one, biggest constraint.
You know, did you make decisions
on the type of equipment?
Um, you know, is it solid?
Is it robust?
Will it do what you asked?
Is the design something that actually
worked for the workflow of your users?
Right?
Did you actually sit down and bring
folks to the table that do this work
every day, and how do you present?
How do you connect?
So it's the actual using of the space.
But the other thing that creeps
into this security, you know, it and
security nowadays, you know, with
what's happening in the world and
breaches and all these things, you
know, a lot of times the number one
attack vector is the person, right?
People will fall for a social
engineering so quickly, oh wait,
I just found a, a flash drive.
Is this free?
Can I have it?
Lemme pop it into my computer.
Like, no, don't do that.
But it happens.
It happens.
Or, oh wait, I saw a
really cool cat video.
I wanna play this.
So next thing you know, you're,
you're down in the weeds
and something's happening.
Well, okay, well how do you
secure your AV system to make
sure we're not an attack vector.
Like we wanna reduce our attack
footprint as much as possible.
Follow good security protocols, be a
partner to it, not an adversary, um,
to make sure we're all on the same page
about what can happen and what can't.
Because, you know, another constraint
in the corporate space, people
do things at home and they think.
Hey, at home, you know, I've got
Apple tv, I've got my iPhone.
I just cast, you know, right to the tv.
I wanna do that at work.
It's like we can do something
similar, but we can't just make
it that simple because again, you
have to have a secure environment.
Um, so how do you enable wireless
sharing in a corporate space and
keep it secure so that you don't
have any breach to, you know, due to
the technology you're implementing.
So that's huge.
And for us, it's all
about early conversations.
Let's talk to it.
What are the rules?
What, what are the benefits to
something we're introducing?
You know, what do you need from us?
Do you need to understand the
protocols that are at play?
Do you need to understand the
ports that need to be opened up?
You know, or maybe we're gonna completely
split the networks apart and say, okay,
we'll have a dedicated AV network.
We'll have a dedicated, you
know, land for our clients.
They'll never touch, you know, we'll
do it through basically segregation.
There's all kinds of ways to tackle that.
In addition to being able to use things
correctly, it's also are they secure?
Um, it's never been as important
as it is right now because the rate
of, you know, breaches and incidents
and heck, we've gone through it.
We've had one.
So that stuff, it, it only
gets more and more amplified.
You know, everyone wants convenience,
they want online services,
they want all these things.
And there's a saying that you can have
convenience or you can have security.
You cannot have both.
Brandon Giella: I like that.
Yeah, because I am one of those
employees that you would chastises.
'cause I wanna, I want to just, I'm, I'm
on an iPad or my computer or my phone.
I just wanna show you this thing
real quick that I'm talking about.
Lemme just stream it.
Why can't I do that?
Because I've got, I've got an
Apple TV at home and I want to
just b punch in a little code.
Boom, it's there.
What's wrong with that?
Marques Manning: It's like, Hey folks,
how you do your home networking?
It's completely up to you.
When I'm responsible for a million
dollar company or a billion dollar
company and we have these networks and
all these things that need to remain
private, it's like absolutely not.
I'm not letting you come in here with
your personal phone and just throw
it on my network and mind as well.
And again, as you get into, you
know, advanced environments,
that's really how it's set up.
Everything is segregated.
You know, you might have a personal device
that's allowed to use the guest network.
Well, if you try to go from the guest
network to your internal display.
In many cases it's not gonna work.
Can it be done?
Oh, absolutely.
But again, it's not as simple as,
well, I do it all the time at home.
Well, hey, we have a secure environment.
We have to allow things to talk a
very specific way, allow networks to
communicate in a very specific way.
You know, that's something where
you just have to, you know, be
a partner to it at all times.
Brandon Giella: Okay.
That's more complicated than I thought.
Marques Manning: Much more, much more.
Brandon Giella: um, the other thing I,
I, I wanna get your take on is, uh, so
when I worked at a, a organization one
time, we had a couple boardrooms, and
like you're saying, it, it, it went, the
boardrooms went unused because it was
easier to sit at our desks and have a.
Virtual session, even though we were
just in the same building than it was
to go get in the boardroom together
and talk to one of our, you know, team
members that was at home or, or, uh, you
know, on the other side of the country.
And so, because every time we
went into this boardroom we would
go, ah, where's that dongle?
And then we would all leave, somebody
would leave the boardroom, go to
the utility closet in a cardboard
box that was at the bottom with
like 50 different cables in it, some
HDMI, some H-D-M-I-R-G-B with, you
know, this and that, and some was
USBC and you know, yada, yada yada.
Is it, and this is, these are smaller,
simpler setups than what you guys.
Install.
But is it something like that where
people kind of get into like, I don't
even know how to use this thing.
I'm intimidated, I, I don't
know where the cable is.
You know, that kind of thing.
Marques Manning: It's exactly what it,
and once they have a bad experience, oh
man, you've gotta work three times as hard
to get 'em back on board with the room.
So on the bright side, you know, I give
credit to a lot of these manufacturers,
you know, between Zoom, Google Meet teams.
I try to be, as, you know,
technology agnostic as possible.
Um, we support it all, but simple things,
right, that we take for granted almost.
If you do a, what's called A-A-M-T-R,
Microsoft Teams Room, we'll talk
about 'EM in the future episode.
What they enable you to do
is, uh, one touch, join.
And it's not just them.
Other folks have this too, but
that has really changed the
experience for a lot of people.
I can come in with nothing but my phone.
I've already sent the meeting to the room.
I just hit join session.
I don't have to do anything else.
Everything turns on, the display is
on, the microphones are dialed in.
I can hear.
I don't need to do anything else.
If I want to present, say I have
a whole group of us in the room.
Cool.
I can do the same thing.
Guess what?
I can join the meeting from my laptop.
I can now share directly into the room.
It'll show up on the screen.
I'm done.
Brandon Giella: Do you
have one for TikTok?
Marques Manning: I probably
probably need one, man.
It's, uh, probably need it.
Brandon Giella: Okay.
Uh, okay.
That's, that's helpful.
I, I am not a teams person, but,
um, but I understand just being
able to like, hit a button.
That sounds great.
Marques Manning: And, and all the
major players, like I said, Google
Meet, um, I know it's a big one.
Uh, WebEx has 'em, zoom Microsoft Teams,
Brandon Giella: Yeah.
Marques Manning: and they're making,
you know, I'd say the progress in
the last year or two has been at an
astronomical pace compared to what it
was for almost, you know, 15 years.
15 years of joining.
You know, meetings in a specific way.
But again, I think COVID really lit a
fire under a lot of people to really say
like, okay, we're gonna have to be remote.
How do you make it better?
Okay, now you have return to office.
Well, what do we do now to get people
back in the office and using these spaces?
But we see it really accelerating as
far as, you know, how the devices are
being connected, how they're trying
to be as simple as possible to use.
Um, in the integration side, especially
as far as you know, you know, you get this
one kit and they can do all these things.
Now you just connect your other devices.
And the experience on the
user side is the main thing.
So if you can come into a room
and there are no cables, right?
There's just a controller on the table.
Maybe you just push the button.
That's it.
You start,
Brandon Giella: be, that'd be
Marques Manning: you're good to go.
Brandon Giella: Yeah.
Cool.
I love that.
Okay.
Okay, so last one, uh, is, uh, government
entities, organizations, institutions.
What is that experience like
with the dreams that you find in
that industry or that vertical?
Uh, what are the constraints that you see?
And then how do you guys kinda work
around this, this, for some solutions?
Marques Manning: Government,
um, can be a little trickier too
because you have some spaces.
Go from, your extremely mission critical.
You know, we support 911 call
centers, things of that nature.
So you have, you know, people take
for granted, they just have regular
basic administrative meeting spaces
where basic meetings, um, so there's
a wide range and gap in there.
But what we typically see is, you
know, is it robust, is it stable?
Especially when you're dealing
with your mission critical spots,
they, they can't have downtime.
So, you know, is all the equipment
being specified designed to
run 24/7 Can we trust this?
'cause again, if you're monitoring
weather in a command and control station,
you can't have a display just randomly
failing and all of a sudden you can't
monitor what's going on across the
county, across the city, what have you.
So in those types of things, for
municipalities and government,
you know, mission critical
hardware, everyone can trust.
Um, and then designs
that will support that.
How they work isn't, it's not as
flexible because you have shifts
that rotate and things like that.
So they just need one standard and
everything's connected for the most part.
Um, but that's what we see the
most and it's gotta last, right?
It's, you know, a lot of these are are
funded by taxpayers, so you can't think
you're gonna just come in and every, you
know, two to three years do a refresh.
Sometimes you're extending,
you know, five to seven years.
You actually have a system in place.
I think it's in like year 12,
which is still amazing because
you don't expect that and.
Disclaimer, no one should, right?
It's just like any other computer you
shouldn't expect the last 12 years.
Brandon Giella: Yes.
Marques Manning: you know, with heavy
usage, um, you know, you have to make
sure it will stay up and running.
'cause again, in some of these spaces that
we support, you can't have 'em go down.
And also from a design standpoint,
you have to really designate
what is critical, right?
And I say this because I was
talking to one of our clients and
we're talking about a courthouse.
And, uh, power.
Power had gone out.
Something happened and there's
something called a DSP, digital
Signal Processor computer for audio.
And what I noticed is they
didn't have a battery backup.
I said, Hey, would you say that, you
know, the courtroom is pretty critical.
You know, if a courtroom goes down
trying to move cases, that is not easy.
You know, that is a
lot going on with that.
And they said, yeah, definitely critical.
You should be having a UPS in here.
Then I said, anything that we deem
is critical because we do it all
the time for command and control.
It is just a basic design element.
We're always putting in A UPS say,
well, for your courtrooms, put in UPS.
Any space that you deem to be critical,
you put it on a battery backup.
And again, you're not gonna, if the power
goes out, it may not run for five hours.
But that's not the goal.
The goal is, can we protect against
brownouts, power spikes, blips in the
power, quick drops, things like that.
'cause again, these are all
essentially desktop computers.
You know, if you wouldn't just go
home, if you have a, if you still
have a desktop computer, you wouldn't
just snatch the plug out of the wall.
Same concept.
We don't want these
things just losing power.
So how do you make sure that we do our
part, you know, to make sure it stays
as bulletproof as possible when it comes
to the use of the system and getting
that the value out of the lifetime.
Brandon Giella: Yeah, that's a,
that's a very simple ROI calculation
on that, a battery backup versus the
time and energy and money required
for, for, you know, scheduling cases,
reducing your throughput, and just
being a whole, that'd be a whole mess.
Yeah, that makes sense.
When you were talking about the,
the kind of, uh, like the weather.
The system I'm thinking of, uh, I had
this image of, uh, a couple years ago
when we had that ice storm in Texas.
There was an Ercot, uh, was like the
energy control room for the Texas
grid, and I saw a picture of it and it
was like a bunch of people in a room
that just had these huge monitors and.
Things just like measuring all this stuff,
and I thought, what a cool job you're like
in a headquarters of like mission control.
You know?
What a cool, is that the kind of thing
that you're, you're, you're talking
about with all these kind of like
monitors and, and dashboards and all
Marques Manning: Oh yeah, you nailed it.
It's, um, that's exactly what it is.
You'll have workstations
at any point in time.
Someone can take what they're doing
on the workstation, throw it to a
monitor, uh, if there's an emergency,
you know, announcement, something's
going on in a specific area that
can be brought up and take over, you
know, half of the display while you're
still monitoring on the other half.
So you need this flexibility in
what you're throwing on the screen,
but you have so many screens that
you have to have access to, because
again, during an emergency event.
Man, there are so many things
being monitored in real time.
There's all these inputs from
all these different sources
and people have to track 'em.
Brandon Giella: Huh.
That's cool.
That's a bit of a selfish question.
I just think those setups
are so incredible, so
Marques Manning: They're
cool and it's, it's.
You know, it is not the same and it's
not mission critical, but if you go
to Vegas or you go to any kind of
casino, you see a similar deployment.
When you see these giant 'cause
to them, gambling is important.
It is mission critical, right?
You want the people to
be engaged and locked in.
You go to a sports bar, right?
You want people to spend
money and to stay there.
Same kind of concept.
Brandon Giella: I love desk setups
and that is like on steroids.
Those kind of things are amazing.
Yeah.
Cool.
Okay.
Um, so what I'm hearing to wrap up is.
When you're thinking about these
dreams, these constraints and the
solutions around, uh, those kind of
constraints or challenges, the patient
experience within healthcare is a, a
critical point to be thinking about
and all the implications of how you
have defined that as a hospital system
or a, or a, um, outpatient services.
Like what is that care pathway
and what are all the av connecting
points, you know, the, the decision
points that you need to have
as part of your, your AV setup.
Marques Manning: And I'll say not
just the patient experience, but the
experience of the user system, right?
So your nurse practitioners, um, clinical
engineer folks, things like that, that
may be running a case or doing something
or just having meetings for learning.
Brandon Giella: Yeah.
Okay.
That's, yeah.
Yeah.
That's the, the next step of,
of the patient experience.
Yeah, that's where I was getting at.
Great.
And then, so, uh, similarly,
the student experie.
Which is impacted, uh uh, by the users,
which would be the professors, but also
the students in an academic environment
and all the implications thereof,
how those classes are put together.
Instructional designers being a huge.
Asset in that constraint.
Um, and then in the corporate
environment you have the employee
experience and what that looks like.
And, and if people are, feel
confident and excited to use the AV
setup, but a huge component around
security, what does that look like?
What does that mean for your
network and, and all that.
And then last in the government space,
uh, what's critical and then what is
kind of, uh, you know, normal operations.
And then thinking through stability
and, and longevity in, in the
systems that kind of capture in
the, in the mix of those industries.
Those are the things that are really,
really crucial that you guys think about
and that buyers, you know, thinking
about dreaming in this kind of setup
that they should be thinking about.
Marques Manning: I'd say, yeah, and
there's a underlying current there.
As you read them back, it all
points back to your user, right?
What does your user need?
Whatever, whoever your user is,
what are their individual needs?
And that kind of carries across
industries, and you have variability
for each type of user in each scenario.
That's kind of what's boiling back to.
Brandon Giella: Also, who's
the user and who is the, uh,
like, uh, call it recipient.
I'm thinking like in a courtroom, you've
got your, your plaintiff or defendant.
They're not the user of the system.
I guess they can be, but
they're kind of the recipient of
whatever the system is set up.
Yeah.
Okay.
Interesting.
Marques Manning: Your, your
clerk, you're a courtroom clerk.
Um, your judge and your
clerk, they gotta be happy.
Keep 'em
Brandon Giella: Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Marques Manning: make sure
they can use the system.
Brandon Giella: I love that.
I love that.
Okay.
Any other closing thoughts?
That was super, super helpful.
Marques Manning: No, it's, um, like I
said, it is thinking about a holistic
view of your space, your users.
How does it all come together?
And then I will never get over
this one early conversation.
Early conversation with the
right people in the room.
So again, everyone should
work together, right?
AV should work with it.
You should work with your instructional
designers and instructional technologists.
You know, make sure
everyone's on the same page.
Brandon Giella: Amen.
Amen.
So to wrap us up, uh, if you are thinking
having a dream about a space that you want
an AV set up, that would be ideal for you.
Uh, please get in touch with the
contact team, that's K-O-N-T-E k.com,
and the team will take care of
you and bring your dream to life.
Marcus, thank you for walking us
through all that complexity and all of
your wisdom and expertise in that, and
I love hearing from you every week.
So we will see you next time.
Thanks, Marcus.