If the only time you’ll wear a tuxedo is on your wedding day, you’re probably better off renting one than buying one. And if your company hosts only one or two events or conferences a year, the same is probably true of the specialized audiovisual (AV) equipment you’ll need to pull it off. Many AV applications, like meeting room technology and collaboration platforms, require a capital investment and integration expertise, but when it comes to infrequent or specialized AV needs, renting can be best.

Simulation technology has become an integral part of the training and education. For industries like medicine and emergency response, where the stakes are high, errors can be costly not only financially but in patient outcomes. Simulation technologies can be a significant investment, but standardizing these solutions can make their use more efficient and effective.

Audio visual technology and integration standards are changing fast, so keeping technology personnel up-to-date on training and product knowledge has become a significant challenge. Lack of training can lead to problems like miscommunication over technology needs, inadequate system testing and fine-tuning, delayed AV installations, and increased costs to fix or replace poor quality systems. As a technology manager, you want to ensure your organization gets the right AV systems, that they perform as intended, and that they’re installed and integrated following industry best practices.

In a real life medical emergency, wasting time becomes a matter of life and death. In a simulated medical emergency an actual life isn’t on the line but wasted time can still be damaging. If an educator has to spend time on setting up the system, troubleshooting the system, or fixing glitches, time is taken away from critical teaching and learning. Simulation scenarios might be rushed or missed altogether if teachers spend the bulk of their time just trying to get a simulation system to work. As institutions of higher learning—particularly those involved in medical training—increasingly incorporate simulation tools into their curriculums, investing in a dedicated technician to ensure the system runs smoothly is more important than ever.

Have you ever had those meetings when you would bring your laptop or tablet but couldn’t connect it to a projector, monitor, or any other kind of peripheral? With a presentation ready to go, you wasted so much time trying to figure out how to make the technology work. It can either transform a meeting into a complete frustration or really make it valuable. Some of the most common meeting problems companies have are trouble with starting and finishing a meeting on time. Factors like failing technology, silent participants and collaboration dominators often result in a conducted meeting with no decisions made. The results of this survey show that 45% of participants most of the time leave a meeting without a clear understanding of their responsibilities. Also, 47% of workers react stressfully to tech malfunction. With Layer Logic’s CoreTouch, Today, we have a device that’s both easy to use and simplifies collaboration and sharing.

Once confined to company lobbies, secretive government command centers and science fiction movies, video walls are becoming increasingly commonplace across multiple industries including retail, higher education and utility and traffic monitoring applications. And that’s just the beginning. According to a recent industry forecast, the global LED video wall market is set to grow at a compound annual rate of 35.1 percent, reaching $73.51 billion by 2025. If you’re thinking of jumping on the bandwagon, here are some trends to watch—and some important considerations to keep in mind.

Education is a staple of modern life and technology is increasingly a staple of modern education. The education technology industry represents $8 billion in annual spending, and public schools in the United States spend $3 billion a year on digital content. In most cases it’s money well spent. Seventy-four percent of teachers who responded to a recent national survey conducted by PBS said technology enables them to reinforce and expand classroom content. In addition, 73 percent of respondents said technology helps them better respond to a variety of learning styles, and more than two-thirds said they want more technology in their classrooms. Despite the benefits, however, simply adding more technology to the classroom, whether in K-12 or higher education, doesn’t guarantee results.

Of all the professions out there likely to run afoul of the law, an IT buyer or AV integrator probably doesn’t come to the top of your mind. But, thanks to new FCC regulations about bandwidth use, your AV solutions—particularly your wireless microphones whether they’re in conference rooms, auditoriums or city council chambers—could be out of compliance. For that, and probably a few other reasons, too, it might be time for your organization to consider a sound system upgrade.