For students the nightmare is showing up on the day of a test and realizing you’re late and forgot to prepare. Or standing up to give a presentation and realizing you have no clothes on. For the AV integrator and IT professional the project nightmare is getting to site and two other trades occupy the space and the hardware has not been delivered. Or delays in commissioning the system have delayed end-user training. (And maybe you forgot your clothes, too.) AV technology is advancing at a rapid pace, but product knowledge and quality management training and certifications for individuals and companies has not always kept pace.

There are plenty of times when less is more, including when you are making decisions about your conference room technology. The best meeting room technology is a simple, one-stop, unified solution. But many conference rooms today are cluttered with technologies, including conference phones, USB speaker phones, flat panel displays, laptops or desktops running meeting applications, and lots and lots of cables. Some technologies might be compatible while others aren’t, and integrating personal devices such as mobile phones is complicated at best and impossible at worst. Meetings can already be a drag—a poorly equipped meeting space only makes it worse. The Crestron Mercury was developed to address those common—and annoying—problems with the typical meeting room user experience. And Crestron’s new partnership with online meeting platform Zoom takes meeting efficiency to the next level.

If you’ve ever bought a house, planned a wedding, or organized a large corporate event, you’ve probably consulted a list of preferred vendors. Preferred vendors are service providers who have been vetted by a realtor, a wedding planner, or a venue—for example—and are recommended for superior service—and because of their partner relationships they often offer superior pricing as well. For large entities such as state and local governments, universities, or corporations, using preferred vendors has the added benefit of amplified buying power. By purchasing a large volume of goods or services from a preferred vendor—for example, laptops for every city employee or catering for every university event—the price comes down as the volume goes up. Governmental and educational entities in the state of Arizona can realize the benefits of doing business with preferred vendors by soliciting quotes and proposals from companies through the State Purchasing Cooperative.

If your presentation system stops working four days before an in-house conference, you likely have better ways to spend your time than digging up warranty information and troubleshooting the source of the problem. Researching technology investments can be a hassle, but managing and maintaining them for years can be a big commitment. How do you ensure that your audiovisual (AV) equipment, in particular, runs smoothly for years to come? You don’t have a crystal ball to tell you what’s going to go wrong, but the next best thing is to partner with a service provider that will make sure you have the right plans and agreements in place. When a customer purchases and installs new technologies, they will receive warranty information and offers to maintain their new system. The customer, the manufacturer, and the service provider are three sides of the triangle that will keep your equipment running optimally. However, “that triangle is sometimes difficult to understand,” says Mark Teifert, Director of Service and Support at Level 3 Audiovisual. Buyers may not know what’s included in warranties or who will be responsible for what. Here is a simple breakdown of terms to make sense of it all and feel confident about the long-term care of your audiovisual investments.

Simulated training exercises have been part of medical education for more than 2,000 years. While medical and nursing students once learned their craft using statues with “veins” made of blown glass, today’s medical simulation manikins are sometimes indistinguishable from human patients. Simulation solutions allow students to practice, assess, and perfect their skills—from taking vitals to triage to surgery—with no risk to real patients. Video capture designed for debriefing further enhances the value of simulation education by allowing instructors to address specific actions and results. If you’re considering implementing a simulation system in your institution or organization, you may have a lot of questions about what will be the right solution for you, and what it will take to operate and maintain it.  Level 3’s Audiovisual's Simulation Technology & Operations Consultant is here to answer the most frequently asked questions about simulation in healthcare education.

Have you ever purchased a new piece of personal technology—a smartphone or a laptop, for example—only to find out a few days or weeks later that a new and improved version is about to drop? In the fast-paced world of personal devices, buying the latest and greatest doesn’t mean that your investment will stay that way for long. It can be frustrating to learn you spent top dollar for something that will be obsolete in a year or two. In the world of enterprise solutions, technology upgrades require huge investments and technology buyers are responsible for protecting a company’s bottom line by spending money responsibly—not to mention being accountable to a whole lot of users. The last thing you want to do is fall into the trap of spending a lot of money on a system or technology that won’t meet the organization’s needs in the long-term. You can “future-proof” your investments—and avoid unforeseen and unnecessary upgrade costs down the road—by assessing legacy systems and existing solutions, outlining strategic goals and objectives, and researching technology solutions that can meet your current and future needs.

The adage “You only get one chance to make a first impression” is just as true with places as it is people. Whether it’s a hotel, a student library, or a lobby, what we feel the moment we walk in often translates into an opinion—the hotel deal was too good to be true, I can’t see myself at this college, this company feels too corporate. And that opinion influences the decision that happens next—I’m booking a different hotel, I’m attending the other college, I’m selecting a different provider. Creating an impression that is true to your brand and your mission takes more than a skilled interior designer—it takes technology. Video walls deliver more than an impression—they create an experience. The success of video walls at stopping retail shoppers in their tracks, creating a high-end feel in hotels, helping hospital patients and visitors find their way, engaging students in learning, and delivering relevant information to lobby visitors is the reason the adoption of this solution continues to increase at impressive rates. It’s likely why you’re researching video walls and reading this blog.

We invite you to read Lessening Distractions in the Control Room before you begin reading this section. It is an introduction to the challenge for the simulationist in regard to cognitive load. This article begins a discussion on the types of technologies that will help address these challenges. 

Lessening Distractions in the Control Room assumes that you as the reader has experience with the typical control room. The reality is that each simulation program may have the control room layout designed differently. Allow us to provide a little more context for those of you who don’t have a control room.