The AV help desk at the Mayo Clinic has so many flat panel displays and computers that it looks like an airport control center. Its two dozen AV techs run 200 meeting rooms, preside over hundreds of videoconferences a day and prepare audio and lighting controls for live TV interviews on shows like Good Morning America.

But that’s not all.

AV techs also run 50 doctor certification sessions a year all over the globe. Each remote session requires packing and shipping 22 cases of equipment, setting up everything from scratch in a hotel ballroom, and then packing up and shipping it all back home again.

According to Charlie Perkins, unit head of event support services for the Rochester, MN-based medical and teaching facility, it’s not just rolling AV carts that are fading into memory these days. Now laptops and videos are gradually being supplanted by iPads and online downloads. Today’s AV techs must be computer-savvy and familiar with PDAs, PowerPoint and whatever a presenter requires, and produce good audio and video, he says.

The biggest challenge at the Mayo Clinic is last-minute accommodation to whatever gadgets the physician lecturers got for Christmas, Perkins says. To solve the problem, the clinic stocks each room with six to eight different connectors for adapting display and audio settings for different devices, but there’s often little time to spare and no time to test, he says.

IP-Based Management a Clear Winner

Perkins’ ace in the hole, however, is the clinic’s conversion to online remote AV management, enabling his staff to start equipment, lower screens and get everything running in 60 seconds, all remotely. And, if there’s a problem, the staff can see what’s happening on the flat panel displays and provide help with a one-way phone, he says.

“Our physicians don’t have to worry about technology,” Perkins says. “They are free to focus on the message.”

IP-based management, in fact, was hailed by all sources interviewed for this story as a big win for efficiency and time management.

“To be able to see problems throughout the facility is…tremendously powerful,” says John Bilar, technology vice president with the Spectrum ITC Group, system integrators and designers. “It’s a force multiplier. You don’t have to be everywhere at once.”

But IP-based AV management has even broader implications.

According to Clint Hoffman, marketing vice president of Kramer Electronics, the ability to run AV products on the network has breathed new life into the industry. Once threatened with commoditization that would have killed off dealers and systems integrators, IP management enables hardware manufacturers to sell service contracts, which provides an ongoing revenue stream and, in turn, makes a healthy industry, he says. Users, in turn, benefit from service contracts with peace of mind.

The Challenges of IT/AV Convergence

However, the growing trend of AV on the network—not just AV management applications but all the hardware from control systems to videoconferencing and digital signage, plus the explosion in video content itself—has been forcing the convergence of AV and IT in recent years. And the marriage of necessity has not been without friction and frustration.

As readers are well aware, AV often feels like the forgotten stepchild, left out of planning and budget decisions, overpowered by the clout of its IT partner. And the two professions have very different mindsets.

“IT has fixed rules but AV is the opposite. We rarely do anything the same,” explains Malissa Dillman, Kramer Electronics’ training and education manager. “For them, the only question is room size. Not what happens or how many people are there.”

IT’s singular focus on room dimensions can be a devastating shortcoming.

Telecom providers in India nearly built a huge network operations center with all AV systems controlled by computers. Bilar, who was called in as a consultant, pointed out that AV techs wouldn’t even be able to turn on a TV in the event of a computer malfunction and convinced the designers to switch to traditional AV hardware controls over an IP network.

The original design, although beautiful, was “a disaster in slow motion” because it didn’t focus on performance, Bilar recalls.

Gayle Watson, president of Performance Solutions Inc., interviewed AV and IT professionals for an InfoComm session on the state of AV/IT convergence and concluded that universities are “all over the map” in implementing blended work environments. Corporations are far behind universities, “not even engaged in the conversation” of how to blend skill sets and competencies, she adds.

Watson, whose firm helps companies achieve successful culture change, says all AV and IT staffs ultimately will be forced to work closer together because of their converging technologies.

“There’s no clear pathway” for partnership, but building projects can offer an opportunity to work together and help desks can benefit from collaboration and cross-training, she says. Digital signage is another potential area for AV/IT teamwork, she adds.

Doing More With Less

The Mayo Clinic is a poster child for AV/IT consolidation done correctly.

Media support services and IT report to the same department chairman and share a “great working relationship,” and communicate all the time, Perkins says.

IT and AV use different terminology and have a different focus, with IT looking at the big picture and AV concentrating on day-to-day operations and what needs to work right now, Perkins says. But IT looks out for AV.  For example, IT makes sure AV has enough bandwidth to broadcast a major corporate webcast. And after a recent power outage, the IT staff worked all night to ensure that AV rooms would be operational in the morning, he says.

Both teams work together on continuous room refreshes and have a working arrangement on the help desk, Perkins adds. AV handles the room technology but forwards requests to IT if it’s a computer issue or a problem loading Power Point or changing the structure of a presentation, he says.

“I’m meeting-specific; they handle computer issues, the network and access to applications,” Perkins says.

Unlike the Mayo Clinic, Watson says many organizations struggle with AV/IT integration because they have separate lines of command. Many AV managers listening to her InfoComm presentation said they were stuck, with no AV funding and no one listening to their viewpoints.

Another barrier to collaboration is that AV and IT teams often don’t share the same physical space, she adds.

Watson predicts that the industry will evolve into blended teams with complementary AV/IT skill sets rather than expecting employees to be fully competent in both areas. Good avenues for initiating collaboration include building projects, the help desk, digital signage and videoconferencing, she says.

AV techs and managers can promote collaboration individually, even in a less-than-optimum environment, by expanding their job responsibilities gradually to include more IT tasks, Watson says. Blended AV/IT is the future.

“Stay expert on AV and its evolution. Learn about the business you are serving and how to optimize the environment for the task at hand,” Watson advises. “And be a leader in getting AV people to work together more effectively.”

Certifications also are essential. Go beyond the fundamentals with CTS basic, installation and design training and get some IT training in Microsoft and Cisco systems, adds Bilar.

A final cautionary look ahead from Mayo’s Perkins: Even the clinic, with its extensive facilities, proactive planning and collaboration is looking to accommodate future growth by converting more of its AV services to a self-serve model. It is moving from self-operated rooms to self-checkout for equipment and self-reservations for videoconferencing.

“We’re not letting people go but we are striving to do more with less,” Perkins says. “We want to give doctors more choice in managing events by themselves through the portal and letting the AV staff focus where their expertise is needed the most.”

Pam Derringer has been writing for newspapers and magazines for more than 30 years, specializing in technology and business since 1995.