It was the famous journalist Jimmy Cannon who when faced with nothing particular to write about would fill his columns with a random series of opinions on anything he felt like saying. He’d begin every topic with “Nobody asked me, but…” and then go on to observe the world as he saw it. While I am privileged to post blogs about collaboration for The IMCCA, Cisco, InfoComm, LinkedIn and my own site, and to submit the occasional (award winning) travel blog to JoeSentMe, I haven’t had had a place to air my rambling opinions that are too big for Twitter and too brief for a blog. With that in mind I am honored to support my friend David Maldow and his new Lets Do Video site with a recurring (when I feel like it) column of ramblings, rants, snark and musings about the things I know best – technology, AV, collaboration and multimedia (with what I’m sure will be a smattering of opinions on science fiction, travel and popular culture.) I’ll apologize now – just this one time – to anyone who may be offended by any of my comments and opinions. However, in most cases, the worst I’ll be doing is just putting in writing what industry insiders are saying anyway. If it’s not what you wanted to hear, well as I said, nobody asked me…
Nobody asked me, but I’m both happy and sad to see that there is a new focus on groups that celebrate the contributions of women in technology. No one more than I appreciates the tremendous work that the Women in CE and Women in AV have done – both as organizations and individually by their members. However, if I replaced the “women” in those labels with just about any other grouping, people would likely feel offended – either because their group was singled-out or left-out. Would it be right to honor the “Men in AV” or the “Catholics in CE” – of course not – people would cry-out loud and long – just as they honestly should be about singling out groups of Women. No matter how politically correct it is, our industry shouldn’t be correcting wrongs with additional wrongs. I really like what Gary Kaye and the team at RavePubs has done in creating an AV Hall of Fame that is race and gender neutral. That is what the CEA and InfoComm should be stepping-up to do IMHO – honoring all members of the industry regardless of irrelevant labels.
Nobody asked me, but I just can’t wait for someone to come along and disrupt air travel more than collaboration already has. The US airline companies now openly lie to customers and employees, claiming to improve service but actually making it more miserable than ever (which is explained very well in this article in the New Yorker.) Take a look at this Change.org petition where nearly ten thousand people are calling for the resignation of the CEO of United Airlines. Can you think of any previous example of when the employees and customers of a business unite to demand new leadership? There’s too much smoke there for there not to be fire somewhere.
Nobody asked me, but I’m very sad that automobile companies now hawk their cars based on such trivial things as having better Bluetooth, 3G/LTE, or as in the latest offensive spot where Chevrolet tries to claim that buying a truck will make a man appear sexy (and looking here and here I wasn’t’ the only person offended by that one.) I can’t remember the last time a car ad talked about the driving performance and reliability of the vehicle. Note to auto companies – I pick cars based on how well they drive. I sadly and reluctantly stopped buying American cars because they breakdown more often and the dealerships try to gouge me every time there is a repair. I couldn’t care less if I look sexier standing in front of a Chevy truck, I’d prefer to buy a vehicle that I’ll spend less time standing in front of (waiting for the tow-truck) and more time driving without issues. I’ll find a way to listen to my music if it doesn’t have Pandora too. Run an ad that you’ve fired the service staff and now have people there that will do the right thing and then I might pay attention.
Till next time…
