As the small gap between AV and IT fades into nothingness, fewer people are relied upon to perform the Herculean task of keeping the machines running. There are not going to be fewer demands going forward—in fact, the opposite is true—the tech experts making the podcast stars look good are going to need to be nimble.
At least necessity is the mother of all invention. It will pass that the next generation of AV/IT personnel will be as versatile as a Swiss Army knife. To get there, it will take some self-evaluation and a willingness to learn. Self-improvement will be a motivator for some; for others, a steady paycheck is the carrot.
Regardless of the reason, the behind-the-scenes podcast personnel would be wise to consider improving their skill set, starting with these suggestions.
Continuing Education
Crestron, as anyone in the AV world knows, sits atop the equipment world. Its innovations facilitate greater learning and experiences in classrooms, conference rooms, hospitals, government buildings and more. In short, there is no end in sight to Crestron’s ability to service podcasts with top-of-the-line interfaces. The trouble is would you really trust a podcast host to solve a paper jam, let alone an AV malfunction?
The best AV/IT people will stay abreast of new offerings and find time for training seminars to develop an understanding of a piece of equipment’s capabilities and weak points. Time, in the form of studio rentals, can be money in the podcast world so a quick fix is going to be expected. An added bonus is that possessing the knowledge to make recommendations to improve a podcast’s back-end is only going to endear AV/IT support to the entire team.
Time Management
It should be a given that AV/IT personnel are naturally adept at technology. He or she is likely to discover the ins and outs of a Crestron product a lot faster than the average person. That said, tech know-how is not the only part of the job. The No. 1 trait any employer is looking for is reliability. To be reliable, a person has to be in a certain position at an expected time. To make that happen, managing tasks and discerning the importance of each task is crucial. If a podcast is going to be recorded tomorrow, don’t worry about what new gadget will be useful a year from now. And on those recording days, make sure you remain available—you’re on-call, whether you like it or not.
Communication Concerns
As if fixing the problem is not enough of a job, the inevitable explanation of what went wrong can be painful. Tossing around some tech mumbo-jumbo might work once in a while, but a better alternative is for the AV/IT person to act as a bit of a translator. A podcast host or producer is probably not going to understand and may not even care what causes a malfunction as long as the problem is solved. But if it’s a recurring issue, the ability to clearly identify solutions and/or present alternatives is valuable in the near-term as well as in the big picture. And who knows, there’s even a chance the host will be able to repair a faulty mixer (or not).
Teamwork
There may not be a lot of AV/IT people at a company, so the ones who work there—or the third-party working on the podcast—need to develop a plan for who does what and when. To meet deadlines and exceed expectations, the tech team needs to be ready at a moment’s notice to come together to complete a project. Another benefit is should one member of the team have a day off, others will be ready to fill in.
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