Thirds and Quarters

This is my 134th article on Linkedin.  133 of them are only about my industry.  This one is only about me – and it’s a touch long.  That’s your fair warning that if my story would bore you, save the time and stop reading now.

Over the last few years I've described my forty-six year career as being divided into thirds.  I’m about to start my fourth third, so I guess I’m going to have to adjust the math.

In my first third….well, I guess quarter…I was a broadcast engineer.  I managed the design and build, and was chief engineer for Financial News Network’s (the pre-cursor to CNBC) Rockefeller Center studios.  (Trust me, I could stop there and win a medal – construction of a technical facility at Rock Center was an enormous challenge that I managed through. Someday feel free to ask me to tell you stories about that one.)  After that, I had a stint at NYU where I created their TV and Media Services group and installed America’s first private cable TV system that crossed public rights of way with microwave signals.  (If you go to Washington Square Park in New York and look up at the dorm buildings you’ll probably still see the dishes on the roofs.)  I then built the studios and ran the engineering team for Michael Bloomberg’s TV and radio networks. 

In my second…quarter…I worked in the financial services industry, managing AV and multimedia for multiple firms.  I managed the install of the largest Cisco TelePresence network (other than Cisco’s own) at the time.  It was a challenging environment to be in, as these firms clearly weren’t meritocracies.  People who had no right or skills to manage others were often in positions of authority.  I learned how to thrive in this weird environment for over a decade.

In my third quarter I moved from the ‘buy’ side of the industry to the ‘sell’ side.  I became a Principal Consultant for Dimension Data (which since has morphed into NTT.)  I applied my years of knowledge for single firms toward multiple client firms.  Also, interestingly, many of my clients were manufacturers and service providers looking for solid industry opinions and advice.

I should pause there and mention that in the middle of the journeys above I joined the non-profit IMCCA in an Executive Board leadership role that I serve in to this day.  It gave me another hat / persona to have when I was asked to write articles or speak publicly – instead of identifying or representing any specific employer.  I got involved in teaching classes at industry events, staging forums, and hosting industry get-togethers.  Many people (also to this day) write to me or see me at events and thank me for my brutal honesty and integrity about what’s going on in our industry.  I’ll get back to that…

My third quarter also included a stay at Plantronics / Poly (and then the purchaser of that legacy, HP) as an evangelist and thought leader.  I really liked the Poly team and plan that was formed when I joined, and if it weren’t for a chip manufacturer deciding not to produce contracted chips for Teams phones, we’d still be together in that group leading the market…and there wouldn’t be a fourth quarter coming for me.  Sadly, it was not to be.  After four years at Poly and a year at the HP iteration, we parted ways.

I spent about five months looking for my next industry role – as I was and am convinced that I’m not done yet – but this is the weirdest time in the technology industry that I’ve ever seen. I had a handful of organizations very excited to bring me on-board (with multiple, time-consuming great conversations and positive feedback) only to get cold feet or ghost me at the 11th hour. It's not just me - highly profitable companies are shedding employees like trees shed their leaves in autumn…or perhaps more accurately like snakes shed their skin. When a firm is struggling and needs to trim staff it’s a shame but we all understand.  When a company making millions if not billions in profits simply decides tens or hundreds of thousands of employees are no longer needed, it will and has fundamentally changed the nature of working in our society.  There will no longer be any trust and/or loyalty.  Firms that do this not only see no penalty, but actually see their stock prices go up.  This becomes a huge incentive for others to follow-suit.  Tech company leadership apparently can’t or won't see the big picture Ouroboros they’re creating – less employees mean less need and or cash available for the hardware, software and services they sell...rinse and repeat.  It will come crashing down at some point, but probably long after current tech leaders have cashed-out and it’s too late to fix for some firms.

My apologies, that’s my brutal honesty kicking in again.  I’ll put it away.  

This all brings me to my fourth quarter.  I’ve always toyed with the idea of being an industry analyst, but was afraid that my integrity and that same brutal honesty would get in the way.  Let’s at least be honest here, we all know plenty of examples where analysts say the pig with lipstick is the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen, and/or claim they have 'tons of views' when everyone knows they are paying for clicks.  I definitely don’t want to be one of those. 

Over my almost five-decade career I’ve stripped and soldered cables, carried and used a butt set (I still have), designed facilities, put on live TV shows, edited videos, installed and managed videoconferencing devices, designed and installed enterprise AV systems, recorded music, presented to thousands of people, authored (and ghostwrote) thought leadership articles, and attended more industry conferences than I can remember.  My perspective is that of a person who has walked the walk.  I happily call BS when a company ‘announces’ a new feature that has been in the industry for years, or brags about a ‘15 minute boot-up’ when one minute used to be far too long, but just as happily get wowed and cheer loudly when an awesome new product or feature hits the market.  I appreciate the respect that my industry peers have given me and will never abuse it to make a buck – but I do still need a few more years of making bucks, so I’m sure it will prove to be a tightrope sort of challenge.  I’ve never flinched at challenges before and I don’t intend to now.

That’s the (very) long way of saying I’m entering the field of industry analyst and to a certain extent influencer.  I’m going to work alongside the very respected Dave Michels under his TalkingPointz brand.  The two of us have a small bit of overlap (which is good in that we can sometimes cover for each other) but I have more focus in enterprise and traditional AV and broadcasting.  I bet he can’t chip-up a camera, color match displays, or set an audio system to 0vu = +4db, but on the other hand I can’t really tell a CPaaS from a UCaaS with the skill he can.  Going forward we’ll both be contributing to his monthly Insider Report newsletter.  We are adding a new section on AV. If your enterprise doesn’t subscribe to it, it should.  Expect me to tell you that in person real soon. 

I’ve got a few things on my mind now, and will be posting regularly. I’m also planning on several product reviews. 

This is gonna work out just fine.  Working for myself means I don’t have an idiot for a boss that's not worthy of my trust or loyalty, and I’ll never have any RIFs.

I’ll be at the upcoming InfoComm conference (about my 30th) in June while Dave Michels can skip it this year, and can work on something else.  If you’d like me to visit you and add your stories to our coverage, or find out about the monthly newsletter just drop me a note. I promise I won't let you down, and while I may help amplify some companies messages I think you should hear, I also promise I'll continue to let that brutal honesty out again – with fairness – whenever it's needed.