The Official Magazine of ISE 2012 - Amazon S3

A one-stop shop
for education
For the first time at ISE 2012, InfoComm International and CEDIA will be operating
a combined Education Zone, bringing new benefits to attendees looking to enhance
their skill set during the show
InfoComm Academy: something for everyone
Anyone who started in the computer industry back in, say, the
1970s, would have known about assembly languages, COBOL,
Algol and Fortran. They’d know how to load programs from
punched cards or punched paper tape. They would know the
importance of “halt, reset, load” , and what a bootstrap was – and
they’d have suffered a stack overflow at first hand. They might be
able to rewire a backplane. And they’d be proud of their ability to
write an entire multi-user accounting system that would occupy
less than 4K of memory.
How much use is that experience, that knowledge – those skills
– worth to that person today? The answer, of course, is “absolutely
nothing”. The example is an extreme one: inevitably, a lot has
changed in the last 30-40 years – and nowhere has it changed
faster than in the technology industry. The point is, of course, that
what we learned ten years ago, five years ago – last year – is of
diminishing value to us: education and training, especially in an
industry as fast-moving as this one, are an ongoing requirement.
And that’s where organisations like InfoComm come in.
InfoComm International’s audiovisual education and training is
available globally — for beginning techs to experienced executives
and anyone interested
in learning more
about the ins and
outs of audiovisual
communication. The
InfoComm Academy
has become a regular
feature of ISE.
“The purpose of the
InfoComm Academy is
to educate people on the
hottest concepts in the AV industry from audio to display to digital
signage,” says Scott Wills, Director of International Education
and Member Services for InfoComm International. “There are
technical, business, end-user sessions, so there is something for
everyone. These will allow attendees to make better decisions
in their businesses. The technical audience would include
designers, consultants, integrators. The business audience would
be managers, business leaders, project leads, sales and marketing
professionals. End-users are facility managers and education
professionals.”
InfoComm Academy sessions occur on the days when ISE
is open. The length of all seminars has been shortened from 90
minutes to 60 minutes per session to allow attendees to get back
on the show floor more quickly.
“All of the seminar topics are new this year,” notes Wills.
“Sessions will enable professionals to do their jobs better today,
with many aimed at the future with topics such as the latest in
signal transport, fully-integrated communities of the future and
AV streaming.”
Other seminar topics include technology trends and high
resolution electronic displays: AV and IT in the zettabyte era;
Cloud computing and AV; and global sustainability standards and
the audiovisual perspective.
InfoComm Academy classes will address some of the biggest
issues in audiovisual communications, audio, smart building
technology, digital signage and more. Particularly timely is a
class on InfoComm’s new projected image standard, ‘ANSI /
INFOCOMM 3M-2011 Projected Image System Contrast Ratio.
It is being taught by Greg Jeffreys, founder director of Paradigm AV.
In addition, he is a specialist consultant advising on and assessing
projected image quality. In 2002, Jeffreys wrote the module on
projected displays for
“All of our seminar topics are new this
year, with topics such as the latest in signal
transport, the fully integrated communities
of the future, and AV streaming.”
Scott Wills, InfoComm International
Manchester’s UMIST
University post-graduate
MSc on Sustainable
Electrical Building
Design. A founding
member of InfoComm’s
Projected Image
Performance Standard
committee, this is a class
that promises to be both
entertaining and thought-provoking
In addition to industry training, InfoComm will be offering
opportunities to prepare for and take InfoComm certification
exams. InfoComm’s Certified Technology Specialist credentials are
the only ANSI-accredited ISO/IEC 17024 credentials in the AV
industry, and demonstrates that the holder has the qualifications
for the job. Testing will be available onsite in room D303, only
steps away from the show floor. All three exams – CTS, CTS-D
and CTS-I – are available.“Achieving CTS (Certified Technology
Specialist), CTS-D (Design), or CTS-I (Installation) designation
shows the world that you have the know-how to get the job done
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