Show Notes
Recorded June 12, 2026
In this Fourth of July–flavored episode of On Topic, the panel celebrates America’s birthday the only way they know how: by declaring independence from the worst habits in higher ed AV.
This month’s grievances include single-vendor ecosystem lock-in, consultant-led designs that ignore campus standards, isolated “AV network islands,” overcomplicated touch panels, mystery DSP files, proprietary cables, terrible display home screens, and every “professional” product that somehow requires a cloud account just to configure the thing.
Along the way, the panel debates automation versus user control, whether classrooms really need touch panels at all, and why interoperability always seems to mean “mostly works, as long as you bought everything from us.”
It’s patriotic, petty, and painfully familiar: a fireworks show of AV complaints aimed directly at the systems, specs, and design habits we should have dumped into the harbor years ago.
Alternate show titles: We might be making headway The future of buildings No new islands! At least a ferry service Press to start Blank and Freeze I want to agree with you, but… Sometimes people plug in things they don’t want to see No middle ground
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More from AV SuperFriends: On Topic
Recorded June 26, 2026 Freshly returned from the show floor at InfoComm 2026, the AV SuperFriends gather for a full-length roundtable on trade show regrets: the booths they missed, the sessions they skipped, the demos they should have recorded, and the party they may never emotionally recover from missing. This episode wanders through the aftermath of a massive conference week, including arguments over who should really be explaining AI to the AV industry, what happens when AVIXA TV is more networked than expected, why show-floor “hidden gems” are still somehow hidden behind the wrong booth wall, and how even seasoned attendees can come home realizing they saw only a tiny slice of the show. Along the way, the crew revisits booth tour challenges, suspicious conference sandwiches, tote bag logistics, USB-C mysteries, browser-based control, over-caffeinated presentations, and the now-legendary Panasonic dinner brownies. It’s part InfoComm recap, part confessional, and part warning label for anyone who thinks they can actually see everything at a trade show.
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