Tim Albright.

SPEAKER_00 0:00 I have I have said this for years, and I you know you you get this too, right? Hey, I'm looking for a job. Uh, what would you recommend? And there are two competing manufacturers that have vastly different cultures. And I have counseled friends and said, you know what? You would be a great fit for that company there, right? Or don't you ever apply here because you wouldn't fit here, dude. Like you you'd last like two weeks and you'd be out because it's like oil and water. SPEAKER_01 0:41 This is Simon Dudley with the before it was obvious podcast. Today, my well, old friend, we were just talking about this before the recording started, Tim Albright. I think, Tim, we've known each other about 18 years, something like that, which makes you, by the way, one of my new friends, because almost everyone I know is older than dirt, but you're not. Well, thank you. So why don't you there you go? What a way to start a show. See, it's like a backhanded compliment. Yeah. Tim, why don't we start with a little intro? What do you do? Who are you now? All of those things, and then we're gonna get in the way back machine and start from the beginning. SPEAKER_00 1:17 My my day job, uh, as I as I say, is I am I am president of A B Nation. Um that means I run A B Nation, A B publication, trade magazine that covers the industry from the perspective of the end user, the the customers. Our goal and our mission is to educate and inform folks whose dis whose job is to decide and and procure the A B gear for their for their companies. And you do A B Nation every week? So well, yeah, that yes, I I work a full 40 hours a week. I I I So we do A V Nation. So we the part of AV Nation is uh what started A B Nation was a was a podcast called A B Week 15 years ago now. I had to think for a second, 15 years ago. So we do that every we record every Friday, we publish every Monday, and in addition to that, we write articles. We've got a number of guests that come on. A B Week is a roundtable discussion. Uh, I know you've been on a couple. We get three really smart industry experts to talk about the news of the week, why it matters, how it impacts uh the those decision makers. In addition, we we cover industry events, right? Uh I I just got back from Amsterdam for I from IBC, which is the International Broadcasting Conference. That is the basically it is the European version of NAB, right? The National Associated Broadcasters show that happens here in the States. ISC, certainly, Infocom, a number of other shows that as we branched out into different areas because our audience is telling us, hey, we're we're we're doing this, right? We're doing this. One of the reasons we why we started doing NAB and IBC is our uh our corporate and education audience is they're starting to put professional broadcast gear into their spaces, and they need to know what what is what's out there and what will uh what will solve the problem they're trying to they're trying to solve. SPEAKER_01 3:02 Yeah, I think that's a really interesting topic, and we will be coming back to that later. But as we do every week, we're gonna go back in the mists of time, 60, 70, 80 years ago, whenever it is about to tell us when, he came out of the out of the Morgan Mindy egg. Nanu nanu, by the way. I can't I can't do the fingers thing. I'll I'll do that one instead. Thank you. That looks so disturbing. And we're we're gonna start with because my guess is that your your parents didn't have you and he's gonna be a major player in the A V industry. And I'm suspect that you didn't think that way either. So what were your early days like? And and talk us through how that process got you to where you are today. SPEAKER_00 3:47 So I I I made actually just made the joke that I just did a keynote for uh our friends over at Almo in Dallas, and uh I made the joke that uh I'm from Peoria, Illinois, and if you're not familiar with where Peoria, Illinois is, it's halfway between Chicago and St. Louis, and the most fame famous thing to come out of there is Richard Pryor and me. But Pryor's more more famous than I am. Yeah, yeah, I would yeah, he's he's more famous. But yeah, I was born in in the middle of of Illinois, right? And grew up there until I was about 12, 13 years old. Moved outside of St. Louis just about the time I was going into uh was it fifth grade, seventh grade, sixth grade, sixth, seventh grade, seventh grade. And the the town we lived in is a little town called Alton. It's a river town, it's right on the Mississippi, and that has its own uh interesting experiences that that as you get into high school, you you you do this, that, and the other. And in in high school, I got involved in theater, both at at my church and the on the production side of that, as well as as high school theater. And it just, just fascinated me. Lit me up, you just it it just being involved in the theater and being involved in live production is one of those aspects that just is still exciting to me. I think it's a it's a great uh part of our industry. And uh and so that led to a number of other different discoveries. Uh I started doing local television and and got involved in radio, went to school to to be in radio, and I ended up uh at a radio station in St. Louis called KMOX. And KMOX is one of like three 50,000 watt radio stations in the country. It was uh one of the hallmarks of CBS at the time. Cut my teeth on morning radio, right? Uh, and and did that for a number of years and had a couple kids. Morning radio wasn't exactly jiving with with having a small young family. So I I actually took a job at the at the college that I graduated from, uh, Lewis and Clark Community College. And I remember the the interview, they're like, okay, you're gonna do this and this and this. And oh, by the way, once a summer, you need to replace some projectors, right? That that line there, right? And that evolved very quickly into my baptism into the audiovisual industry. At the time, the state of Illinois, because that's who funds colleges and universities, they were going through a financial crisis. Bottom line, we didn't have any money, right? And so I was responsible for replacing some projectors once a year. To suddenly, I was responsible for maintaining and and putting band-aids on these systems because we didn't have the money to overhaul them uh or refresh them. What had started out being a five-year refresh ended up being a eight to nine-year refresh. And if you're in education, exactly what that means. So I went and I got my crestron programming certification, but I I was a halfway horrible crestron programmer, but simply to support our our college. SPEAKER_01 6:41 Just to give me a sense, Tim, sorry to cut you off. What what year are we talking about here? SPEAKER_00 6:45 This is 2004, 2005. Yeah. And so that I just kept doing the thing. I got introduced to Avixa to Infocom at the time. But that bug, that that audio, that that radio bug was still in the back of my head. And uh I'd been listening to a podcast called This Week in Tech with Leo Laporte. And I was fascinated by the fact that this guy could spend an hour or two hours a week talking to really smart people. And I I had gone to Infocom, the show, and I had connected with a couple of people, not a whole lot, but a couple people, and and a number of us were on Twitter at the time, and and this is 2011. And uh I had made connections and and this is when Google Meet was was a thing. And uh I connected with a uh with two gentlemen. One was uh a guy by the name of Bradford Ben who worked for Harman at the time, another was Richie Fergosa, who's a programmer, and we're on this Google Meet, and it's a video comp, it's a video call. And my brain, we're just chatting about the industry. And in the back of my brain, I was like, I could I can plug this into a recorder and like publish this sucker, right? And a month later, I just put it out on on Twitter and I said, Look, I said, I want to start this podcast, and and is anybody interested, and this is when I'm doing it. And we had a couple people like kind of raised their hand, and I forced a buddy of mine who was a Sennheiser rep, uh, that my actually my best friend for 30 years, and I forced him into the studio and said, You're you're doing this with me. This is not a discussion. And uh pressed record, right? Uh it was the end of July in in 2011, and we've recorded A B week ever since. Wow. How many how many episodes are you up to now? God, 700 and something. Hang on, I can tell you. Yeah. SPEAKER_01 8:21 At the time of recording. Uh the time of recording. 786, so whatever that means. Right. So you've had a front row at all of this then for the last 15 years. Interesting, interesting journey to get there in some respects, quite a convoluted route, but in many respects, perhaps the most direct of all of the guests I've had on so far. One of the uh Mark Coxon, who's a friend of both of ours, expected to be counting fish in streams in Wyoming and ended up selling Idaho. In Idaho, don't forget Idaho. And Idaho as well. Go and watch that episode, it's worth it. It is. So interesting. So you've been you've had the regular talks, and and you're also involved with a CCI in some form or another as well. How how did they get involved in this whole thing? SPEAKER_00 9:12 In in 2021, so 2020, really, to be completely honest about it. 2020, John Laughlin, who I had known, I've known on John for 15 years, and we started talking, and he's like, hey, I'm I'm interested in acquiring AB Nation. And I'm like, well, that's fine. We're not doing I we can we can have a conversation, John, but I I'm awfully protective of this thing. And he had some good ideas, he really did. At the time, um, A B Nation was uh let's call it a a broadcaster for AV, right? Meaning that our content was a little bit of a of a shotgun at pros, right? We're just gonna make content and it's for everybody, and there wasn't a whole lot of focus to it. Uh, and John's the one who said, Well, why don't you do this for for the customers, right? For the end users, there's some value there. Uh, after a couple of months of chatting in in 2021, CTI acquired Avi Nation. And the the the equivalency I've I've told people, I said, Laughlin is not Jeff Bezos, and we're not the Washington Post, but imagine the same kind of difference, right? Bezos owns the Washington Post, he also owns Amazon. So, same kind of thing, right? Comcast owns NBC and Universal, right? This is not unique in in the annals of of media. It takes some work, it takes some some firewalls to put up, and and John has been very uh purposeful about that. He has said on multiple occasions, both privately and publicly, if avianation is nothing more than a mouthpiece of CTI, there's no value, right? So that that has been that that has been a wonderful partnership uh over the last five and a half years now. SPEAKER_01 10:47 Interesting. Have you have you changed the focus since that point? SPEAKER_00 10:52 I mean, I fully accept that you yeah, that's what you'cause at at the time we were really, I mean, it was anything for anybody, right? We we we we we made content for manufacturers, we made content for integrators, and we made content for uh for end users. And it took us a couple of years, Simon, to be honest about it, because you just like anything else, we we we tried some stuff and it failed. We tried some stuff and it didn't work, it wasn't quite right, but it probably took us about two or three years to get it to where I was happy with it. Now I'm I'm really I'm very quite pleased with with our focus and with with the content and and everything. Because and here's the thing I didn't I didn't realize at the time. It took me back to my start officially in the industry as a tech manager, right? Because I I started as a tech manager and and um it allows me to give back a little bit back to the the Tim of 20 some odd years ago because I get to create content that I wish I would have had 20 years ago. SPEAKER_01 11:48 Yeah, yeah. I think one of the things I particularly love, by the way, about what you've done, and something I'm trying to do in a rather different way with this podcast, is I'm not interested in chasing clicks. I don't want to be sensationalists and have titles that say things like the world is ending, you must watch this video now, or where's that effect? It's not about clickbait, it's about long-form conversations that somebody might actually find interesting and useful. And useful. Yeah, that's the point. Useful being the important bit. I mean, hopefully they're entertained. Let's be honest, probably not. But they might get something useful out of it, and I think that's not as prevalent as it should be in the world today. SPEAKER_00 12:28 It's not. And and I will I'm gonna lean on a little bit of something that Simon Sinek said. And uh one of the things that I've I've done the last year or so is I I I published a book, not as many as Julian Phillips, but I have published a book, a singular book, and I love Julian, and I I I I value the the information that I've gotten from him because he and I have had conversations that I was as I was getting ready to publish mine, and I started doing keynotes, right, for for various things, both about the book as well as just the industry in general. And uh Simon Sinek said something about public speaking, about being a public speaker. And he said, Look, this is not about you. You you you are it is a it is a is a privilege to be on that stage. It is an honor to be on that stage. Somebody is telling you that they trust you with their people, with their audience. Your job is to serve them. Your job is to inform and educate and give those folks something more than what they walked in here with. And as somebody who creates media, I take that same attitude, right? My job is to take somebody with me, obviously virtually, to IBC, right? And and this is the thing that really is here, here's a product, or here's something that is interesting, or just an overall idea or feeling that I'm getting out of the show itself. Here's a a person that you may not have heard of, but I think they're fascinating, right? But my job is to inform and educate others. SPEAKER_01 13:58 Yeah, I think that's it's very interesting. Somebody once said to me about presenting, and they said, Well, you don't you need to put more facts into the presentation. And I said to them, When you were at school, were the best teachers the ones who put the most facts on the whiteboard? Well, or in my case, blackboard, because I'm that old. But of course the answer is no. I mean, they could have put a Q and a cancer on on the third or blackboard, and I was staring out the window looking at the seagulls doing this with the patting their feet on the field to get the worms to come up. There was no sense of inspiration, and and that's what a useful presenter does, he says, sounding as dull as possible as he says. SPEAKER_00 14:42 Yeah, it's it's stories, dude. I mean, we we I mean it goes back to probably caveman days, but even certainly back to the Greeks and Romans and Egyptians and the the Phoenicians and the Babylonians, and these are people who we as humans we thrive on stories. There's something about our brain that that's those stories kind of worms its way in better than facts and figures. And the and the good ones, they will embed the facts and figures into that story. And you'll when you then then you'll walk out and go, Oh my gosh, do you do you remember that story that did it? Oh, that's what they were doing, right? SPEAKER_01 15:22 Yeah, yeah. SPEAKER_00 15:23 They were trying to get a point across or a figure across or whatever. I I I I do use a lot of stories, and and there's a couple of of pieces that I talk about. I just got back from from Dallas with uh our our our friends over at Almo and uh have been doing the this keynote E4. And there's two stories that that I use every single time. And one is to illustrate the idea that the the A B industry and the A B integrator should probably start at least partnering with um electrical contractors because there's some things coming down the pipeline with uh the National Electrical Code 2029 that will probably impact the industry, and it'll impact certainly people who pull structured cabling. And I have a buddy here in St. Louis, and I I kind of poke fun him a bit. I say, Tom Tommy is not Tommy does not have a crystal ball, he is not that prescient. However, in 2028, he did this, and what happened was Tommy had actually um he'd been working with an AC, and uh one thing led to another, and there was an opportunity to purchase, to actually acquire the AC. And through that, showing these, showing the folks in the room, there are several options that you have to solve this problem. Here's one of them that's somebody that I know personally that that actually ended up doing this, and you kind of work those in, trying to either highlight or reinforce one of your points. SPEAKER_01 16:42 Isn't it funny though? I I've you and I have been in this world for a long time, and every vendor I've ever worked with or for or observed as a competitor always seems to imagine say all, that's not fair. The vast majority, there are obviously exceptions, yeah, seem to imagine that you convince customers with a bigger number. Our one goes to eleven, but but whatever eleven mean in the relative terms. I have more microphones or my thing is bigger or my tweeter is larger or smaller or whatever the number is. I've never understood why I don't think resellers do this very much, but and certainly clients don't seem to care less, but manufacturers seem to be obsessed with going larger in some form or fashion. It's it's always when it goes to 11. Why? Everyone we speak to, you and I, is two good examples of this, are absolutely believers in stories, but manufacturers don't seem to understand that stories matter and just simply want to go one bigger. I've got any reflections on that. SPEAKER_00 17:46 Yeah, I first of all I would disagree with you. There is there are there are still remnants of the integrators who do try to sell on numbers, right? Who are like, oh, this is this is the same thing. SPEAKER_01 17:57 Well, I thought you were going to argue with me about vendors only talking about. SPEAKER_00 18:00 No, no, no. There there are a handful. And I would argue that they are some of the more bigger booths at at Infocom or ISC who have started the last call it five years, started telling those stories, started leaning into those stories. One of the things that that at Aviation that I that I ask folks for, we we we have a handful of partners, clients, advertisers, and and when I talk to them and then like, oh, we're trying to do, we're trying to talk about XYZ product this month, this quarter, this whatever. I I consistently ask for case studies because case studies is a form of story. And about half do a really good job. And about half, it's it's it's a it's a bit more difficult. But we we grew up in this industry, especially in the early days, where yeah, the number mattered because whether it was lumens or it was the decibel level that your speaker could put out, or it was the number of inputs on your video switcher, those numbers mattered in some way, shape, or form. And now they don't, right? Now now it's it's it's parity almost across the board. And there has not been, I'm not saying there won't be, but there has not been, oh my goodness, industry shattering, redefining moment at any trade show and call it the last six years. So all of these technologies are maturing, getting to a parity point. So if you can do anything you want to do with whichever product and and manufacturer you choose, well, then what is the difference? Well, the difference is how they do this or how they do that or how they solve those problems. And that's another version of telling a story. SPEAKER_01 19:43 Yeah, I I'd agree with that. I think it's interesting though that I do agree that the numbers have become irrelevant. Yeah. But but only because I think the numbers were always irrelevant. People just didn't really understand it. I suppose ultimately product people are very proud of their products and want to show that they're working. SPEAKER_00 19:59 And they should be. Sometimes they should be. It takes a lot of hang on, it takes a lot of work to put a product out, dude. I I don't want to do it. SPEAKER_01 20:06 Well, I know, and I've done it. Yeah, but just because you built a product doesn't mean you should necessarily be proud of it. All right. Not all products, I mean Polycom V500, I'm looking at you, as an example, but there's plenty of others. There's plenty of other one's got a lemon product in there, right? So I think it's interesting that we're still living in a world where the matrix, everyone I need a matrix so that I can show that my number's bigger than their number. It's it's weird to me because I suppose if you're in baseball, if you're inside of the bubble, then you believe that the customers care about these things. Of course, clients have absolutely no idea what any of these numbers are. It's completely gone off the rails as an interview. But I think this is actually just a topic I'd like to talk about. Because it just sort of frustrates me that we live in a world where there it's like 0 to 60 times in cars. And that was the last time anyone actually did a 0 to 60 time, but it's a good way of measuring it, and I suppose it's different in the sense that at least people understand what that number means, even if it's irrelevant. It's how many decibels or nits or lumens or whatever, moomins. I just made that up. I don't think there's anything called moving. I'm gonna put that in a matrix next time I do one. None of those mean anything to anyone. SPEAKER_00 21:25 Well, they they don't, and I I would actually just my two cents on matrixes. I mean, it there there's there's a place for them, but the the place is the the industry has moved to the network, and so who the frick cares, right? I mean, if your your your matrix is as big as you want to make it, as long as you got the bandwidth and the and the switchboards. I mean, who cares? SPEAKER_01 21:47 So let's let's we talk about the industry's move, but it's something I'd like to talk about, right? So you've been doing this a long time. Talk about some products or some ideas or some concepts that that looked like they were gonna be a good idea at the time and turn out not. To actually be a very good idea at the time or subsequently, and/or some ones that didn't look like they were going to be very useful, but actually ended up changing the world. And I'll while you're thinking of that, I'll give the audience one example. So with a Graham Walsh from Needs recently. And he was talking about how when Microsoft introduced video into Microsoft Teams about 10 years ago now, there was very much a case of, oh yeah, whatever, there you go. It's another function. And not many people, if anyone, when my word, they're going to change the world. And of course, 10 years later, they have changed the world. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Yeah. Have you got some examples in your experience of that happening? SPEAKER_00 22:42 There was in the the mid to late 2000s, there was a push for wireless video, a wireless uh computer video specifically, right? And it it again, working at higher ed at the time, we had we had a number of facilities that they were they were multi-purpose rooms, is the best way to put that. And uh we had one landing spot for a podium, but we wanted to be able to take that anywhere we wanted to. And it was on wheels, so that was that was fine. And there was um probably about four or five products on the market at the time. They were massive and they were really stupid expensive. Uh, but our president of the college thought it was an inter is a good idea, and we said we're gonna do this, and we spent the money. And on on paper, it it looked fine, right? On paper, it could push the resolution, it could do what we wanted it to do. And in practice, it it was a bit of a Ford Pinto. So, or a gremlin, AMC Gremlin. So it looks fine on paper, but when you actually try to get into it and drive it, it was it was interesting. SPEAKER_01 23:42 Yeah, I I can I can think of another example. I don't know if you mean quite the same product, but I remember back in about 2014, perhaps, products like the iRobot, the people who make the the vacuumed machines, they put a video competing device with a 32-inch display onto one of their robots and asked me to help them if they if I'd be interested in helping them uh do some product management, product marketing on this product. And they told me their opening line was it's 70,000 and uh and then their second line was, but don't worry, next year it'll be half that price. And I pointed out that for that price, they could have had seven or eight meeting rooms equipped. So why why have a robot that just moves very, very slowly from one room to another when you could just put them in all of the rooms? I I didn't get that piece of particular consultant work because I kind of rather just destroyed their business model. SPEAKER_00 24:35 Do you remember the beam robot from Infocom? Probably 2012, 2013, maybe. Yeah, about lane. Yes. Yeah, the gentleman that did it, and I don't remember his name, I apologize right now, um, for right now, but uh he was he was a Google alum, uh, so he had Google money, and that's what he was spending his Google money on. What was that that that same type of idea, right? Yes. Which uh the robot moved around, you moved the robot back and forth, and it was the kind of the the it was remote work, but it wasn't remote work. SPEAKER_01 25:08 So yeah, they did they actually had one of those at a trade show. I forget which one it was. It was invocom or inbox, yeah. Some people surrounded it with chairs so that it couldn't move because people found it creepy, or they were just A V people and decided they want to mess with it, or or maybe both. It's hard to know. Yeah, it's interesting. That's a good example. Did but did you look at it and go initially and go, oh no, they've they've solved a major new problem. Or did you look at it and go, these people are insane and they've got too much money? SPEAKER_00 25:37 My initial my initial reaction was these people are insane. Like I don't I I don't see now then the more I interacted with it, I'm like, okay, you can and probably just because I'm I'm genuine genuinely glass half full. I'm like, I could if you if you get the money for it and you you could kind of make the the thing work in your in your environment, but then you got stuff like stairs and all kinds of crap, and yeah, no. SPEAKER_01 25:59 Yeah. When I was first working at Logitech in 2016, they had one of these and they said, Oh, you really you can be in you can I was in living in Austin at the time, you can be in Austin and you can beam into the office. And I said, Oh, okay. And then I discovered that two parts of the department were on different floors, and that was the end of that. I mean, it's just you didn't have a finger, you couldn't press a button on the lift elevator. Sorry. Yeah, same thing. What are those strange okay? What about successful stuff that you didn't think was successful? SPEAKER_00 26:32 So I I'll I'll pick on this a little bit and and I'll I'll explain my my reasoning. And and and that is just generically D B L E D. And here's why. Because at the time it's like, okay, that's fine. Uh and understand when when D B L E D go ahead. SPEAKER_01 26:49 You better explain for the ladies and gentlemen. Yeah. Well, and mainly me, honestly. I don't know what D V L L E D is. SPEAKER_00 26:56 So D V L E D is direct view LED. It's LED, right? That it's but it's it's it in in A V, we call it D V L E D. I am actually not sure why. I'm sure there's a reason for it, but it's it's not, it is where you're you the actual individual LED modules you can see them, right? Physically see them, and and whether that's actronics or or absent or whoever, you can if you get close enough, you can see them. Well, when when they came out, you didn't have to get close enough, you could you could see them uh a good four or five feet away. And that's that's what I was like, okay, that's fine. I have to be how far away for that to for for the kind of the the the LEDs to kind of merge together visually. Okay, that's I think it was like 15, 20 feet. And I'm like, oh okay, that's sure. We put it up on the wall 100 feet away, and and you might have something there. And uh what happened, just like with every uh every other technology, things get smaller, things get better. Now we're talking about sub uh half millimeter DV LED, and you can't tell a difference, right? And and so what that's allowed our industry to do, and and what that that's allowed the decision makers to do, is uh to have some more creativity about, in this case, you the sort of visual communications systems that they want to have, right? That that that type of product is as good as having a big screen TV and probably a little bit more flexible. It's certainly going to be brighter than anything that you can put in any sort of conference room or or lobby area. It beats the crap out of projection. Still, there's still room for projection, there's still needs for projectors, but in this instance, right, you're you're a lot of times you're you're fighting against direct sunlight or at least ambient sunlight, and that they have taken that idea and that product uh category, and they have really, really ramped it up farther than I ever thought it they would. Interesting. SPEAKER_01 28:42 So in the 15 years or so that you've been directly kind of following the whole industry, where a couple of things have happened, right? A V used to be a set of things have happened. First, the universe exploded, and then the the gas cooled, and then we moved on, right? But it particularly big things have happened in the probably before your time, telecoms became part of the whole IT world. Yeah. And then the last 10, 15 years, AV is being eaten by IT. Uh, although it's interesting, isn't it? Because it's taken them 15 years and they still haven't quite done it yet. They haven't really eaten AV. There's still a distinctly different uh part of the organization. They wear the I was gonna say the red shirts on Star Trek rather than the green shirt. You don't want to wear a red shirt on Star Trek, but a blue shirt rather than the green shirt on Star Trek, right? So they are still separate, but they're still within the A V organization. I think telecoms just got completely subhumed into IT. Um, perhaps because the paradigm of what telecoms actually was moved from a telephone with a dial tone to instant messenger and on and all of those the slacks and the teams and the Zoom workplaces and all of those things. Do you think I mean I I'm not suggesting that you're going to change the name of the show, but do you think, for example, that AV Nation could realistically change its name to IT Nation and still be relevant in or do you still see that that it is now and will continue to be a very different part of the IT department? SPEAKER_00 30:20 It's it's a fair question, right? And I I think you could you could make a good argument for that very thing. And here's why. Because I will disagree with you because I think it has fully consumed AV. The only my my my my my reason for that is that it comes down to money and budget. When I started in in AV as a tech manager at LC, we had our own budget. We we had our own procurement, we, we, we had to manage that budget. We reported to the head of facilities and and this, that, and the other. By the time I left, that budget had been sucked up by IT, and we were under IT and no longer had our own discretionary budget that we had to manage. We had to work with alongside IT, and we had to make our case to, oh, this is the refresh, this, that, and the other. That has happened across the country, at least in the US and at least in higher ed. Corporate's a little bit different, but certainly corporate does not have an A B department anymore, neither does higher ed. And so, because of that, I think that it is still, it is an it is IT's world. What we do is certainly unique. And you're right about the the just the overall transformation of telecom and and the what they were actually doing was communication, and so sure that has has evolved. There's a part of of AV that will never go away. And the reason it will never go away is because we are physical human beings, we are physical beings, meaning that there is an analog aspect to what we do, regardless of how much digital there is. I don't care the fact that AV over IP is running ones and zeros. Matter of fact, I think it's fantastic. But when I consume video, when I consume audio, it is an analog experience. And until that changes, the AV under IT is still gonna be very, very valuable. SPEAKER_01 32:17 Yeah, I think that's that yeah, okay, so I kind of disagree in some ways. Because an A V, if you ask an A V person, there you go. See, Tim, for those of you just listening, Tim has now just left the A V can. SPEAKER_00 32:31 I was trying to wipe my nose without anybody seeing it. Thanks for playing. SPEAKER_01 32:33 Oh, I see. It's too late now. We're gonna move the camera. If you ask someone, are you an A V or are you in IT, they will say one of those things. Yeah, certainly. Now, IT has certainly become the back end and the delivery mechanism, as in the transport mechanism. And the money portion, don't forget that. And the money, and the money, I do agree, and and the responsibility. Yeah. But the AV element, and I actually think that's why A V is so much more interesting than IT, is that it is the interface between human beings and the technology, and that's that's made it an interesting play. And you say that A V has become part of IT. Well, therefore, there's an interesting question as a follow-up, right? There's been a lot of work, and you've been talking about this on your own show recently, about how the big AV resellers are consolidating. That's not a new story. No, they've been consolidating for 10 years, perhaps. And some of them are becoming as much as a couple of percent. With AVI SPL being the the clear biggest player here, I think their their own estimate is they're at one and a half to two percent of the entire US AV market now, which not exactly a huge amount of consolidation, is it? The single biggest player is one percent of the market, but they're not into the companies like that are not integrating with IT systems integrators, it seems. Not yet. And do you think, well, it was an interesting statement, not yet uh a response I wasn't expecting. Go on, elaborate. This is Tim's opinion. And this is all our opinions, mate. No one here here. None of us have corporate overlords in that sense. SPEAKER_00 34:10 Well, do you know I know I I say that because I don't know nothing, right? I I have no knowledge. I I I'm I am, I mean, I if I was bound by an NDI, I would at least tell you I was bound by one. I am not, right? So I do not, I literally do not know anything on this. However, I'm watching, right? And I'm watching IT integrators who I mean, convergent is one of them where they they tried for a minute to go get into AB. They were like, okay, right, they got a new CEO. That person doesn't quite agree with the previous one, so they're just kind of letting that fizzle out. They're not killing anybody, they're not cutting anybody, just kind of whatever. But what I'm watching is I'm watching the manufacturers make gear and the the hardware that's still that again transfers, could transmits analog into digital, easier to to deploy, easier to maintain. And I'm seeing a a future where possibly the IT integrator is going to become a bigger uh competitor to A V, A V centric integrators. Now, does that mean that they're they're gonna buy one? Possibly, right? I I would not be shocked. I mean, you look at Rico from a couple of different angles, and and in Rico is multiple different types of technology, uh multiple types of manufacturer and company, including an integrator uh over in the EU. But I'm watching that as a possible future. Like start start paying attention to the IT folks that are like, oh, we could we could grow 20, 30 million by by buying this this AV integrator that whatever. SPEAKER_01 35:40 Yeah, it's an interesting angle, isn't it? I mean, a lot of the very large or even the mid-sized A V integrators are owned by private equity today. A lot of them are, dude. Yeah. I mean, the m vast majority are. SPEAKER_00 35:51 I mean, you look you look at SE in top 50, and I think I think four of the top, three or four of the top five are 100%. SPEAKER_01 35:57 Yes. So those people are clearly not stupid. No. Very clever financial engineers over at those sorts of organizations. And what's interesting to me is that they will, of course, let's let's go with rationalize the business. I'll I'll use all the nice words, rationalize the business, reduce costs, increase increase product profitability, and of course, stack the business up with debt, right? That's pretty much the the play of PE companies. And whether that's a good thing or not is less relevant than it's a thing. But they also want to sell the business on at some point, and as a result, they're gonna have to assume there's gonna be someone who's gonna want to buy it. And it'll be interesting to see over the next couple of years whether some of these A V players get snapped up by some of the big IT systems integrators. And my assumption is they'd have to buy someone who's fairly or a few companies who are fairly big, because if they don't, it's just not worth doing it. If you're buying a $50 million company, you need to be buying a a multiple hundred million dollar business, whereas you can't even prove if the if the project or the concept was successful or not. It's just they can't see down to $50 million. SPEAKER_00 37:10 No, and and and then you are limited to about four or five uh integrators. Certainly SPL is at the top of that list. Uh you obviously I have I have diversified, you've got Yorktell Kinley, which is now going under the Kinley name, and those are the three off the top of my head that I know that are that are PE backed that are that are up there, right? Forte is is privately held, privately held. It's a it's an ASOP, so it's it's employee owned. Um and so uh and then you got Rico, which again is a is a is a publicly traded company, I believe. SPEAKER_01 37:38 Out of the uh so and of course uh CTI, right? Your your CD. SPEAKER_00 37:44 CTI has never we we have never uh we are private, uh privately held by John Laughlin and and his wife. We've never submitted to SCN top 50. SPEAKER_01 37:53 Oh, right. Oh, that's interesting. Okay, I didn't know that. But you would I'm not asking for any uh insider information here, but you would be uh CTI is a major player. SPEAKER_00 38:02 CTI is certainly a major player, right? Uh I I don't know if I've ever said this publicly, so I'm I might get in trouble for this. I would put us in the top 10 of the SCN top 50, right? Pretty comfortably in in the top 10 without seeing what what Mark's working on for 2026, but based on last year's, uh I'm I'm pretty confident in that. SPEAKER_01 38:20 Oh, that's interesting. And of course, if you let me know later, we would have bleeped that out and we'll both just nod sagely and say, wow, I didn't expect that number, and then we'll just Yeah. That's exactly what I'll do. Leave it alone. You just let me know and uh and I'll put it in the show notes. So just read the read the notes or send me an email and I'll tell you separately if indeed uh Tim did knock it out. So, okay, so do you think that that's an inevitability? Do you think that in the next couple of years we're gonna start seeing that? Or do you think that a different set of of uh elements will come into play? I've certainly got my own thoughts, but if you want to throw out some of yours, I'd be fascinated to discuss. SPEAKER_00 38:58 So I'm I I think this is the caveat I'll put. I thought five years ago it would take five years for an IT uh integrator to buy somebody. I've been wrong, right? So now I'm going to say 10 years. And and and I still might be wrong, dude. Here's the thing that the the the one thing I started saying about that is because the old adage of if if you make something foolproof, they'll make a better fool. They're trying to make their equipment more foolproof so that sometimes the that these manufacturers are marketing directly to end users, marketing directly to IT departments, and saying, hey, this video bar is so easy that your IT department can just buy a palette of them from CDW and install them, right? And which may or may not be true. That does do uh it does does that does some damage to the relationship between that manufacturer and the integrator, the systems integrator today, but that also gives the systems integrator a little bit of opportunity to say, okay, that's fine. Yes, you could do that. However, this is our value proposition. This is why you you hire us, this is what what we bring to the table. An IT person worth their salt could probably deploy their own rack servers, right? They're their own server racks. Absolutely, they could, but they don't for a reason, right? Because the IT integrator has has come with a value proposition that this is why you hire us. And I think the same thing's going to happen in AV. Yeah, you could, but you're not going to, and here's why. SPEAKER_01 40:29 Yeah, I think that's an interesting angle. I was talking to a client, this is 25 years ago. It's a major bank in London. And they were telling me, I was talking to their people, and they were saying to me that, oh, we've just fired our audio bridge provider. Uh, they did a they did a 200-way call on a Monday morning, every Monday morning for all their traders. It may have been a thousand people, I forget. It was enormous. And of course, it was just one of the hundreds of things they did every week with this audio bridge. And I looked at them and said, But one, you're wealthy. I mean, they were a major bank. They used to print money in the basement. Perhaps only as hypothetically is that actually true. They had all the money in the world, and and I said to them, look, it must be cheaper for you to buy your own audio bridge than it would be for you to simply use the services of some some service provider. Certainly. And the lady who was running it, um, who's become a dear friend over the 30 years, said to me, Well, of course it would. But then when it goes wrong, I don't want to be taking the blame for it. So we hire a BC conferencing or a Genesis or whoever it was, right? And we just go through a cycle, and every couple of years they all get fired, and then we start again. And weren't they terrible? And then we just hire an ex-company on the rack. And I do wonder, particularly for the lot of A V stuff, which this is always the problem with A V, isn't it? It sits in meeting rooms, and the other problem with meeting rooms is senior people sit in them and they turn up, they don't really like the technology, in fact, they all hate the technology, and it just needs to work. And when it doesn't, someone starts getting shouted at really quickly. Where IT, they go, Oh, it didn't work. Oh, I'll go and do something else. You can't do that if there's 20 people in the room and you're trying to do a call to somewhere else. So I do think that that a lot of clients are using the the reseller community as a well, not a get out of jail free card, because that sounds rather uh ungenerous. I don't mean it in those terms, but certainly as a scapegoat for resources, and as and as a and ultimately as a scapegoat. You s I would like to say for the record, Tim Albright said scapegoat before I did, but but I can't think of a better word. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And it'll be interesting to see in the next few years whether the IT world decides they want to take on that risk because you are very exposed if the video call or the AV gear doesn't work in an auditorium or in a high-stakes meeting environment. And IT generally don't have to deal with that. SPEAKER_00 42:58 No, I mean they they they have to deal with other things. I mean, I one of the things that I have learned, getting lowered by the butt over the past 10 years is as AV has been consumed by IT, is is how IT directors are compensated, how how their bonus structure works, and a lot of those folks are bonused on uptime. And that uptime now includes the the conferencing systems a lot of times, right, depending on the organization. And so they're looking for yes, somebody to partner with, yes, somebody to blame, right, at the end of the day, but also somebody that can that can make sure that their uptime is as high as possible. And a lot of times the the the bigger companies do have more resources to throw at that type of that level of that level of need. SPEAKER_01 43:41 Which brings in another group that I'd like to discuss while we're here. So IT is eating AV much more slowly than I expected, and as you've already pointed out, slower than you expected too. And they ate telecoms years ago, 25 years ago now. What about facilities? Facilities is becoming a really interesting play here. They own the rooms, after all, and the furniture in them and the electricals. And we were talking before we started recording about how electrical and data are becoming more entwined than they were. So do you think the facilities people, and including up to and including the GB, the CBREs and the JLs and all of those big guys, do you think they're going to get more involved in this space? And how's that gonna how's that gonna shake out in your opinion? SPEAKER_00 44:30 In the facilities management side, yes, absolutely. Um I I am I am aware I had some um conversations here recently with some corporate folks, and they were relaying to me, they didn't they didn't tell me who their facilities management management company was. I tried to get out of them, but they had in their contract, so they're leasing a space, right, for an entire floor of a building, and they have one AV and one IT integrator they can use. That's it. This facilities management company has contracted and has in their in their lease agreement that if you want to do any additions and any upgrades to what they have in their space, uh, that you can use this one this one integrator. Uh and then the on the on the IT side, the same thing. And I was fascinated. I'm like, you you you can't use like you can't bid it out. You can't, nope, nope, our contract says we have to use this. So yeah, I mean, especially on the facilities management side, right? If if if you're if it's your building, I I suppose you could absolutely do that. I don't know why they care. That's that's the thing I I I couldn't get out of anybody, was was why it mattered, uh, unless there's some sort of agreement, whether that is you give our customers a discount or you get whatever. But yeah, your facilities is there. I I I still think it's a second or third tier responsibility. Uh, I think IT is still the number one person who is who owns certainly the performance of of the A B systems. SPEAKER_01 45:53 In that particular instance, was it a union city like New York, for example? Or you're not that right. So that would I'm I'm not I'm not gonna dig any further as to the pilot. No, but it maybe that would be an issue because access to buildings in Manhattan or any major conurbation can be a bit of an issue. Although I must say, as a client, I wouldn't want it to be beholden because I don't know, SLAs when there's only one provider, not so much. It's interesting to me. We've been I've been doing a bit of research into that whole the the CBRE's JLs world, and and they're changing the way they think about buildings as well. They're not they're now uh an environment that's actually used and they actually care about how it's used rather than here's a great big building, fill it with whatever nonsense you want. Which perhaps segues. I I've been writing recently about the whole return to office thing. I read the most absurd headline the other day, and I've actually written about it recently, which said in Denver, I live up the road from Denver, and it said in Denver, it's one of the last major cities where people are still working from home, and employers are looking forward to welcoming their workers back. And it's like, I mean, what are we doing? Standing by the window with a bunch of flowers. Oh, I do hope they remember us. I mean, come on, that's not how the world works. And and from your experience in the last 15 years or so, this whole work from home clearly the pandemic kickstarted that like crazy, and then people went, crocky, I really like working from home. This is great. Employers hated it. What's your thinking as to why and or how successful have the employers been at making people go back to the office? SPEAKER_00 47:37 So I I will I I I don't think they hated it, and here's why. They were forced into a bad situation where it was uh against better judgment to have a bunch of people together in a pandemic, right? Start there, right? Just a generic bad idea to have to have a bunch of people who may or may not be be exposed and sick and then spreading that around. That's a conversation for a different day and for smarter people than me. So the manufacturers or the the companies still got work done while working from home. So let's start there. I I don't think that they they they hated it. What they hated was once that lifted is people like you said, oh hey, I like this working from home thing, and I'm as productive or maybe even more productive at home. Uh, I don't have to sit in in traffic, I don't have to sit in in rush hour traffic. There's a number of studies and it's they've they've split it up through generational and and millennials by and large, broad statement here, millennials by and large are like, but I've I've had I've done my time in the office. Let's I I can work from home just fine, right? And it's it is Gen Z and Gen Alpha who were like, wait, wait a minute. And these are the younger folks who are like, yeah, working from home a couple days a week is fine, but I'm not getting mentored. I'm not getting FaceTime. I'm not getting the social aspect of work. I I again, mass studies, broad strokes here, but they're the ones who who are actually enjoying the return to office. My generation, Gen X, we just wish you guys would leave us alone. And the business owners, the business owners, I think the reason that they're they're pushing for the return to office is because they're already paying the bills anyway, right? They're paying for a hundred thousand square foot, regardless if anybody's there or not. And so they might as well have people without it. Now, you can make decisions, right? And as we were coming out of the pandemic, one of my favorite stories actually came out of Mutual of Omaha, which is an insurance company, right? Uh Mutual of Omaha built a brand new building in the middle of the pandemic. And I'm gonna use round numbers here because I'm not a math guy, but let's say that they have 4,000 employees in Omaha, Nebraska. They built the space to hold 2,000 people concurrently on purpose because they had made a decision at that time that we will never have all of our people back in the in one place at one time. So it depends on the company, it depends on the culture, but it also depends on on what the companies, quite frankly, what what their expenses already are. And if you're locked into a 10-year lease and you've got to have a space anyway, well, guess what? Then you're gonna want people back in the office to leverage that space. No. Yeah. I didn't say it was right. I didn't say it was right or wrong. SPEAKER_01 50:13 I just said that that's the reason. I do agree with you, right? If you if you've got a 10-year lease on a building, it just makes leadership look bad if there's no one in the office. It doesn't actually make the company any more productive to have people back in the office. Now, I do accept the young people thing, but I also do question the we have 4,000 people, but we only need seats for for 2,000. Because the problem there is you say, right, well, let's have everyone has to come to the office for two days a week. Right. So just to confirm, Tim, you you're you come in at 8 o'clock on Monday morning and leave at 5 o'clock on Friday afternoons, because you do Mondays and Fridays for your days in it. Oh no, no, you don't. Because everyone does Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, because no one wants to be in traffic on Mondays and Fridays, except that that the so you you don't have that. No one wants to go, oh yeah, my time in the office is three till five on a Wednesday afternoon. No one wants that. So everyone wants the so if everyone's gonna be in between on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, then you need an office for 4,000 people. unknown 51:14 Yeah. SPEAKER_00 51:15 But again, that that company they they've arranged it to where that's that works for them. I'm a big believer of just generically working for a company that fits your own culture and you and and and their culture fits you. I have I have said this for years, and I you you get this too, right? Hey, I'm looking for a job. I'm looking, uh, what would you recommend? And there are two competing manufacturers that uh have vastly different cultures, right? And I have I have counseled friends and said, what, you would be a great fit for that company there, right? Or don't you ever, you you you should probably never apply here because you wouldn't fit here, dude. Like you you'd last like two weeks and you'd be out because it's like oil and water. Same thing here, right? If if if you find a company that you that you jibe with that that just fits you and fits your culture, stick with them, right? And if you don't, if you're stuck in a company that that doesn't fit your culture, doesn't fit your lifestyle, doesn't fit what you want to do, then look someplace else because there is a company out there that fits you, just like there's somebody out there that will that you can do your life with and spend that same thing here, company same way. SPEAKER_01 52:24 Yeah, I think that's fair. Although there is a problem there because as you've suggested, the the old, I think the technical phrase is old gits, like you and I, Gen X's, we're like, oh, I never want to go to an office again. But the young people that we're meant to be mentoring and bringing up and developing, they do need an office. And they you you need that osmosis of watching how do you actually even act in an office? What is it about? How do I learn things by being around these these other people? And of course, we don't feel we need it, and frankly, we probably don't, but the younger people do. And I I do wonder about that. It's a it's a hard, it's a hard circle to or square to circle or circle to square or whatever which way around it. SPEAKER_00 53:08 I I actually enjoy being in the office because it it does a couple things. Number one, I I learn from others, especially the the people that are that are on on our team that are much younger, much younger than me. And I I learn from them. The second part is it gives me opportunity to give back because I was mentored when I was their age by really, really smart people who gave of their time and gave of their energy. And I see it as my responsibility to kind of keep perpetuating that. Now, I I don't love right traffic. It's not my favorite thing in the world. It does, though, give me a couple of things. First of all, I I can listen to music or audiobooks or podcast on the 35-45-minute drive. And I that that to me is is is okay. If do I wish that my office was 10 minutes from my house? Absolutely. But there there is some interaction, both social and and work, uh, that I get from getting in the office. SPEAKER_01 54:01 Yeah, I think that's fair. And of course, just for the record, if you've got a 35 to 45 minute commute, you should be listening to the before it was obvious podcast. Yes. I'll actually cut that out. That was way too sacred, even for me. But it fit. It kind of fits. Okay, so so you've seen this trajectory. Where do you think this market, where do you think our world is going next? SPEAKER_00 54:24 I I have uh uh this is not news. I I don't I think that that Avixa's uh estimates are a bit high. Uh they they estimate somewhere around the $100 billion range, 120 depending on the year. I think we're we're more around probably 80-90. And I I think that that we are getting to a plateau. I I really do. Now, I say that understanding that what's gonna happen is inflation's going to happen, and we're gonna listen to back back to this five years from now. Well, he said 90 million and now we're at 120. Well, yeah, we're at 120 because we're at 5%, 10% inflation. But actual honest to God growth, I think we're hitting a plateau. And and that's fine, right? We're we are we are a maturing industry, and um the technology is maturing, buying cycles are are maturing, and with the exception of a couple of oh my goodness, rocking announcements that they'll, oh, this company's going under or this company's getting merged with this company. I I think that the the companies that are are growing are the ones that are being creative, that are looking at uh alternative verticals, meaning that that they are not putting all their eggs in the conferencing basket. And I think that's smart. Uh I I I I saw a number of integrators uh both at NAB and IBC because that is an area that uh is growing in the corporate uh broadcast space. And so uh I think that we'll we'll have decent growth, but it's not gonna be 50% growth year over year. It's gonna be a little bit like putting your your money in in Microsoft stocks, right? It'll grow, but it'll it'll be slow and steady. SPEAKER_01 55:56 Now what about the the whole what they call, what they, the industry, is calling this workplace technology? This is about personal workers, maybe from home, maybe from an office. Do you even see that as part of the A V industry? Or is that an IT? I mean, I know that you've already said wrongly, but A V and IT are the same thing, but do you see that more as an IT function or more of an A V function? And do you think more of the systems integrators from IT will go and take that work? Or do you think the A V players will do? SPEAKER_00 56:29 Hey, I I don't think either. I think if it if it is something as simple as that that that that I can do, like if meet them, with with not a whole lot of of engineering or or or technical adeptness, you're not looking at either. You're looking at CDW or Amazon, which is fine for the main manufacturers because they don't care broadly speaking, they don't care where they sell it, they just care that they sell it. You start getting into more complex things. And then certainly that that is an A B integrator that's going to provide kits or whatever and support and stuff like that. There, there is a part of the IT folks that as they're sitting at the table and designing your your your data center, your your your uh your your uh your server farm. If you mention to them, home, by the way, we we need to outfit a thousand of our employees from work from home. Okay, we sell Logitech too, we sell HP too, we sell whatever too. We we can certainly put that as a line item, right? So there's I see different areas and and different use cases where everybody kind of has a slice of it. SPEAKER_01 57:29 Hmm. Interesting. It's gonna be an interesting play as to how that suits out. And I do agree with you about the whole broadcast thing. I mean, you're clearly working out of an office today, but I'm working from home and I effectively in my home office, as do thousands of other people now, a kind of a micro TV studio. Yeah, so do I. Um yeah, I built it myself and it's there's a million bazillion wires everywhere, but a lot of executive types wouldn't want to build their own. So it's going to be interesting to see who takes that on. There's also that angle, you talk about the the box shifting types that for the record, I don't want to say CDW is a box shifter uh because they get upset with me. So I but an organization that would sell you a box and an organization that would install, maintain, and all of those, yeah, there is an argument that says that those two parts of the story are uh are bifurcating. You could buy it from one organization and then end up having it supported and maintained and managed by a different one. I I don't know if that's uh I'm sure most AV integrators would not like that. SPEAKER_00 58:31 No, and and I I understand what you're saying, and and I I I actually just think it's more of a pain in the butt for the for the customer, right? Uh, because now you're you're managing several vendors, you're maybe you're managing multiple relationships, POs, and stuff like that. Um, there there is an uh a reason that that you IT folks are able to say, oh, we also do X, Y, or Z because they're already at the table and then the customer only has the right one PO. I don't I don't see buying boxes from one company and having some other somebody else install it, uh, unless you, the customer, are that other somebody, right? That that seems a bit more complicated than it's worth. SPEAKER_01 59:09 Yeah, I suppose so. Well, it depends ultimately on what the margin stack looks like. Yeah, right. If the if the reseller decides he wants to make 50 points on everything, then the client will make a job then. And that's the thing, is that that's that that yeah, that's that's fair. But but there is obviously a line there somewhere between two points and fifth or whatever the number is, where the client will say, Yeah, actually I'll split this, or at least threaten to, until the point where the the the integrator has C sent. Okay, so I want to change gears on you completely, in fact. We're gonna talk about something else. You wrote a book. I did. Why? It wasn't to get rich and famous. One, because you're already famous, and two, I didn't think you cared about money. You're beyond money. SPEAKER_00 59:49 I uh yeah, the but an old friend of mine, uh Ian Altman said, Don't don't write a book to to get rich, because between between selling a book, you you can you can buy a cup of coffee with with how much you're gonna make off the book. And he's right about that, by the way. Yes, he is. So I I it's something I had want to do for a while, and and I I had this inkling in in my head, a couple of career side quests, I guess is the best way to put it, because I I want to be very careful, and and I I've said this, made very big, big strides to say this. I'm not going anywhere, I'm not leaving the industry, right? This is not some sort of giant shift, but I I wanted to be speak. I wanted to be a public speaker for a while. And every every speaker I talk to is like, well, if if you write a book, it it would, it would, it, it, it's helpful. It gets you in the door, it does all these things. And uh so the year that I turned 50, I kind of sat down, I'm like, all right, dude, if you're if you're ever gonna do this, now is it. Right. And so the the book is culmination of my philosophy, my my how how I get things done, uh, how I've overcome a bunch of struggles. And uh as I'm writing it, number one, it's it's incredibly, incredibly helpful uh healing, even uh to walk through some of my own failures and my own processes. And at the end of two years, I'm like, look, I I wrote a book and here it is. And so I've taken that book now and and crafted a number of keynotes and some workshops out of it. And yeah, but it it's it's it's uh one of those things where it's it is a uh a lifelong goal that I have finally realized. SPEAKER_01 1:01:22 And we will put a a link to uh so you can get hold of Tim's book in the description, by the way. So he says, look below, or whatever. Most people will be listening to this while mowing the lawn or being asleep or wherever it is that people listen to Wallacey podcasts. We'll make certain that you can get a copy of the book. And do you think you learnt a lot from the process? I I I wrote a book 10 years or so ago. I've written a few books now, but that one was 10 years ago, and I learned a ton about how I thought from the process. So I would encourage others to write books, potentially also a legacy. Yeah. SPEAKER_00 1:01:56 I mean, it it it it it was I learned a lot about myself, I learned a lot about my own writing. I finally grasped the uh the need for editing. And that sounds funny as somebody who has done uh reporting and writing and and podcasting for 15 years. Uh I I still at f it at almost 50, I was like, well, I I I I write pretty well. I don't need editing. And and after 50,000 words, I'm like, oh my gosh, do I need to edit this thing? And it was it was a great, great learning experience. And I quite frankly, it it made me a better writer, writing like junk and and writing just nonsensical sometimes. I I went through back through the editing process. I I deleted two entire chapters because uh I some of it was repetitive and some of it didn't belong. And I I didn't completely uh obliterate them. I took parts and pieces and put them in other chapters, but it was a great experience just for me personally uh and professionally to to quite frankly to be a better writer. SPEAKER_01 1:02:54 Yeah, I'd encourage anyone listening to this, at least have a go. But the first thing you have to do is put something in writing. Unfortunately, that appears to be the hard bit. It isn't. The verbal diarrhea, just to get it onto paper, is relatively easy. The editing piece I personally decided hated the editing piece. Just not something I personally was any good at at all. No, hard, both both physically or intellectually, but also emotionally to let go and go. This idea I think is really good, but it's not gonna jive with the with my with my potential audience, so I need to leave it out. That's very hard to do. Yeah. Interesting. SPEAKER_00 1:03:34 So the book's been out how long? Uh what is this? September, so four months? Four months? What's the name of the book? Uh Building on Ashes. SPEAKER_01 1:03:42 It's a great title, by the way. Thank you. I like that. I assume it's about cricket, right? SPEAKER_00 1:03:47 Yes. Dude, I'm I'm barely understanding European football. Don't don't throw cricket at me. SPEAKER_01 1:03:53 No. Fair enough. Can't really European. You mean football, not hand egg. SPEAKER_00 1:03:58 Yeah, but yeah. SPEAKER_01 1:04:00 Nothing. Well, that'll all be edited out. We're gonna have to take that whole section out of it. No, keep it. No, we will. We of course we will. That would involve me editing. We've already described how I can't. Yes, you don't you don't edit. I don't edit. It's like, no, stream of consciousness, get it out there. Someone will find it funny. Yeah. I hope. So, what's the next couple of years look like for you? SPEAKER_00 1:04:20 Wow. There's a couple of things. I'm actually, it's it's fascinating. It's uh once you do write a book, people come out of the woodwork. It's very, it's very uh rewarding. Uh, I am already talking to people about doing some speeches in 2027, both on the A-B side as well as on the book side. So, quite frankly, I will be doing more of that. I'm I'm reaching out to other call it areas, uh other end users who are are in different industries, but they still leverage our technology. And one of those, we already talked, we've talked a lot about broadcast. Broadcast is certainly one of those. Security is another one. You know, there's a show called ISC West that is incredibly popular, and uh, there's a lot of A B vendors that are there. So we will again continue to create content uh for these folks. K-12 is another area that we're making a push into uh just to be a resource for those folks that um that need to support their students and and their faculty. SPEAKER_01 1:05:17 Interesting. Well, look, we've been talking for a long time, and well, I guess we have to end at some point, but there's a million questions I probably should have asked you. Uh what should I have asked you that I didn't? SPEAKER_00 1:05:27 So one of the things about this journey, and I do not talk about it a lot, and I I don't because it feels a bit self-centered. But I do recognize the fact that you and I have known each other for almost 20 years. When you and I first met, I was over 300 pounds. I am no longer over three hundred pounds. So uh yeah, I mean, and and the weight loss is part of the the journey, is part of the book, is part of everything else. And uh it is not something I've talked about a lot publicly either. So you could have asked about that. SPEAKER_01 1:05:59 Well, I not why didn't why didn't you talk about it because it's an important journey. I mean you're for those of you who are watching or listening to this, Tim is to the point and I've known we've been friends for a long, long time. I barely recognized him. You're a very different, how can I put this politely? You're a very different shape than you were when I when I first met you. SPEAKER_00 1:06:17 No, that's that's 100% fair. That's 100%. SPEAKER_01 1:06:19 So you look great by the way. SPEAKER_00 1:06:21 Thank you. It's gonna sound weird because if you if you actually read the book or or or listen to it because I'm in the middle of recording the audio version. That book is very personal, right? Don't don't misunderstand what I'm gonna say. It's very personal, it's very open, it's very raw. For whatever reason, my health, my, my, my weight loss journey has been very personal, like even more so. Like if in the book I talk about my my mom and my sister, they both passed away within uh 12, 13 months of each other from cancer. Certainly that is 100% personal, right? There's some there's some there's some personal stuff there and I talk about that. For whatever reason me losing nine 90 pounds at this point it's another step of of personal I I don't know. It feels like another layer. SPEAKER_01 1:07:05 It's interesting isn't it I I was telling someone the other day about selling and I've been a sales guy for 40 years now this year. And I've always said that I can sell something else. I can sell anything to a greater or lesser extent. The only thing I can't sell is me. SPEAKER_02 1:07:19 Yeah. SPEAKER_01 1:07:20 I'm terrible at selling myself and people look at me like oh don't be stupid should be great at it. No, because it's personal. The rejection is personal. SPEAKER_00 1:07:27 Rejection is personal. SPEAKER_01 1:07:29 If you talk about things like your health well that's a per if someone gives you a funny look or sneer, you know whatever, I don't know what their reaction might be. Almost certainly nothing like as bad as you imagine it would be because nothing is ever as bad as you imagine it will be. But I can understand that level of of personal to it. Yeah. So that's great. So Tim look this has been as I knew it would be an absolute pleasure. Thank you my friend for getting involved in the show. We'll make certain that all of Tim's links to his book and the the Avi Nation stuff and and CTI and all of that stuff is uh links to that will be in the description. If you've got any thoughts that you want to leave the ladies and gentlemen with before I leave you. SPEAKER_00 1:08:11 Um there there is the I'm gonna try to make this not a a book pitch but I I it's it will sound like that. Every single one of us in this life is going to fail in some way shape or form more than more than once right the trick is getting back up and and the and the trick to getting back up is surrounding yourself with people that are there to support you and to provide uh and to push you along and let them do that. SPEAKER_01 1:08:33 I think that's a wonderful close. Tim Albright thank you so much for being on the Before It was obvious podcast everyone if you enjoyed the show please give us a like and a subscribe and send a comment to Tim. I think he's an inspiration to many of us uh he is certainly is to me as one of the most interesting and thoughtful people in this industry and we will see you next week for the next whoever it is that we have on the show next week. I don't actually know as yet. If you want to be on the show or know someone who does or should be maybe they don't want to be on the show but they should be anyway drop me a line or drop me a note in the comments. With that, Tim Albright thank you so much my friend. Thank you all again next week