>> Chris Dechter: AV Superfriends on Topic is an independent production wholly owned and operated by AV Superfriends, LLC. For the highest quality recording of all of our shows, visit avsuperfriends.com. this is AV Superfriends on topic, a 30 minutes monthly roundtable focused on a single topic. This discussion will be opinionated to the point and saturated with our well known blend of painfully won expertise and deeply ingrained immaturity. For September 2024, it's the, uh, best sounding
podcast in higher Ed. This is the AV super friends on topic, broadcasting live from coast to coast, easternmost and westernmost, northernmost to southernmost gate, post to hitching post, I'm your local host who can post the most milk toast and utmost humility. I'm Chris Dechter. Time for another Friday afternoon podcast adventure. And we've got a bigger panel. So let's say hello to today's panel of August AV Super Friends with this one.
So I'm joined by a senior optimization associate from Kansas City, Jamie Reinhart, who's not here. He quit. >> Lyle Waldron: All right. >> Chris Dechter: That guy's fired. Damn it. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Maybe he's watching. Jamie, hope you're watching this. >> Chris Dechter: Yeah, thanks. Thanks for me doing this too early, Jamie. All right. Also joined by a forward response synergist from Corvallis, Oregon, Mark Cholewczynski.
>> Marc Cholewczynski: Gotta keep it in front of us. We're only going in one direction here. Don't worry about what happened, only what's going on in the future. >> Chris Dechter: Joined, uh, by a direct accountability architect from Greensboro, North Carolina, Larry darling. >> Larry Darling: That's made up. Architects are not accountable or direct about anything.
>> Chris Dechter: Joined by our illustrious vice president for regional ideation from Bowling Green, Kentucky, Justin Rexing. >> Justin Rexing: I've only got local, regional ideas. I have no international or national ideas. >> Marc Cholewczynski: No influence. No local. >> Justin Rexing: Local only.
>> Lyle Waldron: Mhm. >> Chris Dechter: Also joined by a international metrics associate from an unknown location, geocentric, somewhere between Trinidad and Tobago, Lyle Waldron. >> Lyle Waldron: That sounds about right. I contest nothing. Nothing. >> Chris Dechter: And finally, joined by a customer, paradigm producer from orlando, Florida, Donnie Merritt. >> Donnie Merritt: I bring all the paradigms to the house. >> Chris Dechter: Only for customers.
>> Justin Rexing: I thought it was paradigm. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Paradigms. >> Justin Rexing: I always thought it was paradigm. Is it not? >> Donnie Merritt: And so, what part of the country you're from? >> Justin Rexing: Kentucky's paradigm. Well, yeah, you're right there. >> Chris Dechter: All right, so, uh, we gathered a few extra friends today. Uh, we wanted to talk specifically about one particular topic.
The fun time. Ever popular. It's just a hoot in a holler about budgeting. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Budgets. >> Chris Dechter: It's like budgets. >> Marc Cholewczynski: It's everything we do, right? >> Donnie Merritt: Everything. >> Chris Dechter: This was spurred by an article in av nation. The link is in the show notes. Um, Larry can probably figure out some way to place that into the, uh, socials, the stream socials things there, but, uh,
about general challenges with budgeting. And then, uh, Donnie in particular, who snuck his way both into that article as well as into our hearts on how we are going to get past all our free monies, which suddenly aren't there anymore and what are we going to do? And I think pretty much everyone on this call has a very different approach to how we do our own budgets and all that fun stuff. So I figure it'll be, uh, a laugh a minute. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Yeah. Where to begin?
>> Chris Dechter: Well, hold. Let me start the timer. >> Justin Rexing: Start with me. >> Chris Dechter: We're gonna start with Justin, tell us all about his budgeting. >> Justin Rexing: So, no, it's actually, uh, we just go for talking and we just react. >> Marc Cholewczynski: That's our budget reactionary budget model. >> Lyle Waldron: Yeah. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Just hope, hope and pray and. Yeah, wish in one hand. And.
>> Justin Rexing: We just, we sit back and wait for the request to come in and then we go meet with them and say, yep, your shit's broke. You need new shit. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Run to death. And then hope you got something. >> Chris Dechter: Run to. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Fine, yeah, run to fail. >> Justin Rexing: And then we hand it over to them as an estimate. And they're like, no, we don't want to do that. It's like, okay, well, you can keep your broke shit.
>> Marc Cholewczynski: You get the same functionality. >> Justin Rexing: It's either that or they're like, oh, the budget looks good. Let's proceed with project. And we, we do that. So the reason why we don't do budgeting really for classrooms and av across campus is because we don't control that centrally. It, uh, central, but money is not. So we got to meet with every individual department based upon what their needs are. So standardization. Throw that out the window.
>> Lyle Waldron: Mhm. >> Marc Cholewczynski: You are standard. You get nothing. Let's start from there. >> Justin Rexing: Standards is a loose term where if it's av a, we can do that. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Hey, buddy, we can do it. >> Justin Rexing: We could do av. If it's a. If it makes noise, it's probably us. >> Larry Darling: All right, so Lau was nodding in agreement. Is that pretty much yours?
>> Lyle Waldron: Uh, repeatedly. Well, look, I could tell you this, Larry. We don't have enough time for me to go through what budgets look like on two islands. Um, but yeah, pretty much. We exist in a space where AV is theoretically central, but it's not really. And yes, I usually do my outreach, um, during the semester, the year before. Our purchasing process takes at least six months to go from, you're approved to. It's by the
vendors. I did not see till it gets to us because everything has to go through Florida and then come to Trinidad. >> Marc Cholewczynski: They're signing off on everything. You're not getting anything until I see this po. >> Donnie Merritt: How do you think I get my equipment? >> Lyle Waldron: Line by line, right? And I get stuck in customs and, and. But, um, um, I'm, I'm in a different, slightly different philosophical based adjusting.
I still. I don't want to use the word force standards, but I still have to enforce standards because it's the only way that I know that I'm going to get our costs down in like, the big picture. So I'm talking about the time it costs for me to figure out your stuff because it's different from my stuff, which is different from don stuff. So, you know, we use NEC
projectors for now. We may be switching back to epsons. Um, I've tried to adopt Don, your broad, you know, I'm not trying to standardize down to the serial number of our device. Um, but, you know, we have all of our types, um, of rooms designed. I think one of the advantages in higher ed is we don't really. It's not like resi, that, you know, every install is different. Um, we have like five types of rooms, maybe six. And you get like one or two bespoke ever so often. So it's more
speakers. Less speakers, bigger amp. Um, smaller amp, um, bigger screen, you know, smaller screen. So, um, I have all my standards. We review them twice a year just to see if there's any way we could get cost down and, uh, maintain functionality up. And God forbid somebody actually says, here we have $100,000, which is not much in your dollars. Um, you know, we see what we could do, but I think it was John Wooden said, you know, preparation success, uh, sorry. Is preparation meeting opportunity.
So I just try to stay prepared. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Have something ready when basically, if a windfall comes along, have a plan to spend it and spend it if it. >> Lyle Waldron: Comes, yes, if it comes. We've submitted, everything's gone through our vps of finance. I'm actually right now doing both my operating budgets for 25 and my capital budgets for 25. So I expect. I think. Let me, let me tell you what I got last year for operating, right? See,
see which one of y'all are broke. Let's figure this out. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Okay, here we go. >> Lyle Waldron: 80,000 in my dollars. So I'm going to tell you the exchange rate and you all play a game to see who figures out what that is. In us first. I got 30,000 of my dollars, which is 6.9 to one us. So let's call it seven to make your lives easy. >> Chris Dechter: Mhm. >> Lyle Waldron: What was my operating budget for? 24. >> Justin Rexing: Five.
>> Marc Cholewczynski: $5.01. $1. I got a bit $1 on this. >> Justin Rexing: I got five prices. >> Lyle Waldron: Right. Just keep going lower. Right. So I mean, it's basically like, uh, call it 4600, 700, something like that. >> Justin Rexing: Yeah. >> Larry Darling: What, the year? >> Justin Rexing: Close.
>> Lyle Waldron: Yeah, for the year. And that was the operating budget for both my multimedia and audio visual support unit and the instructional design. >> Marc Cholewczynski: So that's labor and stuff combined. >> Lyle Waldron: Everything. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Okay. >> Lyle Waldron: You see that convo, Justin hard where he says, okay, your stuff is all. It's broken, needs to be replaced. That's my. It's broken, it needs to be replaced fund. Um, so yeah, it then
gets into, uh, ok. Vp finance work at what you call could you do for me? Because this is not for me, it's for them. And you know those convos. But philosophically, trust me, I know what it is like to scrape the bottom of the barrel. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Trust me, clean it. Yeah. All right. So that's a bargain basement. As low as you can go. Let's see how far we can stretch. Every last little bit, basically. >> Lyle Waldron: And I mean, just to wrap it up with a nice
bow, it doesn't mean that we don't get good stuff. I just have to operate from a different paradigm. So you all are touchscreens. We are heavy on button panels are the new touchscreens. I wish some manufacturers that end in tron that have colorful swirls would listen to that. >> Marc Cholewczynski: The tron kisses of the world. >> Lyle Waldron: I wish they would because I had a convoy with them just the other day where I said this. Right. So little things like
that. And you know, what we found is I've been able to do some very svelte things in programming. It, um, lets me get away with multiplicities of multiplicities in terms of control and a couple other things. But, um, I don't get to touch panels unless I'm doing zoom rooms. I know Chris is probably writhing and groaning inside. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Chris loves zoom rooms. I think, like, more than zoom rooms is teams rooms. >> Lyle Waldron: Teams rooms are compute
devices. Right? Fans of the children. We love compute. So, you know, we still have some nice stuff. You know, we're a tron shop. We're a media site shop. Um, we're a zoom shop. >> Justin Rexing: Oh, gosh, you sound like us. >> Lyle Waldron: Yeah, basically. Right. Because here's a fun fact, though. Here's the fun fact. Right? My faculty ever soften, fly to the states and sit and meet with your faculty. And then they come back to me. >> Marc Cholewczynski: All these things.
>> Lyle Waldron: Yeah, exactly. >> Justin Rexing: But we want to our campus, and they were like, media site restaurant, where. >> Marc Cholewczynski: You get those fancy button panels with those shaved off buttons on one 7th. >> Lyle Waldron: Of the budget, minus an actual budget. So, you know, let's figure it out. Over to you guys. Let's go. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Wow. Where's the other side of the spectrum on this? Who has, like, the most stable version
of this? I don't even know where I am. >> Justin Rexing: I went, Donnie. Money. That's what I want. >> Marc Cholewczynski: You guys always look at me like I have, like, money coming down from the mountains up here. And I bet there's somebody else on this call with money. >> Justin Rexing: Oregon money's pretty good, too. You got all those teams rooms up there. Those are expensive.
>> Marc Cholewczynski: Yeah, they are. Well, actually, they're kind of cheap in the grand scheme of things. But anyway, I'm curious of what's going on down in Florida. What's it look like? >> Donnie Merritt: So, it's funny, um, we do. How to say this. So, several years ago, I had the opportunity. We've been getting some of our funding. Uh, it's called the technology fee. So it's a fee on top of student
tuition and all of that. And there, for a very long time, it was distributed across campus through a proposal request system. Students were part of this and all that? Yes, it's basically an internal grant system, and a lot of the colleges used that to equip their classrooms. Fortunately, all of that funneled through the CIO. I reported to the CIO at the time, and when we wrote the rules for it, it was like, all right, well, you all can do what you want, but you have to use university standards
to do all of these. So, networking standards, the standards we created. So all of these projects that got done were done to our standards. So we are very fortunate in that we are fairly consistent across campus. And the equipment that we have. Problem is, not everyone was great at writing the grants. Not everyone got the grants. So it was really hit or miss. So in spring of 2020, fall of 19, spring of 2020, I was working under the direction of the CIO. It was like, all right, let's create
a fresh plan. He's like, we're just going to. Every year there are classrooms. Part of this. We're just going to cut some of this off and give it to you guys. >> Chris Dechter: Okay. >> Donnie Merritt: I love this idea. So about the time everything shut down, we had created a five year plan. We
were just starting to socialize it with folks. And, of course, everything had to get put on hold because now suddenly we've got to put equipment in rooms that we weren't planning for and all this other kind of stuff. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Um, and I bet you at that point that probably sounds very similar to a lot of folks that maybe are listening or not listening. Who knows? But I think that I felt a little bit of what we had here kind of rhymed
with that as well, so. Okay. And then what happened? Yeah. Went down. >> Donnie Merritt: Yeah. So we were moving in a positive direction. Then Covid, then, uh, remote, high flex, whatever you want to call the classes. We've got to equip for all of that. The first round we did, it was whatever webcams we could source, because there was no way we were going to get everything on board because we were already. We already had students back on campus in. In fall of 2020 here in Florida.
>> Justin Rexing: That's because Marvin bought all that shit. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Yeah, I already had it all. You weren't getting shit. So you guys all had whatever, fend for yourself with all the USB shotguns. >> Justin Rexing: Covid hit the west coast first, and Marc was like, this is gonna happen. I'm buying everything. >> Donnie Merritt: We're like, shit. >> Marc Cholewczynski: I mentioned we've got all the PT's optics in North America. We got them all.
>> Donnie Merritt: I believe that. I believe that. But, you know, and it was one of those things that we actually found some really good alternatives out of all of this. When you gotta go searching for things when you can't get the name brands, like, oh, actually, these folks are actually pretty good. >> Justin Rexing: We did learn a lot during COVID didn't we? >> Chris Dechter: Some of us did. Some of us went right back to doing stuff the same
way we did. I'm like, you guys missed a huge opportunity. >> Justin Rexing: We're doing all kinds of weird shit now in our rooms now. >> Chris Dechter: It's got sound in rooms. It's crazy. >> Justin Rexing: We got speakers in there now. It's crazy. >> Donnie Merritt: You know, hey, never let a. What is this? Yeah, a lot of people took up on that, but. So we've come back now. We're kind
of in the same way, the same situation a lot of other folks are. The university universities, uh, across the country were a little budget strapped. Uh, all of those funds that had been promised years ago, most of them are still there, but I've got a lot more equipment to put on a refresh plan now. So that five year fresh plan was originally got stretched out to a seven year plan. Then we started cutting back the footprint. So we've got it to a six year plan.
I'm hoping we can keep that budget so that we can keep doing that sort of thing. But we are, you know, that's the direction we're moving forward in. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Is it lumping up now, though? Do you have these, like, massive spikes now that even if you had that money, would it even be possible to do it? Because I think that's. I think a lot of folks are staring that down that we've, you've heard the fancy term, this is deferred
maintenance. All that means is we're not paying for it right now. We're not going to pay for it. We'll do that next year. We'll do that, everything over. So now you got these clumps happening for us. >> Donnie Merritt: No, because it's a well run to break away. Yeah, that too. >> Justin Rexing: That's why we operate all the time. >> Donnie Merritt: So it's great. And our networking stuff, I mean, our networking footprint, we do have some issues there. So there's some things I
can't do when it comes to networking. Like, you know, a lot of av over the network. I just can't do that in all of my spaces. So we're, you know, there are, there's some forward looking things we'd like to do. >> Chris Dechter: No one can. >> Lyle Waldron: What's not done exactly. >> Donnie Merritt: Exactly. But so one of the things we're trying to do now is, you know, we've got to remind folks, we UCF got a lot of money out of the
COVID her funds. We were actually, we were one of the schools that got one of some of the most in the country, and a lot of that was put back into supporting students. We had a lot of spaces we got to cover and all of this. And a lot of folks haven't made that connection. That that was one time money and it's not coming back. So when are you going to do these things for my space? >> Marc Cholewczynski: It was never going to be a sustainable budget.
>> Donnie Merritt: There's no money for that anymore. And even the projects we were doing back in the day, like, we would go in and we would completely refresh a room. We don't have the money to do that anymore either. So it's going in, you're looking. Whatever equipment you can reuse, we're going to reuse it so we can stretch this out to as many rooms as possible. Because I'm not just doing classrooms now. I've also got to make sure I hit some conference rooms.
I got to make sure I hit some labs, things that were not originally on that original plan because we're still doing hybrid or, you know, we've put space, you know, things into these rooms that they now need. We got to make sure they're on our fresh plan. So we're. We're stretched pretty thin and trying to get people to understand. No, really, there's no, there's no more money to do these things. That's been a, uh, bigger challenge for us.
>> Larry Darling: I got a question for you. Transition to going to a refresh plan. Refresh cycle. And we're on a refresh cycle, but it's relatively new as well. Like yours. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Yeah. Honore refresh cycle. >> Larry Darling: Yeah. The issue we're still struggling with is how do you determine what is and is not a covered space? Because we have departmental spaces that have enough credit hours that they deserve to be
covered. But, and it's just that weird mix of what do we take the cost of and what do we not? >> Donnie Merritt: I'll tell you how I do it. And, uh, there are some folks who don't like it, but I use whatever the data is that the university reports to the board of governors out of the FICOM data. So the 110 classrooms, I don't care who owns it. If it is a 110 room, it's on my plan. It's like, well, but we teach classes in this other space, but it's not a classroom.
>> Marc Cholewczynski: Teach there. >> Donnie Merritt: So if you, uh. And that's the, that's the conversation we're having with colleges now, is that one of the things we needed to do across the campus anyway is true up some of our space
inventory. And this is one of the ways of doing that is like, well, if you're using the space as a classroom, you need to talk to the space folks to get it categorized as a classroom, because we go through every year and we refresh that 110 room list, we're going building by building. So we're doing this building this year. If you want to change those categories, reach out to Christy and have that conversation. But that takes it
off my plate, and that takes it out of. Well, they said this says, this is what we report to our board of governors. >> Larry Darling: Yeah, that's the stumbling block we're at right now. Because I've, in the spring semester, I had classroom emergencies in rooms that were not classified properly. And so now I'm struggling with that equipment is twelve years old. There's no way you should be having a class in there. >> Lyle Waldron: So, I mean, like, I'm unironically in a
similar state, Donnie. But what I've found is that I've spent. If I look at the past two to three years of my life, I've spent way more time meeting with the executive. I've spent way more time in the office of the president speaking about frameworks and policies and structures, because I think, uh, a part and parcel why, you know, all of us in ev, um. Um, end up having conversations like this, Larry, is because we can, but we often don't, you know, have that intervention at the
level of the executive. And, um, like, I found a lot of these things. As much as I'm 100% with Don here, right. If you're teaching like this, the data says this is the most used spaces, then I'm just going to, you know, put it on my agenda. But what I've found, and I said this at our, uh, infocom this year, at one of those presentations that I had to do, is I have to run at the speed of the university.
If the provost is not interested, if the president is not interested, if this is not a priority for them, then I could show till I'm blue in the face. I could show. Correct? Right. I could show till Donnie can hear me. You know, in Florida, it's not going to matter. So what I've been able to do, and I'm very happy that I've been able to do that, is I've spent the time, um, dealing with letting my staff do what they do and me dealing with the frameworks.
So I'm literally in the process of restructuring the entire team right now, again, and, you know, all that kind of stuff, and it comes back into those frameworks as well. We are RTF university. We just are. Uh, I'm often finding myself repurposing screens that were incorrectly installed by my IT department before I took a. That stuff over into rooms where they don't have any screens, but they needed a
screen. If somebody said, hey, let's just shoot this on a wall, you know, it's gonna make sense one day. And I find myself reinstalling a seven year old projector, but letting everybody know, hey, this is gonna die. It's gonna die six months ago. It's not gonna come back on when it. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Uh. >> Lyle Waldron: Do not call me unless you have a budget. If you don't have a budget, don't call me.
>> Justin Rexing: What's the oldest piece of equipment that you know of that you. Oh, that is running or in a classroom? >> Marc Cholewczynski: It's. Let me. >> Justin Rexing: Let me ask this question. Are you still rocking NP's? One hundred s? >> Lyle Waldron: Oh, no. We never party. Justin, I love you, but no. >> Justin Rexing: So we have them in our classroom. >> Lyle Waldron: We've never had the budget to go the MP.
>> Justin Rexing: Oh, you never even could afford the mps 100. >> Lyle Waldron: Listen, I've been that guy shouting at my steering. I listen to you all when you'll get all the design stuff. Told you this class was there might be classroom is projector that. I'm using the projector as my switch on my volume controller and my display. So my output from my projector is going to hit my amp. That's going to hit my speakers. If I'm lucky, in my 30 by 30 rooms, I can do four cans
in the ceiling. If I'm really, really lucky, I could do like, Jason and the boys at FIU and get two of those JBL drop ins or equivalent. Right? But more than likely, I'm going to have Christopher, because the ghost of Christopher exists on my team, and he's shouting at us classroom to classroom. Why are those speakers on the wall? They're ridiculous. We got those walls. >> Chris Dechter: Exactly what I sound like. There you go.
>> Lyle Waldron: And, Justin, I got ten of those rooms on one processor. No, not in separate program slots. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Oh, just running it? Yes. >> Lyle Waldron: Wow. >> Justin Rexing: I'm going to say one program. >> Lyle Waldron: One program. >> Justin Rexing: You're unlucky. Can I get speakers? >> Lyle Waldron: I listen to this podcast. I have something to do in here, but that's not for today. We're doing budgets.
>> Justin Rexing: That's just one building, though. >> Marc Cholewczynski: This is the premise of what I was talking about. >> Lyle Waldron: You can do it, too. I'm just. >> Marc Cholewczynski: When you're pushing down that. That total cost, and you need to get, like, the bare utility out of a room, I think, wow, you are. You are at, like, this is the utility I need to have. It's a computer, a, uh, display in whatever basic other peripheral I need to make it sound.
>> Lyle Waldron: So, again, I don't. We're not gonna relitigate that episode today. Maybe we could do a part two, and y'all can invite me over because nobody's more broke than me, but. So. So for that, I get. I get as much return as I can. Yeah, but all of my rooms that we started doing in. I don't want to tell a lie. We got those things kicked off in 17. They're in the 7th year of existence. Basically. Anybody who knows anything will tell you your
switching equipment is not really gonna fail. Maybe those PTC is not gonna go down well. Okay, Chris, maybe your switch equipment. I can't afford a switcher, so I don't have that work. But what goes down to you in your five, six, seven? It's gonna be a displays, right? >> Marc Cholewczynski: Yeah. >> Lyle Waldron: So my projectors are the ones that are really gonna be
kicking me in the butt that I need to do replacements for. But unlike some people that are super friends with keeps, I can't just throw a projector out there and forget all about it. I have a staff of four. No, it used to be a staff of two. I have ten campuses, and I have growing. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Yes, it's great. Right in the pocket. >> Lyle Waldron: Definitely half full, but you double. >> Chris Dechter: There you go.
>> Lyle Waldron: But you see where I'm going with this. So for me, that's why I couldn't run from standards. That's why it's so important for me to have those framework meetings, because my provost said to me, lyle, we're expanding regionally. I'm like, okay, so we want to do more hybrid instruction. I'm like, all right. Uh, and, uh, we neither have the
staff nor the budgets fit. And he's like, don't worry about it. No, let's say that it's not being sweet talked, right, to get me out to the office, because I talk a lot. I'm going to be prepared. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Well, as far as. As crazy as it feels, I think there's a lot of people that are in that similar situation, and I think those folks probably didn't realize that a portion of their job was going to be this legalese, this whole lobbying effort that
it takes. And you've heard us talk about it in the past where it's like, do you know what the. Whatever your new framework is, whatever your new CIO CEO came in and they put down their new five year plan, can you take what you do and fit it into that framework? Like, you speaking, like, making sure that framework. Right, so that you can be playing the same game they are playing and understand how to explain your needs so it meets that same goal. A lot of AV folks are like,
I just hang projectors, right? They don't understand that that's where they're at. And, like, you have to be at the table, like you're mentioning, and, uh, that's where decisions made is your narrative aligned with that larger campus narrative. And sometimes you got to get creative. No more creative writing. >> Lyle Waldron: To piggyback on what you just said, I think what we miss is this. When the academics meet, because I've been,
the former president asked me to sit in an academic council. So now I am there, and I'm listening, but I'm also speaking. When they meet at academic council, they do not discuss spaces, tier ones, tier twos, and the rest, they discuss classroom stuff like teaching. They discuss blended and online and that stuff. So for me, let's take it a slightly different direction. Who is
speaking about Evdeenen? If you're the most senior tech manager on your university campus, and you are not bringing it to the president, and you are not bringing it to the provost, then don't write super friends a stink letter, uh, saying I have no money. The reason you have no money is not because of Chris and Justin and Mark and Larry. It's not because of Don.
>> Marc Cholewczynski: And it might be it's Jamie M. >> Lyle Waldron: Yes, Jamie, but it's also you because you've not sat down and said yes. You know what, let me knock on somebody's door that has a brass plaque over the top that says president. >> Marc Cholewczynski: But don't bring them a problem, bring them a solution. >> Chris Dechter: Solutions.
>> Donnie Merritt: And sometimes the solution is to do less. Because one of the things we forget about is that not everyone uses the equipment we put in all these classrooms. Like there. I, uh, get asked all the time, well, when are you going to put a, um, smart. >> Lyle Waldron: In my room, smart boy? >> Donnie Merritt: I'm not. Because, ah, when we look at who uses them across campus, I got four faculty, maybe a little bit more.
>> Marc Cholewczynski: Go over there and use it. >> Donnie Merritt: Yeah. And that's the, that's where we're moving towards is helping people find where we've got the space so we're not duplicating this unused equipment. >> Marc Cholewczynski: I want to ask specifically about that as part of your new budget modality or what you want to call it, are you revisiting space and say, should we even have technology in here to begin with?
>> Donnie Merritt: No, because, no, we can't take it back at this point. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Really? Okay, interesting. >> Donnie Merritt: Will be what about if you did. >> Chris Dechter: That at night and didn't tell people? >> Donnie Merritt: It's an accessibility thing, guys. >> Chris Dechter: Gaslight them and tell them it was never there. >> Donnie Merritt: Now there I have been asked to take equipment out of space.
You're one person out of the 22 teaching in here. I can't take it. Correct. Um, but you know, and so that's kind of where it comes to because anyone can get put in any room. We've got to keep a base standard across, a consistent experience across the board. We put more stuff in there too. >> Marc Cholewczynski: I think we look at like the metrics, actual usage. Do you find spaces that are maybe not getting as used as much? Kind of circling back? What Larry
was kind of getting at. If you have the edge cases where you're like, we have capacity centrally for these spaces that are funded more ADA correct and accessible. Why would we keep chasing something else somewhere else at the end of the lifespan? >> Donnie Merritt: That is exactly what we're doing right now. In fact, there's an, ah, effort underway at the university to better utilize all of our spaces. And we're taking classrooms offline because that we've had. The
registrar's office had some folks come in, they did an assessment. We've got a thousands of hours of unused room time, um, in our classes. So they're just starting to cut classrooms off of it. And that's actually been a boon for us. Cause we've gone in when they take one off. We decommissioned the room and now we've got a whole bunch of stairs. Yeah, well, and it's not just spares, but it's also in these other places where we've not been able to add a room to our refresh list.
>> Lyle Waldron: It's like. >> Donnie Merritt: But now I can take care of some of these things because I got pieces and parts to do it with. So we're trying to be as creative as we can, but, you know, also trying to be that good steward of not just the equipment, but the space itself. >> Lyle Waldron: Mark, could I just really quickly just challenge that, though? Because the question for me is the space is not being used, is it?
Because what is the question? Why is it not being used? If we've not answered that question, should we immediately get to the answer of, let's take it, you know, let's take it down? >> Marc Cholewczynski: So I'm going to respond first. We all have it, but this room is in where my office is, and I don't want to walk over there in my whatever department made an investment 15 years ago. When we put some stuff in here, we need new stuff, and it was done on a grant
model back then. Doesn't that mean you're going to come over here and pay for it for us? And the answer is no. No, we're not. In fact, you should actually look at where the capability exists on campus and welcome the opportunity to go out and mix around with the community. >> Donnie Merritt: Yeah. And our provost has essentially taken back all of the classroom spaces like they belong to the provost, and so they're the. They are going to do with it as. As the needs tell us.
>> Justin Rexing: We know that's a good thing. >> Donnie Merritt: Well, we need so much more research space, lab space. We need so much more office space. If these spaces aren't being used for that, I got researchers we can put in there, and that that is what we're going to do because we are not going to be able to build enough new buildings in the amount of time that we need to cover all of our needs. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Right?
>> Lyle Waldron: I mean, nor should we, to be fair. We had a million buildings, and, uh, we had to get rid of a couple of campuses. We're not, you know, we're not doing too badly since. But, I mean, I. For me, Mark, I just feel so strongly about that last point, which is like, well, okay, I'm not sure what the problem is. Was the problem detect? Was the problem that it was designed poorly? Was the problem that, you know, they. They did not. They were too lazy to redesign their instruction.
So, like, a great example is somebody phone or 60 inch smart touch board. The other day, office, city president. I don't. Somebody donated it. Wanted to impress him or whatever. The new president says to me, hey, look, I don't want this. This is just sitting in my office. What can you do with it? Smart. Yeah. The first thing you think right away to the dumpster. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Now we have two of these things.
>> Lyle Waldron: This is outside of my paradigm. I've never seen one before. We spent two weeks trying to figure out how to manage it remotely, because, again, if you didn't figure it out, I have ten campuses on two islands. I don't have staff at every campus. So if I can't touch this thing remotely, it's not going out into my system. It's just not. So we figured it out, and we're going to deploy it maybe in the next two weeks before September comes
around. But this is the question for me all the time, is like, well, okay, what are we doing with this? What are we doing with that? What is the real problem? What do you solve? Question correct. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Yeah. What actually needs to be done? So, uh, I'm curious to just see the different. The takes on that. Everybody has their own little version of it, but so, as we kind of began this journey here, we had that whole conversation around. You had all these new one time funds.
Has that changed the way we look at what our quote unquote standards look like now versus what they did before that? And I'll, um, tee it off here. Obviously, we're kind of going down the road where we're actually collapsing room types, as blasphemous as that sounds. >> Justin Rexing: No, you're lying. >> Marc Cholewczynski: No, we're converting into, like. It's more kid. Right? It's more. Yeah. We have, uh, 27,000 versions of Dash B's, but it's mostly kit now.
Right? And so as early as this morning, it's like, how does that change the way we look at our refresh versus response. You know, we can do break fix because the kit is the same. We're out of black box mystery stuff. Maybe not everywhere, but, you know, as we move to our standard infrastructure, I think it gives us a level of flexibility where it allows us to view
how we look at rooms differently. We can get a little bit more time out of a standardized teaching space now because we're going with a more modular kit. Um, what's different today with any of your kind of your quote unquote standards at this point? >> Donnie Merritt: See, that's where we've been for a long time. Even our. Even our, um, high, uh, end, um, active learning rooms, they're still based on that basic kit. Uh, we do not call our
rooms tier one, tier two. We don't have any of that stuff. >> Marc Cholewczynski: You don't have a legacy end of life room category. >> Justin Rexing: We have one category, too. It's called other. It's really simple. >> Chris Dechter: I thought it was custom. >> Justin Rexing: Other all. >> Donnie Merritt: Well, I'm telling you, it will change the way you think about it
because names are. Names are destiny. When you start calling things tier one, tier two, or giving them fancy names, then people suddenly, uh, get emotional about what space they're in. We don't. I don't play that game. It's like you have one display, you have two displays, you have multi displays. >> Marc Cholewczynski: That. >> Donnie Merritt: That is the only difference in our rooms. Everything else works. >> Chris Dechter: You just described three years, don't you?
>> Donnie Merritt: Technically, but from a functional point of view. Right? So I'm getting them to think about what does the room do for you? Not like, what does it mean to be on, uh, tier one room? Blah, blah, blah, blah. >> Lyle Waldron: Yeah, we're face to face, we're video conferencing, and then we're other being auditorium, large format, you know, partition, uh, beast like that kind of stuff. But we
really. And I mean, you shouldn't be surprised, right? Because the greatest thing happened to me is one of my trons made me a part of Florida. There's a fun little story on that. I'm not going to get it into this, but that's how I met. Don't put into Florida because technically I'm latam. Um, but we don't speak Spanish in Trinidad, right? So, yeah, we're in the same exact state because a lot of what some of the discussions done that we used to have, you know, ten years ago, were the things
that I really saw fit to put in. I'll tell you this much about your question mark. When Covid hit and you all were getting all that money. I'm not. I'm not an envious guy, but I would be lying as a human if I did not see, I sat back with my arms folded because I consider all of you all to be my peers. And I was
really envious. I was upset. But then little bit by little bit, I see you all buying, like, Logitech webcams and, like, Amazon webcams, and I'm like, oh, this is going to be interesting when Covid's done. So in many ways, like, now that it's done and all of the, like, av week articles and HetMa articles are basically like, uh, okay, what are we going to do now that we've created this crisis? I'm kind of happy that, you know, we, we've been able to stay the course. Obviously.
I wish I had more funding. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Yeah. >> Lyle Waldron: But I'm happy that a lot of what I was able to put in place, even though it's on paper, because everything is RTF, I'm no more mature and a little bit, you know, easier going, able to sit with the president and the provost and these kind of folk and get them to go, let's fix the structure. Because money
or not money, if those structures are, uh, let me put it this way. If I give you all the money and you're still in the bad state that you are in terms of your structures, your frameworks, understanding the support matrix that your executive wants, you're just going to waste it like in the COVID days anyway. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Yeah, it's easy because it's. It's easy to spend once you have it sitting there, right. It burns all in your pocket. I'm going to pull
executive decision here. I'm going to put another quarter in the meter and we're going to spend a little more time because we have some good friends on the show today. So we're going to be a little bit of overtime today on this since we're not going to confine it 30 seconds. I think this is really great conversation because I think there's a lot of people trying to now figure out, what do you
do now? Because you did all this stuff and you put all this new stuff in, and so how do you start to rethink that to potentially capture the, the savings you're going to have to find? So you did all this expansion, you put all these cameras, you put all these microphones, you did all this stuff, you loaded up with widgets to get it all into your, your usb, and that was outside your standard. But now
I can't afford that. So what. What are the strategies we're thinking about actually working on to get our arms around that? >> Donnie Merritt: So magical. Money from heaven is a wish in the monkey's paw. I mean, uh, bottom line, it sounds great until you hear that knocking at the door and you're afraid to open the door. And for us, the knocking on the door is people's change of perception across campus. Well, you got all of this money. It fixed all your problems, didn't it? No, it did not.
>> Marc Cholewczynski: Created more problems. >> Donnie Merritt: Not only created more problems, but some of them, it just moved down the road, some of the old ones. So part of. The. Part of it is kind of reframing that conversation is, all right, we got all this equipment now. How much of this do you want to keep? How much is functionality do you want to keep in your spaces? And that's been, uh, that's been a good conversation for folks because
the accessibility part, I'm going to lean into that pretty heavily. It has been a boon for accessibility, a huge, huge improvement to our students, and we are doing this for our
students. So we will keep those sorts of things through. But I'll go back to something that didn't, uh, really get covered a lot in the article, but we were talking about a little bit from the pre show, is that, um, we discovered a lot of new people and a lot of new products and a lot of new companies when we were forced to look elsewhere for solutions. And a lot of them cost a lot less than the ones we were using
before. And so one of the things we were doing is looking at what we have been consistent in putting across all of our campuses, for whatever reason, going, do we still need to use that particular thing, or is there another solution here? And a lot of cases, there's been another solution. And a lot of those cases I've been really happy with that new solution.
>> Justin Rexing: Kind of going to your point, Donnie, is we've. We went through that same thing, is, you know, button panels, a button panel sort of. They all have their different configurations and all that. But we're buying Crestron, Kramer, extron, we're buying CUSA stuff. We're so we don't have standards of equipment anymore, but we have standard experiences that we still drive because faculty
don't care. They're touching. As long as it's working the way they think it should work, similar enough. >> Marc Cholewczynski: To get the job done. The problem we have is telling the metric story afterwards. >> Justin Rexing: It's actually expanded our capabilities for human resources, because now my programmer knows so many different things and our installers know how to configure so many different things. It's made us a better group.
>> Donnie Merritt: Well, and so one of the things we've been trying to move folks away from talking about, you know, uh, the crestron. The crestron. The crestron is a what you think it is. They keep saying that and that confuses things when they're asking for help. So we're trying to. It is. It is. But Mark, to your point, it depends on what metrics you're tracking. So one of the things we're trying to do is I don't, when I'm reporting up our age
metrics and all these sorts of things, I don't want to tell them. This equipment, this manufacturer, this manufacturer, this manufacturer, I'll go, all of our document cameras. Average age. >> Lyle Waldron: Yes. >> Donnie Merritt: So you got to be selective. And how you create those metrics and how you report them up, be as generic as you can, because at the end of the day, senior leadership does not care where you got it from. They just want to know that functionality.
>> Marc Cholewczynski: Is still there, plumb into their chart on their dashboard. >> Lyle Waldron: Mhm m I'm philosophically in the same boat. I just walk one step to the left because I kind of have to maintain my button panels as crestron. I can't do one of all because I'm literally just in on an island. I don't have you all to call. I can't jump in my car and drive from like fiu to donnie to sit with his team and learn
something. So when you're literally on a rock and it literally takes 5 hours to fly to Florida, you know, I can't get too experimental. I guess the good news is I have no money, so I can't get any. All, um, experimental buying all, ah, it doesn't matter. Right. But again, you know, I'm happy that my team is going to listen to this podcast. At least they promised me to. I have to do the performance appraisal, so you go figure that out. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Chris.
>> Chris Dechter: Ask pointed questions about this episode by. >> Lyle Waldron: Seven listeners today in September. Right. So. But, um, um, they're going to listen to this, and I'm comforted to know that they're going to hear this and go, wait a minute, we're only off the bell curve of the big boys because we have no money. We did everything else right, really. And as a tough sell for me, because
I always think I could find something I've done wrong all the time. But as I said, just looking at, looking back at that whole Covid process and how y'all funded mark, you know, I'm just like, okay. I think, yeah, I think that's gonna be horrible for them in a couple of years. >> Marc Cholewczynski: We're all living paycheck to paycheck. We all spend everything that comes in. Like, that's just the reality of what happens, that we will grow to as much as we can. And I think
we're. Yeah, exactly. I'm borrowing it tomorrow. And so I think that we're all in that. >> Lyle Waldron: Two years ago for Infocom, you don't talk to exchange rates in the game. >> Chris Dechter: Okay. >> Marc Cholewczynski: If nothing else, I think there's comfort in knowing we're all trying to figure it out. Right? And we knew. I think there's a little bit of narrative from everybody's perspective that we had
here. I think there has been some grace kind of given, and I agree with everything that we said around finding alternate solutions, because I think it has pushed down the cost. Right. It has allowed us to maybe capture some of that new capability because we reduce the way we're thinking about things. Can we simplify this down that we know we're going to keep that utility based in our standards and not lose this new found
capability we came across due to Covid or whatever it is. Um, but finding a responsible way to keep it in there so that we're not reducing experience across the board becomes the name of the game. >> Donnie Merritt: Yeah. And everyone's solution is going to depend on local politics. I mean, what works for one person is not going to work for somebody else, because your leadership is just going to be different. You're going to have to navigate that yourself.
>> Marc Cholewczynski: Absolutely. Chris, are we all wrong? Tell us we're all wrong. >> Chris Dechter: No, I think you guys got to the meat of it at the end there with, um, that long. Yes. With the concept of this is an opportunity to rethink how we do things. And if we're just going back and, um, doing things the same way we did in 2018, 2017, we're probably. It may be right for your institution, for your scenario. But there was a huge opportunity here, and there's still
an opportunity. Just previously, the opportunity was funded. Now the opportunity is not funded. So now you have to be clever about it, but the opportunity is still there to look at that and say, do I really need all this stuff? I think, Donnie, I think you're the one who said, like, we have all these things in it. Do we need all this, really? I don't think we need this, but no one uses it. There's four people. And, you know, I'm doing that as I make rooms simpler,
as I. As I try to get. Remove stuff from between instructors and their students. Why am I getting in between there? Why do I need a giant stack of equipment to do all that? Because it's nothing. It's not sustainable in the long term. It's easier to support if there's fewer things, if those fewer things are more common around campus, if those fewer things tie more appropriately to how people are using them for teaching and learning, then
there's, you know, the benefit there is. The cost comes down, I guess, can come down. >> Marc Cholewczynski: So the standards are not the names of brands on your list? >> Donnie Merritt: No, it's functionality. Yeah. >> Chris Dechter: And people shouldn't know that. To the comment about Crestron, it's like, I always think it'd be good model for them to just sell stickers you can put in other people's stuff.
>> Marc Cholewczynski: If that's what pays the bills, I'll get it done. So. All right, so get creative, be flexible. Um, and think about the experience. Right. And, uh, own it. Be at the table. Be at the table. If you're not there, who is? And if the answer is you don't know, go be the person. >> Donnie Merritt: Yeah. >> Chris Dechter: And think fundamentally about those. The activities that the teaching, learning on the space, what do they actually need to do? You keep
boiling it down, boil it down, boil it down. What are they trying to do? Because at the end of the day, the person teaching their physics class, their history class, their science, you know, whatever, they. They don't care. What. That's a. They don't care. Can I see that person? Can they see me? Can they hear me? Can I get my content to them? If it's me holding up a laptop, that might be the right solution for them.
>> Justin Rexing: But I don't know, Chris. My biology department really likes 444 color space. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Sure they do. >> Chris Dechter: Sure they do. Yes. Right? They also like Netflix. >> Lyle Waldron: I'm sure they could tell the differences, too, right? >> Justin Rexing: Ah. >> Larry Darling: With their four by three PowerPoint. >> Chris Dechter: On their four by three PowerPoints.
>> Marc Cholewczynski: All right, well, lyle, Donnie, if people want to chat to you guys, how are they getting ahold of you? >> Donnie Merritt: You can always find me on LinkedIn or just email me directly. Don merritcf. Easy to find. >> Lyle Waldron: Gosh, I'm like mini me Donny today. So you can find me on LinkedIn, or you can email me at lyle waldronutt.edu dot tt. >> Chris Dechter: I thought you were gonna say at Ucf as well.
>> Donnie Merritt: One day, maybe one day. >> Lyle Waldron: Uh, maybe soon. >> Chris Dechter: Just show up up there. >> Donnie Merritt: Yeah, I made it. >> Lyle Waldron: That's what I did last time. Chris, it did not work out. I'm standing in my. Okay, that was a TMI. >> Chris Dechter: All right, well, uh, I'm gonna roll us out here. Uh, thanks again to allowance to Donnie for joining us, putting up with our
nonsense. And, uh, I think we've solved all potential future all budgeting, standardized budgeting questions and. And classroom tiers and equipment standards. And we've done it all today. And we still have time left on the clocks. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Signing off. Yeah, solved it all. 30 more minutes to go. Get ready. >> Chris Dechter: Um, we'll be back next month with another topic of whatever we come up
with for that one. So. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Play the music out for us. >> Chris Dechter: I'm working on it. >> Marc Cholewczynski: I know. >> Chris Dechter: So there it is. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Well, Donnie, thank you, guys. >> Donnie Merritt: Thanks. Thanks, guys. >> Chris Dechter: Thanks for putting up with yet another episode of AV Super Friends on topic. You can contact us with questions, topic ideas, or general complaints at av superfriends.com.
>> Marc Cholewczynski: Nice work, everyone. >> Chris Dechter: Sharp broadcast. >> Lyle Waldron: Really good. >> Chris Dechter: Everyone on the floor as well. >> Lyle Waldron: Really a lot of hustle. I liked it. >> Chris Dechter: The opinions expressed by the AV super friends are solely those of the individuals and do not represent their respective institutions, organizations, companies, or clients.
AV Superfriends on topic is an independent production wholly owned and operated by AV Superfriends, LLC. For the highest quality recording of all of our shows, visit avsuperfriends.com dot.