For the third year in a row, SCN has partnered with SYMCO to present technology user panels at the manufacturer rep's Regional Technology Showcases in Boston and New York City during October. Details and registration are available here.
Sandro Sherrod
- On October 22, the tech showcase lands in New York City. Let's catch up with one of the panelists.
Sandro Sherrod is the director of collaborative infrastructure and audiovisual strategy at the NYU School of Medicine. He works closely with students, faculty, researchers, and clinicians to develop meaningful technology applications for academic, research, and clinical missions. He is responsible for design and implementation of physically integrated audiovisual and telepresence equipment across the NYU Langone Healthcare System. He is a lifelong New Yorker who is committed to improving the New York experience, and when not working at NYU, he volunteers his time to make local government more accessible and responsive to all.
What is your current role within your organization?
I am responsible for design and implementation of physically integrated audiovisual and telepresence equipment in administrative, academic, and clinical spaces across the NYU Langone Healthcare System.
What has been the most surprising shift in technology since your career began?
Our users are often driving paradigm shifts because of their use of consumer home technology that is often innovating faster than commercial technology manufacturers can. Because of this, we are often working with our partners to try to keep up and expand feature sets. Previously, much of these technologies were less regularly utilized and often only reserved for special academic events.
What is the biggest change you're seeing in the workflow within your organization?
The pedagogical shift from traditional lectures to more collaborative discussions, often referred to as the flipped classroom, has led to changes in all of our missions and led to more fluid discussions everywhere from the lab bench to the boardroom.
What do you think of when you think of AV technology?
What I think of when I hear AV technology can often be quite different from others. AV technology in my opinion should be all the bits and pieces that allow for someone to accomplish whatever it is that they need to do, with as little fuss as possible. I am often dumbfounded when I go into a room and there is a myriad of input cables and dongles, or worse, an IR remote that a user can never figure out how to use. That isn't a successful integration of AV technology; that is more just an organized collection of stuff that ultimately serves no purpose but to frustrate.
What technology is the next must-have within your organization?
We have long ago adopted cloud-based meetings, but now we are now looking at how to make participation less painful and fully integrated into our telepresence-enabled spaces. We want smart meeting spaces that know who and what to connect before a user enters the room. The goal is to remove the 5 to 10 minutes of setup time it often takes before meetings can get started.
