In January, QSC president and CEO Joe Pham, Ph.D. (Electrical Engineering, UCLA) was named chairman of the 2019 AVIXA Board of Directors, after serving as vice chair last year. This will be Pham’s fifth year as a board member. As such, he is intimately familiar with the process AVIXA went through to identify and enable the industry’s role in integrated experiences of all kinds. Pham is also celebrating his 15th year with QSC, having joined in 2004 as chief strategy and technology officer.
He has a lifelong passion for music and for connecting people, so the integration of audio, video, IT and experience informs his work across his many industry roles and relationships. Just as multidiscipline collaboration got us this far, it is launching the next evolution of AVIXA and our industry.
How will AVIXA focus on the integrated experience in the coming year? How will it equip members to be part of that? How will it inspire and drive the market to embrace AV-enabled experiences?
JOE PHAM: Delivering exceptional experiences is critical to [AVIXA’s] vision and core mission, and we will continue to develop new content, training and other supportive materials that not only help our members serve a functional AV need, but enable them to powerfully combine content, technology and spaces to conceive, design and deliver those integrated experiences.
What are some of the technology trends you’re seeing in the industry today?
JP: It’s not about new technologies in isolation, but how technologies come together to create new customer value and transform the economics of our industry. Over the last several years, our industry has converged and evolved—shifting from discrete, purpose-built functional hardware to integrated AV hardware/software platforms that are becoming a critical part of a broader IT ecosystem. As with other industries that have taken a similar journey in the past, these unified AV/IT ecosystems will produce powerful new types of data, creating new insights that will transform the economics of our industry.
[QSC's Pham Named 2019 Chairman of AVIXA Board of Directors, Jan. 24, 2019]
What are some of the business trends you’re seeing?
JP: Marc Andreessen’s 2011 WSJ article “Software Will Eat the World” really resonates for our industry today. On the business innovation side, we’re seeing new cloud-based delivery and consumption models, along with platform and ecosystem solutions that create value over an entire customer lifecycle, not just at the point of AV commissioning and installation. A business strategy to produce, harvest and analyze AV data within the broader IT ecosystem is the next great era in our industry.
What do you think will surprise people at InfoComm this year?
JP: There will clearly be many new exciting products, solutions and technologies debuted at InfoComm this year, but perhaps more compelling and surprising is the conversations people are now having in our industry. We are witnessing our AVIXA community of exhibitors and attendees coming together in exciting new ways, combining their passion and broad range of talents to produce new insights and craft incredible new AV experiences that will change the way people communicate, collaborate, create and have fun.
[InfoComm Inspo: QSC, by Megan A. Dutta, May 22, 2019]
