Mad About AV

Whoever said AV was a man’s world never met these five thought leaders. Tricia Rodriguez, CEO of Mad Systems, Toni Losier, Business Development Manager at Mad Systems, Lisa Jey Schanley, Director of Global Business Development for Technomedia, Jenni Ogden, President & Exec Producer, Eye Q Productions and COO and Co-founder, at 4D Fun, and Cybelle Jones, CEO of the Society for Experiential Graphic Design took over the Mad About AV podcast for a lively and enlightened discussion on the state of AV in 2021 from the female perspective.

Steve Bressler, Founder and Creative Director for Monadnock Media, and Maris Ensing, Founder of Mad Systems, might not quite be able to bring a museum to life after dark like the Smithsonian exhibits in “Night at the Museum”. However, they can still make the experience more immersive and lifelike for visitors. And when the world emerges from its post-pandemic cocoon, museums will be a whole lot more exciting.

QuickSilver® is Mad Systems’ cutting-edge AV++™ system with options for personalized media delivery using RFID, Barcode, or QR code, or it can be used as part of our patented recognition controlled media delivery system. What better way to learn the inside story on QuickSilver®️’s development than to hear it straight from one of the key engineers behind its R&D, Serguei Kozlovski?

Mad Systems CEO Maris Ensing joined this episode of Mad About AV to talk about an exciting patent for advancing personalization in media.

No longer are museums about gawking at static displays of what life used to be or reading one person’s interpretation of a work of art.

The museum experience is changing thanks to technology. Convincing curators or museum funders to install advanced devices, on the other hand, can still take time, said David Whitemyer, Director of Business Development for Luci Creative.

Luckily, he and his team now have architecture and design tools that allow them to envision what their spaces will look like in a matter of seconds upon seeing a diagram or flyover.

“From a client’s perspective, they want to see what things are going to look like in an almost photo-realistic way very, very early in the process, and what technology has allowed us to do is, essentially in the concept design phase of a project, create very realistic images of what spaces will look like,” Whitemyer said. “That is invaluable in helping to get buy-in from clients and pushing their projects forward.”

With both Luci and Mad often working with museums, there are many areas in which video technology can come in handy. Tricia Rodriguez, Mad Systems’ Director of Marketing, noted that many may be in historic buildings, meaning physical overhauls are out of the question. But changing things like lighting or utilizing screens can provide a more immersive experience without touching the building’s structure.

One of those tools is Mad’s QuickSilver®️ product, which uses facial recognition technology to display different content to different types of groups, such as having one message for children and another for adults.

“It will be wonderful if we could get every family member interested in museums, because they have so much to offer; however, we also need to give them a personal experience, because they’re expecting that today,” Rodriguez said. “Especially our young museum-goers – they want to be enlightened. They want new technologies. They want to be able to understand the technology at their level – the graphic panel is something they don’t take time to read any more. They need to be engaged.”

Whitemyer can be reached at [email protected].

Sometimes what you need to generate the best ideas is a strong team.

Tricia Rodriguez, Director of Marketing for Mad Systems, has seen a diverse group come together and form close relationships, allowing them to work together to complete projects and even develop products few others in the AV space are able to.

“My team truly does innovative thinking to think forward and bring what projects need that hasn’t been available in the past. We’re forward-thinkers,” Rodriguez said. “It takes very special people, so just hiring somebody off a resume is very difficult for us to do. Really, [it’s about] our relationships, knowing people, meeting people and building relationships so you have a really special team that can think alike and think differently at the same time.”

That has allowed for innovative crossover opportunities, with Mad far ahead of the curve on combining A/V and IT systems.

Now that AV and IT have converged, Mad has continued to craft new technologies that fit the current needs of the industry.

“We’re excited to be the leader in the field of AV innovation. We’ve created a fully wireless AV system that’s called QuickSilver®️, and it’s a new advanced, affordable AV IT system. You see a lot of people still talking about convergence of AV and IT,” Rodriguez said. “For us, that’s a done deal. It’s in the past. That’s why we refer to our new technology as AV++™️. The old boundaries are gone, and we deliver what we’re doing now in a way forward in the field of AV … It’s just that different.”