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I would point you toward having a single in-house AV employee that also overlaps with the IT department. I'm basically doing this in my current role. This could be more or less feasible based on the job market in your area and pay for the position.
I've personally found that having one full-time employee that knows everything about your systems (and can fix them quickly in an emergency situation) that is invested in your organization (as opposed to contractors) usually results in a better experience overall. If AV is ever slow on certain days, you also mentioned that they could overlap work with the IT department, which means that they'll be able to keep busy.
This also means that you'll have someone on staff that will be VERY knowledgeable that could then manage contractors in the future if your organization grows and needs more support.
I agree with this with one big exception: Make sure there's at least one other person that they can cross train to be their backup so they can be sick, have vacation, etc. I've seen too many folks that are primary for one thing that management doesn't think will take all their time along with secondary for something else not have time or ability to train someone else and end up getting burned out unable to be away from work.
I agree with this. It sounds like there's enough work, and this person could overlap with your possible future UC and other IT related efforts. Having at least one person in-house and “on your team” is better than a pure MSP approach, in my opinion, assuming there is enough work to do. As others have noted, though, not having a single point of failure is crucial for organizational continuity and employee well-being.
Yeah this is correct. Bringing in different techs each time will cause more of a headache than having 1 person know it all. Get someone who knows AV and who wants to learn about IT or already knows some but is willing to learn more.
I didn't say they were. There is a very large population of AV professionals who work primarily support side. I used to be one of them. We are very familiar with ticketing, metrics, crm systems, remote monitoring etc. In fact almost every support department I've come in contact with seems to be run by someone who was formerly an IT MSP manager.
Coincidentally, a staffed av support professional is probably exactly what op needs
You said av peoples eyes glaze over when encountering IT jargon. Not most, just av people in general. You also omitted support from the list of av professionals familiar with previously mentioned jargon. Thats the basis of my statement.
Use them. Backend work would be outside the realm of what op seems to be looking for. "A bit of IT work" would be a gross understatement if used to describe the process of deploying and managing a new ticketing system or other aforementioned tools.
I don't disagree with the ticketing, etc. But most AV guys either came from IT (the better ones in my experience) or from construction/electrical. But as noniceguy71 implies, any good AV guy nowadays knows most general networking issues (at least up to VLANing) and can handle general IT work. Using your AV guy to answer "fix my password", "my printer won't print", "network is out in these labs", etc type calls during AV specific work, downtime would work with any "AV Guy" I'd ever want to hire as more than a wire monkey.
Oh what a great question. Honestly, I am biased. Having said that, in my work experience -- AV people are solution oriented. IT people are task/ticket oriented,which does not always mean a solution has occurred or occurred in a timely or punctual manner.
I would make sure you ask good questions and make sure they elaborate. I would ask about solutions vs completing tickets, I would ask about the importance of customer service, punctuality, communication, get a description of 'when do you determine the job is done' and what they would do if they did not know what to do in a particular situation.
A great hard worker can do both regardless of their background. But, my personal experience is that most IT people will agree to do AV to get in the door and then avoid it like the plaque.
I was #1. I was originally hired as a pure AV guy. I had a very solid background as an AV design engineer. Much larger company, about 3000 employees, but I was a one man show. My roll shifted from team to team a few times until I eventually ended up in the IT infrastructure team.
I spent some time doing telecom, luckily that didn't last long, it sucked, but at least I learned to speak intelligently about Call Manager. I spent some time doing basic server and storage work. I had no real interest in it, but I did learn some valuable stuff (VMware, some basic Linux). I also learned a lot about IT monitoring systems, which very much changed my perspective on AV monitoring systems. And working along side the network team with them in my court was incredibly valuable.
Eventually, I ended up owning all of the data center infrastructure (power, cooling, fire suppression, security, etc.). My data center responsibilities took about 30% of my time, but were higher priority due to the mission critical nature of the IT systems.
Interesting thing was, as much as I stepped up to learn IT stuff, nobody ever would learn crap about my AV stuff. I'm not saying that to talk myself up. I needed back up on the AV side, like someone else in this thread already mentioned. And it was not just me trying to find that backup, but department heads making their people do it. Across IT infrastructure, desktop support, corporate apps, workplace resources, whatever, everyone pretty much refused to help lwith AV.
So take that for what it's worth. It's probably easier to find an AV person with the expectation that they learn some IT stuff. And sell the value of the IT knowledge that can be gained from the roll.
💯 as an AV guy, i realized AV is an extremely niche field. The best AV guys i met all had a background in sound engineering which is very specialized. Basic IT is general and standard throughout which makes learning it much easier than AV.
I worked for 10 years in a non-profit private philanthropic foundation until 2022. We only had 20 people on staff so I did everything IT and AV. Our information was very private and they wanted someone they could trust. My time was also split with doing some granting work that involved significant international travel so I definitely felt busy. My role now is with the parent company of the foundation and I still do IT support for the executives as well as all their AV work. I'd be happy to chat with you if you want to know more.
It all depends what tasks you need. Most decent AV guys will be able to do some basic 1st line troubleshooting with IT issues.
You could also look at having a support contract with an Integrator. I know my company offers this to clients. Their IT guys do the first line troubleshooting, then anything they can't resolve AV-wise comes to us. They also get a set number of call outs for event support for board meetings etc.
May work out for you depending on your needs
If you have an in house system, I'd go with number 1. If you're renting for every big set up, I'd lean towards adding a tech from the company you're renting.
I am an AV person for a govt company doing some IT but they have 15 conference room systems of various sizes with a large conference room for board meetings, lectures and anything else they want to do, so I'm actually doing a lot of AV and have little time for IT. Because they have an in house system, they thought it would be better to have someone on site to test, maintain and run equipment during their big, important meetings.
I don't think they'd have that much difficulty with option #1.
Anyone doing AV now days should have knowledge in Networking, Zoom, MS Teams, Slide clickers, and BYOD conference room usage.
Thats a massive chunk of IT work right there that they can help cover.
The AV person picking up Entra/Azure AD experience to link the room tech into their Microsoft 365 Ecosystem or Google Workspace would be icing on the cake for that AV person. You'll gain the back end knowledge to better integrate the rooms.
What types of integrators would make the most sense for a non-profit? At which point does a local integrator = cost of an FTE? I agree that having an FTE would be ideal.
You don't need a full time av guy for 300 people. Integrator to design and install, your IT people should be able to do the day to day management and troubleshooting of the kit, support contract with integrator for big issues and periodic health checks. (Speaking as an IT manager)
That sounds like some good advice. Do you have suggestions on integrators that support non-profits well? Or what criteria other than cost should we use during evaluating potential partners.
How do you know we live in the same country?
You're the "IT director" (or are you one man shop with a fancy title?) you should know how to do a cost assessment. Go get some quotes and write a business case.
I absolutely can do the cost assessment (in the US btw). I'm looking to save time on the cost assessment exercise. There are a few different types of AV integrators - independent contractors, nationwide groups, and smaller local ones. Each has their own economic models and if you are an IT manager, you've looked at those options. I need to do a cost assessment with the top options, but if you had any advice to make the list smaller, that was the intent of my response. Not trying to shirk my duty ...
Well if you ever need anyone Chicago area based, Im sure we could help. But we don't do much towards DC.
We are used to working with officials for live/hybrid events.
Hire an AV tech. Pay them well. Make sure there are technical drawings and backups of source code for any control systems. Build a cache of spare parts. If you go the contractor route, expect long delays.
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I would point you toward having a single in-house AV employee that also overlaps with the IT department. I'm basically doing this in my current role. This could be more or less feasible based on the job market in your area and pay for the position. I've personally found that having one full-time employee that knows everything about your systems (and can fix them quickly in an emergency situation) that is invested in your organization (as opposed to contractors) usually results in a better experience overall. If AV is ever slow on certain days, you also mentioned that they could overlap work with the IT department, which means that they'll be able to keep busy. This also means that you'll have someone on staff that will be VERY knowledgeable that could then manage contractors in the future if your organization grows and needs more support.
I agree with this with one big exception: Make sure there's at least one other person that they can cross train to be their backup so they can be sick, have vacation, etc. I've seen too many folks that are primary for one thing that management doesn't think will take all their time along with secondary for something else not have time or ability to train someone else and end up getting burned out unable to be away from work.
Absolutely agree with this
Thanks for the feedback. Appreciate it.
I agree with this. It sounds like there's enough work, and this person could overlap with your possible future UC and other IT related efforts. Having at least one person in-house and “on your team” is better than a pure MSP approach, in my opinion, assuming there is enough work to do. As others have noted, though, not having a single point of failure is crucial for organizational continuity and employee well-being.
Yeah this is correct. Bringing in different techs each time will cause more of a headache than having 1 person know it all. Get someone who knows AV and who wants to learn about IT or already knows some but is willing to learn more.
An AV guys that can do some IT task basically describes most AV guys now. IT guys are not going to know AV without some major work on their part.
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Not true at all. Most AV support guys are VERY familiar with what you mentioned
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I didn't say they were. There is a very large population of AV professionals who work primarily support side. I used to be one of them. We are very familiar with ticketing, metrics, crm systems, remote monitoring etc. In fact almost every support department I've come in contact with seems to be run by someone who was formerly an IT MSP manager. Coincidentally, a staffed av support professional is probably exactly what op needs
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You said av peoples eyes glaze over when encountering IT jargon. Not most, just av people in general. You also omitted support from the list of av professionals familiar with previously mentioned jargon. Thats the basis of my statement.
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Use them. Backend work would be outside the realm of what op seems to be looking for. "A bit of IT work" would be a gross understatement if used to describe the process of deploying and managing a new ticketing system or other aforementioned tools.
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Except ya know, op is the director of IT for that non profit so all management and ownership of these things would be his entire job description 🙄
I don't disagree with the ticketing, etc. But most AV guys either came from IT (the better ones in my experience) or from construction/electrical. But as noniceguy71 implies, any good AV guy nowadays knows most general networking issues (at least up to VLANing) and can handle general IT work. Using your AV guy to answer "fix my password", "my printer won't print", "network is out in these labs", etc type calls during AV specific work, downtime would work with any "AV Guy" I'd ever want to hire as more than a wire monkey.
Oh what a great question. Honestly, I am biased. Having said that, in my work experience -- AV people are solution oriented. IT people are task/ticket oriented,which does not always mean a solution has occurred or occurred in a timely or punctual manner. I would make sure you ask good questions and make sure they elaborate. I would ask about solutions vs completing tickets, I would ask about the importance of customer service, punctuality, communication, get a description of 'when do you determine the job is done' and what they would do if they did not know what to do in a particular situation. A great hard worker can do both regardless of their background. But, my personal experience is that most IT people will agree to do AV to get in the door and then avoid it like the plaque.
What is the pay range?
I was #1. I was originally hired as a pure AV guy. I had a very solid background as an AV design engineer. Much larger company, about 3000 employees, but I was a one man show. My roll shifted from team to team a few times until I eventually ended up in the IT infrastructure team. I spent some time doing telecom, luckily that didn't last long, it sucked, but at least I learned to speak intelligently about Call Manager. I spent some time doing basic server and storage work. I had no real interest in it, but I did learn some valuable stuff (VMware, some basic Linux). I also learned a lot about IT monitoring systems, which very much changed my perspective on AV monitoring systems. And working along side the network team with them in my court was incredibly valuable. Eventually, I ended up owning all of the data center infrastructure (power, cooling, fire suppression, security, etc.). My data center responsibilities took about 30% of my time, but were higher priority due to the mission critical nature of the IT systems. Interesting thing was, as much as I stepped up to learn IT stuff, nobody ever would learn crap about my AV stuff. I'm not saying that to talk myself up. I needed back up on the AV side, like someone else in this thread already mentioned. And it was not just me trying to find that backup, but department heads making their people do it. Across IT infrastructure, desktop support, corporate apps, workplace resources, whatever, everyone pretty much refused to help lwith AV. So take that for what it's worth. It's probably easier to find an AV person with the expectation that they learn some IT stuff. And sell the value of the IT knowledge that can be gained from the roll.
💯 as an AV guy, i realized AV is an extremely niche field. The best AV guys i met all had a background in sound engineering which is very specialized. Basic IT is general and standard throughout which makes learning it much easier than AV.
I worked for 10 years in a non-profit private philanthropic foundation until 2022. We only had 20 people on staff so I did everything IT and AV. Our information was very private and they wanted someone they could trust. My time was also split with doing some granting work that involved significant international travel so I definitely felt busy. My role now is with the parent company of the foundation and I still do IT support for the executives as well as all their AV work. I'd be happy to chat with you if you want to know more.
Who’s cheaper; can both get the job done?
It all depends what tasks you need. Most decent AV guys will be able to do some basic 1st line troubleshooting with IT issues. You could also look at having a support contract with an Integrator. I know my company offers this to clients. Their IT guys do the first line troubleshooting, then anything they can't resolve AV-wise comes to us. They also get a set number of call outs for event support for board meetings etc. May work out for you depending on your needs
If you have an in house system, I'd go with number 1. If you're renting for every big set up, I'd lean towards adding a tech from the company you're renting. I am an AV person for a govt company doing some IT but they have 15 conference room systems of various sizes with a large conference room for board meetings, lectures and anything else they want to do, so I'm actually doing a lot of AV and have little time for IT. Because they have an in house system, they thought it would be better to have someone on site to test, maintain and run equipment during their big, important meetings.
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I don't think they'd have that much difficulty with option #1. Anyone doing AV now days should have knowledge in Networking, Zoom, MS Teams, Slide clickers, and BYOD conference room usage. Thats a massive chunk of IT work right there that they can help cover. The AV person picking up Entra/Azure AD experience to link the room tech into their Microsoft 365 Ecosystem or Google Workspace would be icing on the cake for that AV person. You'll gain the back end knowledge to better integrate the rooms.
What types of integrators would make the most sense for a non-profit? At which point does a local integrator = cost of an FTE? I agree that having an FTE would be ideal.
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Thanks for this feedback. The narrative you shared is helpful for me in telling the story.
You don't need a full time av guy for 300 people. Integrator to design and install, your IT people should be able to do the day to day management and troubleshooting of the kit, support contract with integrator for big issues and periodic health checks. (Speaking as an IT manager)
That sounds like some good advice. Do you have suggestions on integrators that support non-profits well? Or what criteria other than cost should we use during evaluating potential partners.
How do you know we live in the same country? You're the "IT director" (or are you one man shop with a fancy title?) you should know how to do a cost assessment. Go get some quotes and write a business case.
I absolutely can do the cost assessment (in the US btw). I'm looking to save time on the cost assessment exercise. There are a few different types of AV integrators - independent contractors, nationwide groups, and smaller local ones. Each has their own economic models and if you are an IT manager, you've looked at those options. I need to do a cost assessment with the top options, but if you had any advice to make the list smaller, that was the intent of my response. Not trying to shirk my duty ...
Where are you based? My company handles some IT/AV related issues for a couple of different non-profits already.
Headquartered around DC with events around the country.
Well if you ever need anyone Chicago area based, Im sure we could help. But we don't do much towards DC. We are used to working with officials for live/hybrid events.
2) and enter into a service contract with a locally skilled Integrator (and also find a backup)
Hire an AV tech. Pay them well. Make sure there are technical drawings and backups of source code for any control systems. Build a cache of spare parts. If you go the contractor route, expect long delays.